Bad for Erdogan, good for Israel

Although Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, because of the results of parliamentary elections, suffered a setback in his quest for gaining absolute power, relations with Israel are likely to continue to be poor.

 

“In the short run the Islamist AK Party, with Erdogan at the helm, remains the major political player in Turkey,” Efraim Inbar, director of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University, told The Jerusalem Post. “Therefore, no improvement in relations with Israel is in the cards.

 

“Yet the elections results could be the beginning of a gradual reversal of Turkey’s Islamization,” he said, adding: “The conflict over Turkey’s soul and identity is not over. If the more secular elements get the upper hand, Israel could hope for better relations.”

 

Soner Cagaptay, the director of the Turkish Research Program at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told the Post that the results of the election demonstrate that “Turkey is too big and too diverse for AKP and Erdogan to control single-handedly.”

 

The largely middle-class Turkish society now has a voice in the Turkish parliament through the Kurdish- liberal alliance, the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), as well as in the ranks of the main opposition Republican People’s Party, said Cagaptay.

 

Read More: Analysis: Bad for Erdogan, good for Israel – Israel News – Jerusalem Post