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What We're Watching: Turkey's deepening row with the West
Turkey's Erdogan ups the ante with the West: Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has declared a group of diplomats "persona non-grata" after a group of 10 Western countries including the US, France, and Germany called on Ankara to release Osman Kavala, a Parisian-born Turkish businessman who's been held in jail since 2017 but hasn't been charged with a crime. Erdogan says that Kavala was involved in an attempted coup against the government in 2016. This latest move is a sign of Turkey's authoritarian drift in recent years, which has seen Erdogan's government increasingly crackdown on opposition members as well as journalists. It also reflects Turkey's increasingly fraught relations with the West: things got particularly bad between Washington and Ankara after Turkey purchased missile defense systems from the Russians in 2019. The Council of Europe (Europe's leading human rights organization) had previously warned that Ankara has until November to release Kavala or it would impose "infringements," though it's unclear what those would be.
An earlier version of this article stated incorrectly that the Council of Europe was the EU's largest human rights organization. We apologize for then error.
What We're Watching: Hong Kong democrats on trial, EU-Turkey high seas drama, Clooney vs Orban
Hong Kong pro-democracy activists plead guilty: The name Joshua Wong has become synonymous with Hong Kong's once-dynamic pro-democracy movement. But the democrats' momentum has all but fizzled since Beijing imposed a draconian national security law back in May, outlawing secessionist activity and criminalizing foreign influence in Hong Kong. Now Wong, who was instrumental in the 2014 pro-democracy "Umbrella Movement," is pleading guilty in a Hong Kong court to organizing and taking part in pro-democracy protests that gripped the semi-autonomous city for much of 2019. He and his two co defendants — all of them in their 20's — have been remanded until sentencing, scheduled for December 2, and are likely to face prison terms of various lengths. Wong, for his part, said he decided to switch his plea to "guilty" after consulting with his lawyer. (Knowing that the trial would mostly be a sham, the trio decided to plead guilty in order to speed up the process, according to reports.) This internationally watched court case comes as Beijing has increasingly cracked down on Hong Kong's pro-democracy camp in recent months, prompting the US to impose sanctions on Hong Kong's leader Carrie Lam, and several Western governments to terminate special economic relationship with the city. To date, there have been more than 2,000 prosecutions linked to last year's protests.
EU-Turkey tensions on the high seas: Turkish officials were furious after German forces belonging to an EU military mission boarded a Turkish vessel off the Greek Peloponnese peninsula on Monday without Ankara's consent. Germany said that it believed Turkey was transporting weapons to war-torn Libya in contravention of a UN arms embargo, and that after a request to conduct a search was ignored by the Turks, they made the call to jump aboard. Turkey, for its part, says it was simply carrying international aid to an undisclosed location, accusing Berlin of breaching international law by not waiting for permission to board the ship. Ankara has since summoned several European ambassadors to air its grievances. This maritime dispute comes amid deteriorating relations between Turkey and Europe, in part because of Turkey's continued drilling for oil in waters claimed by Greece and Cyprus in the eastern Mediterranean. The EU says it could impose sanctions on Ankara as soon as next month, which would surely up the ante in this intensifying stalemate.
What We're Ignoring
Clooney vs Orban: In an interview promoting his upcoming post-apocalyptic science-fiction film, The Midnight Sky, perennial heartthrob George Clooney cited the illiberal regimes of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban as examples of "anger and hate" that could one day give rise to the dystopia depicted in the movie. But Orban's camp was not happy about the callout, hitting back by calling Clooney "foolish," and claiming that the liberal American philanthropist George Soros was in fact behind the slander — Soros and other conspirators were "whispering in his [Clooney's] ears," a government spokesperson said. We're ignoring this for two reasons: First, Soros, a Jewish philanthropist, Holocaust survivor, and backer of progressive causes has long been a target of the anti-Semitic tropes touted by Orban and his government. And second, if it comes down to Orban vs Clooney, we choose Clooney every time — obviously.
Turkey without friends
Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has made a lot of foreign governments really mad. Let's call the roll.
Europe. The EU is angry that Turkey is drilling for oil in the eastern Mediterranean, and NATO is furious that member Turkey has defied its protests to purchase S-400 missiles from Russia. Erdogan has repeatedly rejected pushback from EU leaders by calling them fascists and Islamophobes.
Just this week, Erdogan refused to express sympathy with France following the beheading of a French schoolteacher by an Islamist extremist, attacked Macron's own response to the murder, suggested the French president needed "some sort of mental treatment," and countered Macron's vow to crack down on Islamist radicals with calls for a boycott of French products.
US. Last weekend, Erdogan confirmed that Turkey has tested those Russian S-400 missiles, and dared the US to impose sanctions. The Turkish leader has few remaining friends in Washington, and if Joe Biden is elected president and Democrats win a Senate majority, US sanctions become much more likely. "You do not know who you are playing with," said Erdogan last Sunday.
Russia. Vladimir Putin likes to engage Turkey, if only to upset NATO leaders, but he doesn't like that Turkey actively opposes Russian proxies and allies in Syria, Libya, and the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh. Russia expressed its displeasure earlier this week by bombing a Syrian rebel camp in Idlib, the last stronghold of the Turkish-backed Syrian opposition on Turkey's border.
Saudi Arabia. Longtime rival Saudi Arabia is taking aim at Turkey too. Broad disagreements over the proper role of Islam in politics and specific issues like disputes over the murder in Istanbul of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi have created plenty of bad blood between Erdogan and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman.
Aware that Turkey's economy is in bad shape, the Saudi government has made clear to its business community that it wants a total boycott of Turkish goods into the kingdom. The boycott remains unofficial, and latest economic statistics don't yet show a big impact on Saudi imports, but the push will likely continue, and Turkish companies will feel the heat.
China. Perhaps aware that Turkey will need at least one deep-pocketed friend, Erdogan has been uncharacteristically restrained in his criticism of China for forcing one million Turkic Muslim Uighurs into internment camps in China's Xinjiang region. But even here, Erdogan's government can't completely overlook such a large-scale crime against Muslims, and Turkey's foreign ministry expressed its "concerns" earlier this month.
Turkey's economy is hurting. Erdogan's economic policies are creating turmoil too, and Turkey's people are now suffering real economic pain. Inflation and unemployment are rising. The coronavirus has taken a toll. The currency has hit historic lows against the dollar.
Maybe Erdogan believes that picking fights with foreigners will appeal to national pride and divert public attention from these hardships. It fits the neo-Ottoman image he has worked to build of Turkey as a strong and independent actor on the world stage.
But a strong Turkey needs a strong economy, and the health of that economy depends on both trade and foreign funding. In a moment of economic crisis, new sanctions and boycotts aren't going to help.
The big questions: How much economic pain will Erdogan accept before he becomes less combative with those who have the power to hurt him? And how long before he pays a heavier political price at home?