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cansu77
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| 08/13/2008 3:01 PM |
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| August 7, 2008
Reporting by Sonay Kanber
Research Associate
This service provides summaries of lectures and panels concerning Turkey at Washington DC think tanks, universities, and government entities.
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The Implications of Turkey's Constitutional Court Decision on the Justice and Development Party (AKP)
On August 6, the Brookings Institute held a panel discussion regarding the decision of Turkey's Constitutional Court last week not to ban the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). The discussion focused on the implications of the decision on the AKP, and on Turkey's democracy. The three featured speakers were Cagri Erhan, Vice President of the Center for Eurasian Studies (ASAM), Ibrahim Kalin, Founding Director of the Foundation for Political, Economic, and Social Research (SETA) and Murat Yetkin, columnist and chief of Radikal's Ankara bureau. Mark Parris, former ambassador to Turkey (1997-2000) and Visiting Fellow on Foreign Policy at the Brookings Institution moderated the panel.
Upon the first question of Mr. Parris, whether the events in the past months in Turkey were a search for Turkey's soul, Kalin answered that there are multiple ways of reading what happened in Turkey. Kalin stated that the AKP had a narrow escape, but even if the Constitutional Court had closed the AKP, its MPs would regroup under another name. According to Kalin, the level of polarization is very high in Turkey, and a struggle between reformists and establishment has been continuing.
Erhan commented on the decision of the Constitutional Court saying that everyone is satisfied and unsatisfied in Turkey. Erhan continued his comments underlining that the AKP is not the first party that faced closure and it will not be the last one. Erhan stated that one can question the democratic credentials of this legal process, however, one cannot question its legality or legitimacy. Erhan concluded his comment by saying that everybody in Turkey should take lessons from this verdict.
Yetkin also stated that the AKP has to be more careful as a result of this verdict. According to Yetkin, the AKP already had two yellow cards and reached a red card with this verdict. Yetkin used positive rhetoric in his comment saying that Turkey became a better place since last week where both sharp edges were rounded and politics moved closer to the center. Yetkin concluded that the AKP would concentrate on reforms in the future since the decision puts a limit on the Prime Minister's actions, particularly on the headscarf ban.
All speakers agreed that the closure case is not linked to the Ergenekon case; however, the cases coincided in a way that they formed a mainstream public perception that they are related. Erhan added "Ergenekon is becoming a soap opera. Each newspaper takes another side in the case". The discussion ended after panelists took several questions from the audience.
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