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Turkey’s Erdogan defends Istanbul election re-run amid …

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Istanbul's mayoral election was affected by "organised crime and serious corruption", Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says.

Mr Erdogan was defending the decision to re-run the 31 March vote, which returned a slim win for the opposition.

Opposition candidate Ekrem Imamoglu, who has been stripped of his duties, described the move as "treacherous".

The European Parliament also said the decision would end the credibility of democratic elections in Turkey.

The decision to hold a new vote, which will be held on 23 June, sparked protests across the city on Monday. Hundreds of people gathered in several districts, banging pots and pans and shouting anti-government slogans.

The opposition sees the move by the electoral authorities as bowing to Mr Erdogan's pressure, says the BBC's correspondent Mark Lowen.

Istanbul's Governor Ali Yerlikaya has been assigned as the acting mayor of the city until the new vote.

Speaking at a parliamentary meeting of his AK Party, Mr Erdogan said that re-doing the vote was the "best step" for the country.

"We see this decision as the best step that will strengthen our will to solve problems within the framework of democracy and law," he said.

He insisted there was "illegality" in the vote and said a re-run would represent "an important step to strengthen our democracy".

The president, who first came to power in 2003, also said "thieves" had stolen the "national will" at the ballot box, adding that if they were not held to account "our people will demand an explanation from us".

An AKP representative on the electoral board, Recep Ozel, said the re-run was called because some electoral officials were not civil servants and some result papers had not been signed.

But CHP deputy chair Onursal Adiguzel said the re-run showed it was "illegal to win against the AK Party".

Mr Adiguzel tweeted that the decision was "plain dictatorship".

"This system that overrules the will of the people and disregards the law is neither democratic, nor legitimate," he wrote.

And in a speech broadcast on social media, CHP's Ekrem Imamoglu, who was confirmed as Istanbul's mayor before being stripped of the title, condemned the electoral board and said they were influenced by the ruling party.

"We will never compromise on our principles," he told the crowd. "This country is filled with 82 million patriots who will fight... until the last moment for democracy."

A supporters' group for Mr Imamoglu urged restraint, saying: "Let's stand together, let's be calm... We will win, we will win again."

The European Union called for Turkey's election body to explain its reasons for the re-run "without delay".

"Ensuring a free, fair and transparent election process is essential to any democracy and is at the heart of the European Union's relations with Turkey," the EU's diplomatic chief, Federica Mogherini, said in a statement.

Germany's Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said the decision was "not transparent, and incomprehensible to us".

The French government also said the Turkish authorities needed to show "respect for democratic principles, pluralism, fairness [and] transparency" in the new poll.

Municipal elections took place across Turkey on 31 March and were seen as a referendum on Mr Erdogan's leadership amid a sharp economic downturn.

Although an AKP Party-led alliance won 51% of the vote nationwide, the secularist CHP claimed victory in the capital Ankara, Izmir, and in Istanbul - where Mr Erdogan had once been mayor.

In Istanbul, more than 8 million votes were cast and Mr Imamoglu was eventually declared the winner by a margin of less than 14,000.

The ruling party has since challenged the results in Ankara and Istanbul, which has prompted opposition accusations that they are trying to steal the election.

President Erdogan was in typically conspiratorial form, slamming what he called "the dark circles, economic saboteurs and so-called elitists" who were attacking Turkey and collaborating to "rob the nation of its will".

He was never going to take the loss of Istanbul lying down. "Whoever wins Istanbul wins Turkey", he has often said. He is determined to win back the country's economic powerhouse.

But it's a strategy fraught with risk. The Turkish lira - which has lost more than 30% over the past year - has slumped again. An economy in recession can hardly cope with more uncertainty. After all, it was economic woes that lost Istanbul for Mr Erdogan in the first place.

What's more, Ekrem Imamoglu, who was formally appointed mayor last month, is gaining popularity, fast. He's reached out beyond his base and has settled into the role with ease. The re-run could widen his win - barring major irregularities against him, which many of his supporters fear.

And Mr Erdogan's own party is deeply split on the issue. His diehard loyalists believe victory was stolen. But other wings of the party accept they lost, and that rejecting the result is another nail in the coffin for what's left of Turkish democracy.

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Turkey's Erdogan defends Istanbul election re-run amid ...

Erdogan defends Istanbul vote redo, critics see power grab

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan insisted Tuesday that rerunning the Istanbul mayoral vote that was won by the opposition will only strengthen democracy, while critics called the decision an outrageous move to eliminate dissent against his government.

Ruling in favor of Erdogans governing party, Turkeys top electoral body on Monday annulled the results of the March 31 vote in Istanbul, which opposition candidate Ekrem Imamoglu narrowly won, and scheduled a re-run for June 23.

The will of the people has been trampled on, said Meral Aksener, leader of a nationalist party in Turkey that had backed Imamoglu.

The loss of Istanbul and the capital of Ankara in Turkeys local elections were sharp blows to Erdogan and his conservative, Islamic-based Justice and Development Party, or AKP.

AKP had challenged the results of the vote, claiming it was marred by irregularities. Critics accuse the AKP of trying to cling to power in Istanbul, a city of 15 million people that is Turkeys cultural and commercial hub, and of exerting heavy pressure on the countrys electoral body to cancel the outcome of the March 31 vote.

The controversial decision has increased concerns over democracy and the rule of law in Turkey, a NATO member that is still formally a candidate to join the European Union. Turkey is also a key Western ally in the fight against terrorism and in stemming of the flow of refugees to Europe.

The move is raising questions about whether Erdogan, who has consolidated power throughout his 16 years in power and is increasingly accused of authoritarianism, would ever accept any electoral defeat or relinquish power.

This outrageous decision highlights how Erdogans Turkey is drifting toward a dictatorship, Guy Verhofstadt, a European Parliament lawmaker and the leader of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats, said on Twitter.

Soner Cagaptay, director of the Turkish Research Program at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, described the decision on Istanbul as a seismic event in Turkish history.

Turkey has been holding free and fair elections since the 1950s, he told The Associated Press. Never before has a party refused to accept the outcome of the election... This goes against 70 years of accepted tradition.

(Erdogan) is saying lets vote until the governing party wins, he added.

Manfred Weber, the leading conservative candidate seeking to head the European Unions executive branch, told n-tv television in his native Germany that hed end EU membership negotiations with Turkey if hes elected later this month.

Weber, the center-right European Peoples Party candidate and front-runner to replace Jean-Claude Juncker as president of the European Commission, said Turkeys decision on the Istanbul vote was incomprehensible for many of us in Europe.

In the past years, Turkey has unfortunately alienated itself from the values of Europe, he said. For me, that means ending the accession talks between Turkey and the European Union.

Turkish opposition newspaper Birgun branded the decision a coup and argued that justice in the country has been suspended.

The redo of the Istanbul vote also threatens to further de-stabilize the Turkish economy, which has entered a recession.

The Turkish lira crashed spectacularly last summer over investor concerns about Erdogans policies. It has been sliding again in recent weeks and on Tuesday it hit its lowest level since October.

Europes top human rights and democracy watchdog also expressed concerns about reports of pressure exerted by Erdogans government on the electoral body.

We face the repeat elections in Istanbul with great concern and urge Turkish authorities to do their utmost to restore the safeguards of the electoral process, said Anders Knape, president of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe.

Delivering a speech in Parliament on Tuesday, Erdogan reiterated that the vote was sullied by irregularities we could not ignore. He rejected opposition accusations that his party was trying to win back a key election that it had lost.

He said violations included the alleged improper entering of election data and the fact that thousands of officials overseeing the vote at ballot stations were bankers or teachers and not civil servants, as required by law.

We see this decision as an important step in strengthening our democracy, which will enable the removal of the shadow cast over the Istanbul election, Erdogan said.

The opposition, however, has complained about irregularities at Turkish elections in the past years, but their objections have been ignored.

Imamoglu arrived in Ankara on Tuesday for emergency talks with senior members of the opposition Republican Peoples Party, or CHP. Despite media reports about a possible boycott, CHP made clear that Imamoglu would run again in the Istanbul race.

We extend our hand to all our citizens, the party said. We wholeheartedly believe that this extended hand will be held strong on 23 June, that it will strengthen our democratic struggle and that we will achieve a greater victory than on March 31.

On the other side, Erdogan told reporters that former Prime Minister Binali Yildirim would again run as the ruling partys candidate for mayor.

Also Tuesday, the Interior Ministry appointed Istanbuls governor Ali Yerlikaya as acting mayor of the city. The Istanbul municipality immediately deleted all tweets posted by Imamoglu during his 20 days in office as mayor.

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David Rising in Berlin contributed.

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Erdogan defends Istanbul vote redo, critics see power grab

Turkey’s President Erdogan refuses to give up Istanbul …

When Erdogan's governing Justice and Development Party (AKP) lost the Istanbul mayoral elections by a razor-thin margin against the opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) in March, the defeat was crushing.

His party also lost capital Ankara during the elections, but Istanbul was different. This was the President's hometown, where his party had ruled since the 1990s, and where he launched his political career as mayor in 1994.

Erdogan wasn't going to give up this financial powerhouse -- which has a bigger budget then some European countries -- easily.

True, he wasn't even a candidate in the March 31 mayoral election. But Erdogan still served as the face of his party's local campaign in what was widely seen as a referendum on his government.

In the wake of AKP's loss, it claimed the election was blighted by voter fraud and called for a rerun. On Monday it got its wish, with the Supreme Election Council voting in favor of a rerun to be held on June 23.

The President said a new vote is necessary in light of "organized corruption, utter lawlessness and irregularity" during the vote and that a new poll was an important step towards "strengthening democracy."

CHP's Deputy Chairman, Onursal Adiguzel, meanwhile, called the decision "plain dictatorship."

Experts say the electoral council's decision to accept claims of voter fraud made by Erdogan's AKP party -- and the subsequent wiping of results -- show a worryingly new level of government influence over a supposedly independent body.

The council is made up of judges, elected by the country's Court of Appeals and Council of State, who have no direct links to the government.

"But so far, despite this, elections have always been accepted as free and fair," she told CNN. "This is the first time we see the influence of the AKP in the election committee, being used to influence the results of the election."

'Everything is going to be great'

On Monday Ekrem Imamoglu, Istanbul's new CHP mayor, had his mayoral certificate canceled.

Addressing a crowd of supporters following the decision, Imamoglu ended a speech by saying, "Everything is going to be great." In response, the hashtag "everything is going to be great" or "HereyokGzelOlacak" quickly emerged online.

The opposition now faces a difficult decision. "They (the CHP) regard the decision to rerun is itself unfair, but at the same time if they chose not to rerun this makes the ground wide open for Erdogan's party to gain the seat," said Khatib.

On the day of the announcement, there were small gatherings of protesters throughout the city, with some banging pots and pans from their windows in a show of solidarity. By Tuesday the mood was calm and quiet, according to CNN reporters in Istanbul.

The decision to reverse the mayoral race is "the bookend of a historic era," tweeted Sonar Cagaptay, Director of the Turkish Program at The Washington Institute, on Tuesday.

"Until now, it was one man, one vote, from now on it is: vote until the governing party wins," he said.

Throughout his premiership and presidency, Erdogan has had the final say on several mega projects in Istanbul -- from the city's new airport to urban development plans at Gezi Park that sparked the huge protests in 2013.

"Istanbul is not just about prestige, it's about money," said Khatib. "There is a lot of real estate investment in Istanbul by members of the AKP," she added.

Khatib said that "having mayoral influence in Istanbul plays a huge role in facilitating some of the real estate deals that are keeping supporters of AKP loyal to the AKP.

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Turkey's President Erdogan refuses to give up Istanbul ...

Erdogans Long Arm in Europe Foreign Policy

In recent years, relations with Turkey have caused headaches for most European governments. Long gone are the days when most European observers looked at President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) as genuinely democratic interlocutors. European governments routinely disapprove of Turkish foreign and domestic policy on issues including Ankaras handling of the Islamic State, the migration crisis, and its abusive treatment of journalists, political opponents, and minorities. But they have also been equally taken aback by the AKP regimes aggressive rhetoric toward EU leaders and its bold attempts to exert influence over the Turkish diaspora and, more broadly, European Muslim communities.

The flurry of provocative statements by the upper echelons of the Turkish political establishment, regularly amplified by Turkish state media, has been troubling. Top Turkish politicians regularly seize on any controversy to accuse Europe of being Islamophobic and urge both Turks and other Muslims living in Europe to reject Western values. In other circumstances, they cross into purely inflammatory speech, such as when Alparslan Kavaklioglu, the head of the Turkish parliaments Security and Intelligence Commission, proclaimed in March 2018 that Europe will be Muslim. We will be effective there, Allah willing. I am sure of that. Most recently, in a January 2019 speech in Izmir, Erdogan himself stated that the borders of Turkey span from Vienna to the shores of the Adriatic Sea, from East Turkistan [Chinas autonomous region of Xinjiang] to the Black Sea.

But Turkeys new posture goes well beyond aggressive rhetoric. Over the last decade, Ankara has invested substantial amounts in the growth of both governmental and nongovernmental organizations to further its political agenda throughout Europe. While most of these activities seek to build influence through lobbying, activism, and education, others have more nefarious aims. Indeed, security services in various European countries have consistently detected a dramatic increase in the activities of Turkish intelligence agencies on their territory.

Since the failed coup in July 2016, which Erdogan blamed on his ally-turned-enemy, the exiled cleric Fethullah Gulen, those operations were expanded to include aggressive monitoring of and, at times, direct targeting for kidnapping of Gulen supportersas well as Kurdish, secular, and other anti-AKP activists living in Europe. (Turkey has also been accused of abusing Interpols red notice system by adding the names of a wide array of regime opponents, including the basketball player Enes Kanter, in the organizations database.)

Internal Turkish government documents revealing some of these dynamics were made public in 2017 by Peter Pilz, a prominent Austrian politician with a long career in the Green Party who acquired leaked documents from sources he wouldnt disclose. We were surprised ourselves when we saw that Erdogans Turkey has built a tightly meshed spy network from Japan to the Netherlands, from Kenya to the U.K., Pilz said. In every single state, a huge spy network consisting of associations, clubs, and mosques is being employed via the embassy, the religious attach, and the local intelligence officer in order to spy on Erdogan critics around the clock. Authorities in several European countries publicly or privately speak of similar dynamics and have times detected plots to kidnap regime opponents on their soil.

Turkish government activities on European soilwhether aimed at espionage or, as most of them are, influenceare led by its embassies, which operate under diplomatic immunity. But the embassies, as Pilz observed, oversee a wide network of nongovernmental entities, which range from religious organizations to private businesses. A key cog in this machine is Milli Gorus (National Vision). Founded in the late 1960s by Necmettin Erbakan, Erdogans political mentor, Milli Gorus is an Islamist organization with a strong nationalistic spin, a movement that adopts many of the positions, aims, and tactics of the Muslim Brotherhood but adds a neo-Ottomanist twist to them. The movement has long operated in Europe, where it has an estimated 300,000 members and sympathizers and controls hundreds of mosques, mostly in Germany.

Authorities throughout Europe consistently express concerns about Milli Gorus. Germanys federal and state security services have historically been the most watchful. German agencies do distinguish between Milli Gorus and designated terrorist groups, acknowledging that the former acts within the democratic framework and does not advocate violence inside Germany. Yet their assessment of the aims of Milli Gorus is alarming, and they highlight its strong anti-Western, anti-democratic, and anti-Semitic views. They also present the group as a direct threat to the governments efforts to integrate newly arrived immigrants and Germans of Turkish descent.

These legalistic Islamist groups represent an especial threat to the internal cohesion of our society, reads the Annual Report 2005 On the Protection of the Constitution from Germanys domestic security agency. Among other things, the report, a summary of which is available online, continues, their wide range of Islamist-oriented educational and support activities, especially for children and adolescents from immigrant families, are used to promote the creation and proliferation of an Islamist milieu in Germany. These endeavors run counter to the efforts undertaken by the federal administration and the Lnder [states] to integrate immigrants. There is the risk that such milieus could also form the breeding ground for further radicalization. Milli Gorus has long opposed these characterizations, including through the court system.

The Erdogan regimes support for Milli Gorus is not surprising, but it reverses a policy long held by Ankara. Historically, the Turkish state had been a major supporter of non-Islamist Muslim organizations operating in the various Western countries where a Turkish diaspora existed. Their intent was to counterbalance, not support, groups like Milli Gorus. Aside from those organizations catering to Turkish ethnic-religious subgroups such as the Alevis and Kurds, Turkish Islam in Europe had been traditionally characterized by a competition between institutions promoted by the Diyanetthe Turkish governmental agency for religious affairs, which long supported a Turkish centric yet moderate interpretation of Islam that emphasized the Kemalist strict separation of state and religionand Turkish Islamist organizations like Milli Gorus.

With the rise to power of Erdogan and the AKP, these dynamics changed radically. By around 2005, as the AKP gradually solidified its hold on power in Turkey, the Turkish government made significant changes to the Diyanets personnel and theological positions, which both became more decidedly Islamist. And corresponding to that domestic move was a new policy in Europe: The boundaries between Milli Gorus and Diyanet, which had viciously competed for decades, have become blurred.

Personnel and leaders began to traverse the two groups, and they started undertaking many joint initiatives. In effect, the AKP government brought two rival apparatuses that had vied for influence in the Turkish diaspora under its helm. This policy has a number of aims, but arguably one of the most important is to persuade as large of a segment as possible of the sizable Turkish population in Europe to vote for the AKP. Judging from Turkish election results in the European diaspora communities (in the June 2018 elections, for example, Erdogan polled consistently above 60 percent throughout continental Europe), this strategy largely succeeded, often tipping the balance of the final outcome of the national vote.

Lately, the AKPs attempts to exert influence on European Muslim communities have gone beyond taking over Turkish diaspora organizations and extended to forming a close partnership with European Muslim organizations and individuals with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. As a result of these changes, the Turkish government or nongovernmental organizations and financial institutions close to the government and the AKP began to provide ever growing support to Brotherhood-linked networks, which, in turn, vocally promote the AKP government. An embodiment of these dynamics, which take place in countries with large Turkish communities (such as Germany, Austria, and the Netherlands) and without (Italy), is represented by noted activist Ibrahim el-Zayat.

Zayat has covered several top positions in Brotherhood-leaning organizations both in Germany and at the European level (earning the title, given to him by the head of one of Germanys most powerful intelligence agencies, of spider in the web of Islamist organizations) and is also an executive at EMUG, a Germany-based company that manages more than 300 mosques of the Milli Gorus network. Highlighting how the ties between Turkish Islamism and Brotherhood-inspired milieus range from financial to personal (and, of course, ideological), Zayat is tellingly married to Erbakans niece, whose brother has served as chairman of Milli Gorus in Germany, as well as chairman of EMUG.

This development is hardly surprising. Rather, it simply represents an intensification of a relationship that has existed for decades. Turkish Islamist parties and the Brotherhood in the Middle Eastand, by the same token, Milli Gorus and the European networks of the Brotherhoodhave always been close despite their independence. Differing local flavors (for instance, Erbakans addition of Turkish nationalist ideas into boilerplate Islamism) notwithstanding, Turkish Islamist and Brotherhood networks are tied together by fundamental ideological affinities.

Since the Arab Spring and the dramatic overthrow of the Muslim Brotherhood-led government of Mohamed Morsi in Egypt, this relationship has further solidified. Brotherhood branches from all over the Arab world have set up shop in Istanbul and receive political and financial support from Ankara; Brotherhood members freely conduct business and run television stations from Turkey.

As Turkeys economy boomed, Erdogan invested in international diplomacy and humanitarian aid to leverage his influence, both in Muslim-majority countries and Western countries with significant Muslim minorities. In his quest to become the undisputed leader of the Islamic world, Erdogan leverages the Turkish state religious organizations under his partys control, Turkish Islamist groups like Milli Gorus, and organizations with shared interests and political outlooks like the Muslim Brotherhood and its spinoffs in the West. This dynamic is succinctly explained by Yasin Aktay, former AKP deputy chairman and current chief advisor to Erdogan: The Muslim Brotherhood represents Turkeys soft power.

Europeans are increasingly concerned about the implications of Turkish influence operations on their soil. Countering this campaign is challenging, given that it is organized by a powerful country with deep commercial, political, and security connections to most European countries. For the most part, these efforts are legal. Yet it is increasingly clear that Turkish embassies, religious organizations, and businesses, acting in coordination with the comparatively broad network of entities linked to the Brotherhood, are pursuing interests and promoting views within Muslim communities that are on a collision course with those of European governments.

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Erdogans Long Arm in Europe Foreign Policy

Istanbul re-run is a risky strategy for Erdogan – BBC News

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Late into the night, across Istanbul, there was the sound of defiance: pots and pans banged repeatedly, in a very Turkish style of protest.

Videos shared on social media showed the same scene in several areas of the city, after the supreme election council took the extraordinary decision to annul the mayoral election held in March and repeat it on 23 June.

The vote in March was narrowly won by the opposition candidate, Ekrem Imamoglu: a softly-spoken former district mayor, who successfully reached out beyond the secular base of his Republican People's Party (CHP) and attracted voters exasperated with an economic slump.

The governing AK Party cried foul, alleging widespread irregularities and demanding a re-run. "He who wins Istanbul wins Turkey", as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has often said.

Mr Erdogan was not going to let go of his home city without a fight. He was once the mayor - a position that projected him to national success.

The AKP complained that many ballot box-watchers lacked official approval. And yet, when at those same polling stations, voters elected district officials too - the majority backing the AKP - the party didn't protest.

The election authority decision was hailed by Erdogan loyalists but slammed by the opposition, which says supposedly independent electoral judges have bowed to political pressure.

Despite calls for an opposition boycott, the CHP has decided to contest the re-run. Mr Imamoglu has vowed to "win back our rights with a smile on our face". Pulling off his jacket and rolling up his sleeves, he seemed to embody the opposition's newfound verve. When he said "everything will be fine", it trended worldwide on Twitter.

The re-run is a highly risky strategy for President Erdogan. The economic hit was immediate - the Turkish lira fell again after a fall of more than 30% over the past year. An economy in recession, with inflation at around 20%, can hardly cope with more instability.

The momentum is with Ekrem Imamoglu, who has looked and sounded more and more like a mayor over the past few weeks.

And Mr Erdogan's own AK Party is divided on the issue. His predecessor as president, Abdullah Gul, one of the founding members of the AKP, is preparing to split and form a new party with former Finance Minister Ali Babacan, said Fehmi Koru, a close friend of Mr Gul. "He's extremely uncomfortable and restless with the situation," Mr Koru told me.

Ahmet Davutoglu, the ex-prime minister forced out by President Erdogan, is also expected to form a new party. He said recently that the president's inner circle "sees itself as above the committees of our party and aims to rule it like a parallel structure".

And the splits over Mr Erdogan's increasingly authoritarian line could widen with the re-run decision.

"If we had a free and fair election on June 23, Ekrem Imamoglu's chances would have been great", said Ersin Kalaycioglu, a professor of political science at Sabanci University. "But we no longer have that - or a working democracy."

It is hard to predict the outcome of the rerun, which is unprecedented in Turkish multiparty history. "If the AKP can instil fear in the hearts of its voters, it could win", said Professor Kalaycioglu. "But if smaller parties withdraw and back Imamoglu, it will work in his favour.

The AK Party front bench doesn't seem to care much about the economic impact or about the reaction from the West", he added. "They're prepared to win by any means - Istanbul is seen as much more important than anything else."

That international criticism has started to come in. German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said the move was neither "transparent nor comprehensible" and prominent Belgian MEP Guy Verhofstadt tweeted that it showed Turkey "drifting towards a dictatorship", making continued EU accession talks "impossible".

That won't help revive an economy which is seeing virtually no new foreign direct investment amidst the political instability.

For 16 years, Mr Erdogan, Turkey's most powerful President since its founding father, Ataturk, has outplayed his opponents. He may have finally overplayed his hand.

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Istanbul re-run is a risky strategy for Erdogan - BBC News