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Turkey's Erdogan Meets With Russia's Putin to Build on Ties Wall Street Journal (subscription) MOSCOWTurkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan met with Russian leader Vladimir Putin on Friday to discuss their cooperation over Syria and possible energy deals in the face of Ankara's flagging ties with the West. The talks between Messrs Putin and ...

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Turkey's Erdogan Meets With Russia's Putin to Build on Ties - Wall Street Journal (subscription)

ISTANBUL // Reis (The Chief), a heavily-hyped biopic about Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan premired with fanfare last week, but the box-office figures for the feature film proved dismal.

Only 67,000 people showed up to see the bombastic film, which shuffles between Mr Erdogans life as a child in the working-class Istanbul district of Kasimpasa and the years leading up to and following his election as the mayor of Turkeys largest city in the 1990s.

By comparison, Istanbul Kirmizisi (Istanbul Red), the latest from acclaimed Turkish director Ferhan Ozpetek, sold 160,000 tickets the same weekend, opening in 305 theatres compared to 331 for Reis.

The date of the biopics release was significant, as it came just six weeks ahead of a constitutional referendum for which president Erdogan and the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) have been campaigning fiercely. Mr Erdogan aims to transform Turkeys parliamentary system into a presidential one, giving him more power and consolidating his already dominant role in Turkish politics.

Though a number of low-level AKP figures attended the gala premiere in Ankara, Mr Erdogan himself was notably absent, as was Hudaverdi Yavuz, the director. Yavuz has disassociated himself from the film, which was financed by a real estate investment company. He has said the shoot was beset with problems and delays and some of the crew had still not been paid. he also had to make "pointless editing changes" and is unhappy with the film.

The biopic performed even more poorly than a film released two years ago about a December 2013 corruption probe that Mr Erdogan and the AKP claim was orchestrated by followers of the cleric Fethullah Gulen to overthrow the government. Kod adi K.O.Z. was blasted by critics and holds the distinction of being the lowest-rated film on the movie site IMBD, but it still sold nearly twice as many tickets as Reis on its opening weekend.

Mustafa Akyol, senior visiting fellow at the Freedom Project at Wellesley College, said the film had flopped at least partly because people were already bombarded with so much Erdogan publicity.

"They probably know that pro-Erdogan TV [channels] would show the film in full soon. They may also be saturated by the pro-Erdogan propaganda that is in their face every day," he said. The conservative AKP base "is not typically a cinema-going crowd", he added.

Mr Erdogans rags-to-riches story, from child street vendor to the most successful and powerful politician in the history of the Turkish republic, is potentially fascinating. But critics say Reis is monotonous and overblown with heavy-handed acting, too many pointless scenes and a weak subplot. The star, Reha Beyoglu, bears a convincing resemblance to Mr Erdogan, but does not replicate the presidents distinct, resonant voice, the source of much of his charisma. All indications are that the film will have little influence on the outcome of the hotly debated referendum on April 16.

Curiously, Mr Erdogan himself has remained silent on the film in public, prompting speculation that he and his party are also displeased.

"I dont think the AKP has distanced itself, but it did not endorse it either," said Mr Akyol. "If Erdogan had seen it and liked it, he would make that clear, and it would become blessed for the AKP base."

Without that blessing, it appears The Chief is more of an embarrassment.

foreign.desk@thenational.ae

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Biopic about President Erdogan is a turkey - The National

New York Times

Merkel-Erdogan Dispute Ratchets Up Before Turkish Referendum New York Times The controversy has worsened ahead of an April referendum in Turkey on a new Constitution that would vastly expand the powers of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. His allies want him to campaign in Germany, where 1.5 million Turks live and are eligible ... Merkel hits back at Erdogan over 'Nazi' insultIrish Independent Angela Merkel tells Turkey to stop calling German authorities Nazis in row over pro-Erdogan ralliesThe Independent Stop calling us Nazis, German leader Angela Merkel tells Turkey's ErdoganTelegraph.co.uk Deutsche Welle -BBC News -EurActiv all 362 news articles »

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Merkel-Erdogan Dispute Ratchets Up Before Turkish Referendum - New York Times

Micha Jzefaciuk/CC BY-SA 3.0 Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoan.

In many respects, Kemalisms death warrant was signed by Recep Tayyip Erdoan on July 20, 2016. Following an abortive coup dtat, the Turkish president predicated a state of emergency. In other words, it was a constitutional suspension of the Turkish constitution on the destabilized sociopolitical atmosphere of the country, prompting a widespread culling of dissent within Turkish society.

The first to go, of course, were those accused of being Glenist conspirators within the ranks of the military. As reported by the government of Turkey, 1,684 members of the Turkish Armed Forces had been suspended by July 27, and 96 were arrested. By October, however, the government, under the watchful eye of President Erdoan, had dismissed upwards of 100,000 more civil servants, according to the BBC.

This represents the most obvious slide towards autocracy since Erdoan first joined the highest echelons of the Turkish state in 2003 as premier. His palpable disdain for dissent, especially that which is directed at the media, has reached climactic levels. His favorite piece of legislation, the oft-invoked statute that renders insulting the president verboten, has led to the imprisonment of several thousand journalists across Anatolia. In fact, Turkey leads the world in jailed journalists, beating out such regimes as Vladimir Putins Russia, the Peoples Republic of China, Cuba, Venezuela and North Korea; Erdoans rabid pursuit of detractors knows no equal.

Through the Justice and Development Party (abbreviated AKP), Erdoan has cultivated an overzealous, disturbingly nationalistic base of support centered around the principle of Neo-Ottomanism. As the name might imply, Neo-Ottomanism calls for a resurgence of the ascendancy of the Turkish state in areas formerly ruled by the Ottoman Empire.

In a sense, the variety of Neo-Ottomanism pushed by the AKP can be compared to a (rather alarming) form of Turkish irredentism, conflated with revanchism stemming from the Empires castration by the Treaty of Svres and a desire for the reintroduction of Islamism into the largely secular domestic politics of Turkey.

These tenets are diametrically opposed to the Republic of Turkeys founding principles, laid out by Mustafa Kemal Atatrk, the founder of the Turkish Republic. The contravention of Kemalisms guiding pillars, being democracy, secularism and the distinction of the Turkish Republic from Ottoman Turkey, is a grievous disservice to the Republic and could undo almost a centurys worth of progress.

The recently proposed constitutional amendment, an addendum that would mangle Turkeys long-standing majoritarian parliamentary system beyond recognition, represents the culmination of Erdoans long-standing quest to centralize power in Turkey. The adoption of a presidential system in Turkey, a country historically beset by issues stemming from highly centralized state apparatuses, would almost certainly spell the quick and painful death of what remains of Turkeys democracy.

Furthermore, under Erdoan, the Government of Turkey has pursued a merciless policy of opposition against the Kurdish minorities of southeast Anatolia and northern Syria. Erdoan has justified such punitive measures against the embattled Kurds with a blanket accusation that the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) enjoys a broad base of support within the region. In other words, because of the actions of a few, the overwhelming majority of Kurds are forced to suffer.

Ultimately, the AKP-dominated governments stance toward Kurdistan is driven less by a perceived terrorist threat stemming from the PKK than an intrinsic prejudice against the Kurdish people and what they represent: a major roadblock against the sociocultural homogenization of the Turkish state.

Erdoan must be stopped at all costs. The constitutional amendment must, for the sake of Turkeys well-being and posterity, be defeated at the ballot box, else Turkey risks slipping into the insurmountable ravine of statist authoritarianism. The right to freedom of speech is under siege from the Bosporus to the Caucasus, and unless the power of the state is curtailed, the Turkish people risk far worse.

Indeed, for Turkish Kurds, the burden of runaway state power channeled toward the institutionalization of bigotry can be felt every day. The world runs the risk of the resurgence of the Ottoman Empire, and unless we are willing to stand against Emperor Erdoan, pretending Sultan of Anatolia, the people of Turkey will lose.

Howard Senior is a freshman double major in economics and mathematics from Miami.

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Emperor Erdogan of Turkey must be stopped The Johns Hopkins ... - Johns Hopkins News-Letter

ISTANBUL

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is heading to Russia in the latest step in rapprochement efforts between the countries. Erdogan is to meet Friday with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin

Erdogan will be accompanied by several of his Cabinet ministers for bilateral talks, under the auspices of the High level Cooperation Council.

The council was created as part of rapprochement efforts between the countries after the Turkish downing of a Russian jet operating from Syria in 2015.

The meeting comes as differences over Syria remain. Murat Bilhan, an analyst with the Turkish Asian Center for Strategic Studies, says the agenda will be full.

"Syria will top the agenda, plus the normalization of relations in the economic cooperation field, with the Russians also. I do not see many thorny issues between Russia and Turkey because they have already started escalation of positive relations, positive cooperation," Bilhan said.

With the Turkish economy slowing and unemployment rising, Erdogan is expected to be pushing for Moscow to end sanctions imposed against Turkey after the downing of the jet.

Former senior Turkish diplomat Aydin Selcen says despite nearly a year of rapprochement efforts, there have been few concrete gestures by Moscow.

"The relations are better, but on the other hand there is no concrete progress or development. Because we know even the famous tomato issue is not solved yet, the exporting of tomatoes to Russia. So there is little progress actually, but rhetoric-wise, everything is going for the better," Selcen said.

FILE - Posters showing a portrait of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and reading "Wanted, Erdogan, Turkey," are left after a protest against Ankara's downing of a Russain warplane, at the Turkish Embassy in Moscow, Nov. 25, 2015. Bilateral relations fell to a low point following the incident but have been gradually improving.

Progress slow in coming

Turkish media report that Moscow has agreed to ease some trade restrictions, but Syria could again threaten relations.

Earlier this year, the Syrian Kurdish group PYD opened an office in Moscow. Ankara accuses the PYD and its YPG militia of seeking to create an independent Kurdish state on its border. It also charges the PYD with being affiliated to the PKK, which is fighting the Turkish state.

Observers say Ankara has been muted in its criticism of Moscow, which last month hosted a gathering of Kurdish groups from the region, including the PYD.

Selcen says with Russias growing military and political influence in Syria, Ankara probably recognizes it has to work with Moscow.

"From now on, forming a policy toward Kurds of Syria, and in particular toward those PKK-affiliated elements in Syria, they will have to take in[to] consideration what Moscow and Washington, D.C., say. The Russians are also pulling the Kurds of Syria to be more realistic with Damascus. Moscow shows the limits of what can be done and what cannot be done," Selcen said.

Erdogan is expected to offer potentially lucrative arms deals, including possibly purchasing Russias S400 anti-aircraft missile system, which is incompatible with its NATO partners.

Weakening Turkeys ties to its NATO partners is widely seen as a goal of Putins foreign policy, while analysts say Erdogan is eager to send a message that Turkey has alternatives to its traditional allies.

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Erdogan, Putin to Meet in Rapprochement Efforts - Voice of America