Turkey’s Syria Policy: No Easy Answers
Turkey’s Syria policies were not wrong, but poorly presented.
The Syrian issue has not only lead to qualms over and criticism of Turkey’s Middle East policy that has otherwise been praised in recent years, it has also poisoned the country’s domestic politics. In the latest example, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and main opposition Republican Peoples Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu are going to court over of their opposing views on Turkey's Syria policy.
For two politicians to insult each other with vulgar language and for them to differ widely over Syria may not be anything new, but after the May 11 bombings in Reyhanli, their polemics became severe. Erdogan blamed the Syrian regime and President Bashar al-Assad, whom he calls a "dictator" for the Reyhanli attacks, and Kemal Kilicdaroglu held Erdogan’s “wrong Syrian policy" responsible for spilling the blood of Turkish citizens and labeled Erdogan the "dictator" and a “murderer.”
Kilicdaroglu’s words did more than just anger Erdogan, who was in Washington at the time to meet with US President Barack Obama. Chairman of the European Parliament’s Socialist bloc, Hannes Swoboda, canceled his meeting with Kilicdaroglu on the grounds that he could not accept that such adjectives be used for “an elected prime minister," thus delivering a heavy blow to the legitimacy of his comrade from Socialist International.
Prime Minister Erdogan, in a May 20 press conference immediately after landing in Istanbul airport, said he doesn’t want to talk to Kilicdaroglu and declared that he will sue him.
