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ISTANBUL - Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Sunday that his country, an official candidate for European Union membership, sees itself as an inseparable part of Europe but will not give in to attacks and double standards.

"We see ourselves as an inseparable part of Europe... However this does not mean that we will bow down to overt attacks to our country and nation, veiled injustices and double standards," Erdogan said in a speech to the members of its AK Party.

Turkey's drilling activities in a disputed part of the eastern Mediterranean have raised tensions with the EU as Turkey locked in a dispute with and Greece and Cyprus over the extent of their continental shelves and hydrocarbon resources.

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said this month that Turkey's rhetoric on Cyprus was aggravating tensions with the EU and Ankara had to understand that its behaviour was "widening its separation" from the bloc.

The EU will discuss Turkey's pursuit of natural gas exploration in contested waters in the eastern Mediterranean at their next summit in December, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Thursday.

"We do not believe that we have any problems with countries or institutions that cannot be solved through politics, dialogue and negotiations," Erdogan said.

Erdogan, connected to the event through videolink, said that the EU should keep its promises regarding the migrants issue and making Turkey a full member of the bloc. He was referring to a 2016 deal under which Ankara curbed migrant entries into Europe in exchange for financial help and visa-free travel in the Schengen region.

Turkey recently extended the seismic survey work being carried out by its Oruc Reis ship in a disputed part of the eastern Mediterranean until Nov. 29, according to a naval notice.

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Erdogan Says Turkey Sees Itself as Part of Europe - Voice of America

Speaking during a virtual meeting of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, Turkey's president said member states have been working on cooperating to solve economic problems for some time, but are yet to achieve the coordination they want.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has urged Muslim-majority countries to step up unique efforts to ease currency pressure on our economies, including using local currencies for trade."

Speaking during a virtual meeting of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation's (OIC) Standing Committee for Economic and Commercial Cooperation (COMCEC) on Wednesday, Erdogan said COMCEC members have been working on this for some time, but have yet to achieve the coordination they want.

Turkey has long advocated more use of local currencies for international trade instead of the dollar or euro.

"As Islamic countries, the more we produce, the more we strengthen our economies, he stressed.

We should take steps towards value-added production and trade instead of export structures based on raw materials or semi-finished products," the president added.

READ MORE:Turkey pledges to enhance financial institutions, democracy

The future will see the worlds interest-based economic system replaced by participation based on risk-sharing, said Erdogan.

"In this case, it is important to expand the use of products such as Sukuk to finance large long-term infrastructure investments," he said.

A Sukuk is an Islamic financial certificate, similar to a bond in Western finance, which complies with Islamic law.

Saying that COMCEC countries should take active measures to prevent the coronavirus pandemic from harming foreign trade, Erdogan added, "The steps we will take to boost trade among COMCEC member countries are important."

Islamophobia protected by European heads of state

On anti-Muslim sentiment, Erdogan said that in some European countries the plague has become a policy that is personally protected by the head of state.

In recent days,Erdoganhas singled out French President Emmanuel Macron for his anti-Muslim policies.

Muslims are being subjected to the same campaign of hatred that Jews faced in Europe before World War II,Erdogantold the meeting.

Fighting anti-Islam prejudice and xenophobia is a requirement of our responsibility towards our brothers and sisters living in those lands, Erdogan stressed, adding that Islamic countries have to fight the cultural racism that surrounds the West like a plague within law and democracy by using international platforms.

Last month, Macron accused French Muslims of "separatism," and described Islam as a "religion in crisis."

Macron's remarks and his defense of offensive cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad have triggered boycotts of French products in several countries, including Qatar, Kuwait, Algeria, Sudan, Palestine, and Morocco.

'Taking care of Jerusalem program'

We have launched a new program within COMCEC to take care of Jerusalem, a holy city for Muslims and possible capital of a Palestinian state, Erdogan said.

Through this program, we aim to both strengthen its economy and improve the socio-economic situation of the people of Jerusalem, he said.

COMCEC member states are sure to fully support the program, which will enhance the welfare of people in the occupied holy city, he said.

The unity, solidarity, and effective cooperation among us will be the key to our success in the Palestinian cause and in other fields, he said.

Palestinian territories, including the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza, have been occupied by Israel since 1967.

The Palestinians want the territories back for the establishment of a future Palestinian state.

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Erdogan calls on Islamic nations to work together to ease currency pressure - TRT World

When Joe Biden assumes office as U.S. president in late January, one of the thorniest foreign-policy challenges he will inherit is not one of his predecessors creation. Indeed, the problem of U.S. relations with Turkey has wrong-footed U.S. administrations from both parties in the past two decades.

From Ankaras refusal to permit U.S. troops to cross the Turkish-Iraqi border in 2003, to sharp bilateral disagreements over Syria policy during the Obama administration, to Turkeys more recent acquisition of Russian air defense systems despite its NATO membership, the U.S.-Turkish relationship has given headaches to a long series of American presidents.

Yet lingering threats in the region and rising risks globally underscore the continuing value of U.S.-Turkish cooperation to both countries, and they highlight the importance that a Biden administration seek to rescue the relationship from its sharp deterioration, which under President Donald Trump deepened further due to disagreements over Turkeys incursion into northeast Syria and its opposition to Arab normalization agreements with Israel.

Turkey, which bridges Europe and Asia, also finds itself straddling the fault line of a seismic shift in U.S. foreign policy.U.S. strategy is consciously moving away from an emphasis on fighting terrorism and nonstate actors to a focus on great-power competition, particularly with Russia and China.Washington and Ankara have clashed on both fronts under Presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump, disagreeing over how to fight terrorism in Syria, for example, as well as how to manage relations with Moscow.

The coronavirus pandemic may not usher in a new world, but it has accelerated a transition in the global order.The crisis has exacerbated U.S.-China tensions and has highlighted for many states the risks of supply chains heavily dependent on Beijing.While the resulting shift in U.S. foreign policy in East Asia is plain to see, its implications for U.S. strategy elsewhere have not been clear.

In the Middle East, which has been the prime focus of U.S. foreign policy for the first decades of this century, it is unclear whether Washington intends to execute the same strategydefending a broad array of U.S. interests, especially counterterrorism, through direct intervention and heavy support for allieswith fewer resources, or forge a new regional strategy.

This new strategy would consciously seek to look at Middle East issues through a great-power competition lenspreserving close relations with the regions medium-sized powers and preventing inroads by Moscow and Beijing even at the expense of other concerns such as terrorism, as the Trump administrations National Defense Strategy foreshadowed.

The likely answer is a bit of both. Facing a need to shift resources toward Asia, the U.S. government will increasingly look to outsource to its regional partners the safeguarding of mutual interests. Yet it will also seek to recruit those partners in a broader effort to buttress global order and norms against increasingly bold challenges from great-power competitors.

In any such reformulation of U.S. policy in the Middle East, the role Turkey chooses to play will be importantfor better or for worse. It is the regions largest economy, with a GDP reaching $750 billion.

It has demonstratedoften to Washingtons dismay, these daysa willingness to use hard power to influence regional dynamics. It shares frontiers with Iran, Iraq, and Syria, and neighbors Russia across the Black Sea. Turkey is therefore a logical stop on Chinas Belt and Road network. Turkey is positionedboth physically and politicallyto influence the projection of Russian power southward or Chinese might westward.

Yet what has long made Turkey an important partner to the United States has also attracted the attention of Russia and China. Indeed, for any external actor, Ankaras cooperation would significantly improve its ability to fulfill policy objectives in the Middle East.For Moscow and Beijing, the opportunity to exploit the present differences between Ankara and Washington to deepen the gap growing inside NATO offers an additional allure. The latest example of this is the showdown over fossil fuels in the Eastern Mediterranean between Turkey and Greece, which has divided NATO members and even hobbled the European Unions effort to reach consensus on unrelated issues like Belarus.

Of late, the attraction has been mutual. After nearly consummating a deal for a Chinese radar system, Turkey took delivery of Russias S-400 air defense system and proceeded to test it over Washingtons objections, prompting sharp concerns throughout the NATO alliance and the real threat of sanctions from Washington.And faced with the prospect of an economic downturn and increasing difficulties in external financing, Ankara is interested in getting more Chinese investment and finance.

This has so far proved to be an elusive goal: Beijings share of foreign direct investment in Turkey stands at a meager 1 percent, and only 960 of the 61,449 companies with foreign capital registered in Turkey in 2018 were Chinese.However, Ankara has remained hopeful that Chinas Belt and Road Initiative will bring further capitalespecially as Turkey faces a growing economic and tourism crisis as a result of the pandemicand has displayed no willingness to heed Washingtons warnings against adopting 5G technology from Huawei, for example.

Yet Ankara should be cognizant that any relationship between Turkey and China or Russia has its limits. Turkey-China ties remain handicapped by Chinas oppressive policy toward its minority Uighur populationwho share cultural and linguistic links with other Turkic ethnic groups. Turkey and Russia, meanwhile, remain at odds over regional issues such as Syria, Libya, and Armenia, and are divided by a centuries-long mistrust over Russian efforts to expand its security envelope southward.

Even in the recent Russian-brokered peace deal over Nagorno-Karabakh, Moscow and Ankara disagreed over the question of Turkish peacekeepers. And neither Russia nor China can offer Turkey the security or economic advantages that Ankaras deep engagement with the West has delivered over the decadesan imbalance that Chinese efforts to parlay public health assistance into diplomatic favors in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic are only likely to highlight.

This does not mean, however, that a return to the status quo ante of U.S.-Turkish partnership is possible.Turkish policies such as the testing of the S-400 and strident statements from Turkeys leaders on matters such as normalization with Israel have led to serious questioning in Washington of the future of relations with Ankara.

These moves have also increased tensions between Turkey and other U.S. partners in the Middle East, especially the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, which are sharply at odds with Ankara both rhetorically and on the ground in various regional disputes.

Adding to this dynamic, the reformulation of U.S. policy in the Middle East has changed the calculus of its partners in the region; rather than continuing to wait for the U.S. government to articulate a new regional strategy, the strongest of these partners are increasingly acting on their own initiative, often at odds with one anotherfor example, Turkey and the UAE are supporting opposite sides in Libyas civil war in the face of a diffident United States and divided Europe. More active U.S. engagement could help to moderate Arab-Turkish tension and open channels of communication, but the basic pattern is unlikely to change.

For all the problems bedeviling their ties, the United States and Turkeys interests will still be better served by cooperation than antagonism.While nostalgia for the U.S.-Turkey alliance of the past would be misguided, so too would be assuming that the only alternative is enmity.

For all of the serious disputes dividing them, Americans and Turks share an interest in limiting Russian influence in the region, countering Iranian adventurism, and preventing nuclear and missile proliferation, among other goals.

Yet the reality is that for the foreseeable future, even if the U.S.-Turkey relationship can be stabilized, it will be more transactional than in the past. This will require a greater willingness than exists at present to prioritize, to work out compromises quietly, to consult early to prevent disputes from arising, and to prevent every disagreement from turning into an existential threat to the relationship.

Biden, in his years as a senator and vice president, acquired a reputation for working out behind-the-scenes compromises.Quiet consultation may not be Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogans usual approach to the West, but the election of a new Democratic U.S. president may give him enough pause to seek the more amicable, workmanlike relationship with Washington that would serve both the United States and Turkeys interests.

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Biden Has to Deal With Erdogan. Here's How to Manage the Turkish President. - Foreign Policy

Nov 18, 2020

Turkeys main opposition leader, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, pressed charges with the Istanbul chief prosecutors office against a notorious Turkish mafia boss Nov. 18 after he openly threatened him in a letter he shared via Twitter triggering uproar. Kilicdaroglus lawyer said the four-page diatribe handwritten and signed byAlaattin Cakiciposed a direct threat to his client, who is the leader of the pro-secular Republican Peoples Party (CHP).

In the letter, dated Nov. 17andpeppered with obscenities and threats of physical violence, Cakici accused Kilicdaroglu of treason in concert with Kurdish militants and foreign powers. Be sensible, he warned, using an expression that is commonly used by Turkish gangsters to intimidate their victims. Cakicis ire was sparked by Kilicdaroglus suggestion in a speech to the parliament the same daythat the mobster had been recently freed from prison thanks to pressure on Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan from his far-right nationalist partnerDevlet Bahceli, while thousands of prisoners of conscience continue to rot in Turkish jails.

Cakici boasts of his close ties to Bahceli: The nationalist leader visited Cakici when he fell ill in jail in 2018 and met with him following his release in April this year undera controversial amnesty law that was pushed by his Nationalist Action Party (MHP). Bahceli took to Twitter to defend Cakici against Kilicdaroglus collaborators who he claimed were trying to smear him, saying that he and the mob leader believed in the same cause

His threats against Kilicdaroglu have been greeted with silence by Erdogan and members of his ruling Justice and Development Party. Their apparent indifference flies in the face of Erdogans recent pledges, which have been echoed by his justice minister, for sweeping economic and judicial reforms that are meant to restore investor confidence in Turkeys battered economy.

The optimists who wanted to give Erdogan the benefit of the doubt following his promise of legal reform must now realize that this was yet another empty promise of his, noted Aykan Erdemir, a former CHP parliamentarian who heads the Turkey program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington-based think tank. Turkish authorities continue to prosecute legitimate expressions of dissent while offering impunity to threats hurled by mob bosses and vigilantes. The Erdogan government is too intimately involved with a long list of criminal and corrupt figures to be able to afford even the semblance of rule of law and due process, he added in emailed comments to Al-Monitor.

Cakici, whose rap sheet includes running armed gangs and ordering the murder of his ex-wife on a Turkish ski slope, has dominated Turkeys underworld for the better part of four decades. He is also associated with the Gray Wolves, the ultranationalist outfit that operated as the MHPs youth arm in street battles with leftists in the 1970s thatleft thousands dead. It was recently banned in France for its violent attacks against ethnic Armenians there. Cakici was jailed after the 1980 military coup over his role in the murders of 41 leftists.

His most recent spell behind barsfor the murder of his ex-wife, whose father was also a notorious mobster, began in 2004 when he was caught in Austria carrying a special service passport under the name of a former intelligence chief. Turkish officials have confirmed that Cakici operating under the code name Atilla was used by the state for hit jobs against its foreign domestic enemies. These included Armenian militants who assassinated at least 36 Turkish diplomats between 1974 and 1991, as well as Kurds. Whilethe states relations with underworld figures like Cakici are dressed up as patriotism, they have benefited a succession of rogue members of the security apparatus involved in the drugs and weapons trade. Erdogan came to power in 2002 vowing to eradicate the so-called deep state but has ended up in league with it, critics say.

Erdogans alliance with Bahceli, cemented in the wake of the failed 2016 coup, has clearly emboldened the likes of Cakici, who has taken potshots at the Turkish president as well.

Ryan Gingeras, author of "Heroin, Organized Crime and the Making of Modern Turkey" and professor of national security affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, said, I think it is safe to assume Cakici does believe he can get away with threatening Kilicdaroglu because of his ties to MHP and weakness of the justice system. In emailed comments to Al-Monitor, he added, One may also say it's a product of 'celebrity license.'This is who he isand it's precisely why he's famous. So yes, it again affirms that the Turkish criminal justice system is choosey when it comes to who is prosecuted for clear infractions. It demonstrates the power of the Turkish right and the continued relevance of right-wing toughs in contemporary history.

But it may not be all plain sailing for Cakici. An Istanbul court slapped him last month with 17 years for a catalog of crimes including the attempted murder of a relative. An appeals court will have thefinal say on the case.

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Erdogan mum as mob boss threatens Turkeys main opposition leader - Al-Monitor

Turkeys steady transformation from a democracy to an authoritarian regime has been radical.

While ostensibly still democratic, Turkey is now what political scientists call a competitive authoritarian system where the government has a largely free hand to abuse the democratic apparatus.

Prime minister-turned-President Recep Tayyip Erdoan now wields personalised power over the government and critical state institutions, dramatically shrinking the scope available to opposition parties.

When we look back at the past activity of opposition parties in Turkey, it has been their pronounced fragmentation and inability to bridge their differences that has been a key reason for enabling Erdoan to strengthen his rule and squeeze the space for them to operate.

But this is now changing.

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The opposition parties are increasingly cooperating to deny Erdoan and his Adalet ve Kalknma Partisi (Justice and Development Party, AKP) political hegemony and instead maintain political pluralism. And paradoxically they are using one of Erdoans own laws against him.

In March 2018, the AKP government passed a new electoral alliance law permitting alliances between parties.

The legislative change was aimed a protecting Erdoans government after he was spooked by the narrow 51.4 per cent win he had secured in the 2017 constitutional referendum that increased his presidential powers.

The result suggested victory in the upcoming 2018 election was far from assured. The new legislation meant he could formalise a pre-existing partnership with the Milliyeti Hareket Partisi (Nationalist Action Party, MHP).

The alliance would prove crucial after the AKP secured only a 43 per cent parliamentary vote in the election, meaning it has to rely on the MHPs 11 per cent share to govern under the Cumhur Ittifak (Peoples Alliance) banner.

But the law also facilitated unprecedented cooperation among Turkeys ideologically dispersed opposition parties.

Ahead of the 2018 election, the opposition formed the Millet Ittifak (Nation Alliance) made up by the secular centre-left Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi (Republican Peoples Party, CHP), centre-right nationalist IYI Parti (Good Party), the Islamist Saadet Partisi (Felicity Party, SP), and the centre-right Demokrat Partisi (Democrat Party, DP).

As CHP leader Kemal Kldarolu said in an interview ahead of the election:

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We, as different political parties, are coming together as a show of democratic strength and unity. This is a first in Turkey. As diverse political parties we have come together to strengthen democracy, to strengthen human rights, to solve outstanding problems through a democratic parliamentary system. This is very important to us.

The opposition solidified this new alliance by signing a pro-democratic declaration pledging to end polarisation, instill independence of the judiciary and the rule of law, and ensure basic rights and freedoms.

Moreover, one of the primary aims was to re-instate a strengthened parliamentary system.

Under the alliance, the individual parties still selected their own candidates for the presidential race. The CHP nominated Muharrem Ince, an internally popular, charismatic politician with a national profile as its presidential candidate, whilst IYI and SP nominated their respective leaders, Meral Akener and Temel Karamollaolu.

All three candidates campaigned independently, but they ultimately worked off the same platform as the Nation Alliances democratic pledge.

A critical component of their cooperation against Erdoan included refraining from criticising each other, and all three candidates pledged to endorse each other in a potential runoff and serve as vice-presidents in a future cabinet.

Throughout the campaign the opposition ran a highly effective and innovative strategy against the unequal conditions and constricted political space in which it had to operate.

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Ince, Akener, Karamollaolu and CHP party leader Kemal Kldarolu, as key symbols of the alliance, appeared regularly on the few independent media outlets Fox Trk, Halk TV, Deutsche Well Trke and Haber Trk and each ran a tireless campaign schedule across the country.

For instance, Ince organised 107 rallies in 75 cities and Akener visited 81 cities from the time she established IYI in late 2018.

Most of the rallies and speeches were broadcast live on social media platforms, allowing the alliance to reach audiences and work around the monopoly of the media landscape that Erdoans Peoples Alliance enjoy.

This successful campaigning by the opposition occurred in spite of the imbalances skewed towards the AKP and Erdoan.

The Peoples Alliance financed their campaign with presidential and state funds as well as making sure the opposition received near to zero television time on Turkish TV channels owing to the AKPs monopoly of the media landscape.

Given the fraught relations between the Turkish state and its minority Kurdish population, the pro-Kurdish rights Halklarn Demokratik Partisi (Peoples Democratic Party HDP), wasnt part of the opposition alliance and, instead, contested the parliamentary elections independently.

They listed their imprisoned former co-leader Selahattin Demirta as its presidential nominee.

But the opposition Nation Alliances need to increase their electoral reach and present a legitimate democratic platform incentivised the member parties and candidates to move beyond their traditional political identities and appeal to the Kurdish electorate.

This strategy also offset the AKPs attacks on the Kurdish movement, and the very nationalist polemic it had employed throughout the campaign.

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Inces presidential campaign embodied this outreach strategy the most. He broke with the CHPs dominant nationalistic character and visited Selahattin Demirtas in prison.

He also held lively campaigns in Kurdish-majority cities, often attracting large crowds where his speeches were characterised by democratic inclusivity.

Moreover, Ince promised to implement a long-time demand of the pro-Kurdish movement to devolve administrative powers to elected local officials in line with the European Charter of Local Self-Government.

Outreach by the opposition helped loosen traditionally entrenched suspicions against the CHP (which was long considered a haven for anti-Kurdish sentiment by citizens in the south east of Turkey).

Similarly, Akener, from the IYI Parti, attempted to reach out to Kurds through her democratic platform and meetings in Kurdish majority areas. Her nationalist credentials and former role as Interior Minister in the 1990s (a rather dark period in Turkish-Kurdish relations) was her weakness for the Kurdish vote-base.

Akeners centre-right nationalist position limited her appeal and success with Kurdish voters, but her campaign strategy demonstrated political actors can pragmatically overlook ideological constraints in order to more effectively challenge existing regimes.

In the wake of this new cooperative approach among the opposition parties, the AKP actually lost its majority, and only maintained its parliamentary control due to its alliance with the MHP.

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The election outcome demonstrated that despite the fast-shrinking political space and limited openings for the opposition, they were able to adapt to Erdoans authoritarian regime and remain in the contest.

With incoming US president Joe Biden, Erdoan will see a sharp rise in criticism from Washington compared to the Trump administration.

In previous interviews, Biden has labelled Erdoan a tyrant, expressing his wish to support the Turkish opposition to remove Erdogan through the ballot box.

Although Turkeys opposition is extremely unlikely to work with the Biden administration against Erdoan, they will quietly welcome any sharp criticism and pressure from the Biden White House in the hope it will force Erdoan to take democratising steps, bringing greater opportunities of contention and contestation.

This article was co-published with Melbourne Asia Review, Asia Institute at the University of Melbourne.

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The art of opposition in Erdoans Turkey - Pursuit