President Erdogan of Turkey Recovers From Minor Health Scare – New York Times

He did not collapse, said the reporter, Aziz Ozen, who works for Hurriyet, one of Turkeys leading newspapers. He just leaned to his left, and they got him right away.

A government official declined to provide any more details on the incident, instead offering a Turkish news report saying that the president had fainted.

According to Turkish protocol, if Mr. Erdogan had been incapacitated for a longer period of time, he would have been temporarily replaced by the speaker of the Turkish Parliament, Ismail Kahraman, a lawmaker from Mr. Erdogans party.

In metaphorical terms, however, Mr. Erdogans absence would leave a void. He has been the central figure in Turkish politics for a decade and a half, and he has succeeded in isolating most of his rivals, both within his party and outside it.

His son-in-law, Berat Albayrak, Turkeys energy minister, is often mentioned as a potential successor. But he lacks Mr. Erdogans personal appeal.

Mr. Erdogans health scare occurred at the end of the month of Ramadan, when Mr. Erdogan, a Muslim, had been fasting during daylight hours.

It follows a series of diplomatic crises involving Mr. Erdogans government. In recent weeks, Turkey has sided with Qatar in its spat with most of its neighbors, including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which are angered by Qatari foreign policy.

In a show of solidarity, Mr. Erdogans government agreed to send more Turkish troops to join those already in Qatar. After Saudi Arabia criticized the move, Mr. Erdogan reacted angrily on Saturday, calling the Saudis disrespectful.

Mr. Erdogan is also angry with the United States. In Syria, the American government is working with Syrian Kurdish militias whom Turkey views as terrorists. In Washington, American officials have issued arrest warrants for a group of Mr. Erdogans bodyguards who were filmed assaulting protesters during Mr. Erdogans visit last month.

That furor has now threatened to add a new tension to Turkish-German relations. There have been reports in the German news media suggesting that the German government had told Turkey the bodyguards involved in the Washington incident would not be welcome in Hamburg for a Group of 20 summit meeting in early July.

Officials in Berlin declined on Monday to confirm the news reports. But Martin Schfer, a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry, said that he could assume with a good conscience that these people who have been incriminated by American judicial authorities wont set foot on German soil in the foreseeable future, including during the G-20 summit.

Ralf Martin Meyer, the chief of police in Hamburg, told the German newspaper Bild on Monday that a clear message had been sent to Turkish officials that we will not accept something like this, he said, referring to the incident in Washington.

Some 15,000 police officers are expected to be deployed to secure the streets of Hamburg during the international summit meeting, the first in more than a decade to be held in a German city. Hamburg has a long tradition of extreme leftist groups and a lively anarchist scene that has been plotting for months to disrupt the arrival of the delegates.

Hamburg is also home to roughly 90,000 Turks and their descendants, many of them ethnic Kurds. That has prompted worries about possible clashes between Mr. Erdogans supporters and opponents, beyond the general disruption sought by leftist organizers.

Mr. Meyer said that German police officers would not hesitate to detain anyone involved in clashes, regardless of their motivation. We would move very swiftly and very clearly against this, the police chief said. Here on the streets of Hamburg, we alone have such authority.

Follow Patrick Kingsley @patrickkingsley and Melissa Eddy @meddynyt on Twitter.

Patrick Kingsley reported from Istanbul, and Melissa Eddy from Berlin.

A version of this article appears in print on June 27, 2017, on Page A5 of the New York edition with the headline: Erdogan Says Blood Sugar Caused Scare Over Health.

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President Erdogan of Turkey Recovers From Minor Health Scare - New York Times

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