‘There will be a chill in relations between Washington and Ankara’: Valdai expert Farhad Ibragimov on what’s happening around Turkey’s election race – Reuters

RG speaks with Farhad Ibragimov, political scientist and expert at the international discussion club Valdai, about the course of the presidential race in Turkey.- The presidential race in Turkey is gaining momentum, and the intrigue remains around who will become president: the current leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan or the opposition candidate Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu. There are other parties that presented their presidential candidates, but because Kılıçdaroglu represents the Republican People’s Party, which was established by the founder of the Republic of Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, it is believed that he will be Erdogan’s main opponent. Moreover, Kılıçdaroglu is popular among a certain part of the Turkish population. It must be said that Kılıçdaroğlu is a person who wants to restore Turkey to the face it had before the reign of Erdogan, when Ankara adhered to the line of the North Atlantic Alliance and maintained close diplomatic relations with Washington. . Turkey today is a completely different country that continues to be a member of NATO, but at the same time proceeds from its own national interests, which irritates American officials.If the elections were held, for example, this week, the incumbent president would get about 52% of the vote, and his main opponent – about 44%. Polls show Erdogan remains Turkey’s most popular politician. Kılıçdaroğlu has already announced how he will conduct his foreign policy if he wins. Thus, the politician intends to remind Russia that Turkey is a member of NATO, which means that the country will be more distant in relations between Moscow and Ankara. The meeting of the American ambassador with the opposition candidate shows that the Americans have won their bet. Erdogan, of course, is outraged by such interference in Turkey’s internal affairs, and his harsh statement to the US diplomatic mission is proof of that. We will therefore observe in the near future a cooling of relations between Washington and Ankara. It is possible that Erdogan’s opponents are plotting some variant of a “velvet revolution” for Turkey if the incumbent president wins the election. They are already beginning to rally a section of Turkish youth to demand a review of the election results. So far this is not clearly visible, but if we analyze the social networks and individual statements of young opinion leaders, usually based outside Turkey, we can say with certainty that they are ready to do everything for the victory of Kılıçdaroğlu.