The implications of Erdogan's victory on Western stakes: BBC
4 Min Read
The recent Turkish election has been geopolitically charged, while domestically it set the Turks on a crossroads between the restoration of Ataturkian national secularism and sustaining the AKP's Islamic populism.
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Joe Biden and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan speaking during a press conference in Ankara, August 25, 2016 (AFP)
Turkish Recep Tayyip Erdogan's third term as President has incited the West's concerns about the possible implications his new term might have on global politics, specifically in regard to pressing matters such as NATO, the Russo-Ukrainian war, and refugees.
The recent Turkish election has been geopolitically charged, while domestically it set the Turks on a crossroads between the restoration of Ataturkian national secularism and sustaining the AKP's Islamic populism.
Internationally, this would decide how the West is to comport itself toward issues of concern in the East through Turkey, which stands as an intermediary, the most prominent among which is the war in Ukraine.
President Putin was among the first international leaders to congratulate Erdogan on his third term, praising his "independent foreign policy" as a driving reason for his victory.
Turkey has indeed maintained a distinguished position from its NATO member-state peers. While NATO, along with the EU, has imposed extensive sanctions on Russia and minimized its oil and gas imports from Russia, Turkey adopted a less vehement strategy toward Russia, refusing to "ostracize" the Kremlin, as the BBC report put it.
Turkey has adopted a pragmatic policy in regard to the war in Ukraine. Since Russia launched the special military operation, trade between Turkey and Russia has significantly increased, but Turkey has also been simultaneously selling weapons to Ukraine, according to the report.
Erdogan's pragmatism in regard to Ukraine is in line with his general policy of developing transactional relationships with all his allies in an effort to "make Turkey great again."
The White House was also quick to congratulate Erdogan despite favoring his opponent. Washington's main interest in appeasing Turkey is for the sake of expanding the NATO alliance in an effort to contain Russia.
Turkey has already approved Finland's bid to join NATO but has remained reluctant about Sweden. Turkey stands as a key country to NATO advancement: whereby it grants NATO access to the Black Sea and stands as the precursor for Sweden's ascension to NATO, which grants the military alliance bloc access to the Baltic Sea.
President Macron also communicated his congratulations to Erdogan despite the troublesome history. France's primary concern, as cited in the BBC report, is that of refugee spillover into the EU.
Back in 2015, more than a million refugees and asylum seekers, mostly Syrians, traveled in smugglers' boats across the Mediterranean into the EU, which resulted in the 2015 migration crisis that strained the EU to accommodate the million which crossed over from the Mediterranean irregularly.
After the migration crisis, the EU managed to work out an agreement with Turkey to administer the borders against the outflux of irregular migrants in exchange for a sizeable sum of money.
After the increasing anti-refugee sentiment in Turkey, and Erdogan's promises to return Syrian refugees back to Syria, the EU frets about the possibility of Turkey turning a blind eye toward smugglers.
Read more: 'Democracy won, Western media lost': Erdogan makes victory speech
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan won Sunday the Turkish presidential election in the runoff round, and he, alongside his supporters, celebrated the victory at his home in Istanbul despite the official election results not being declared yet.
After 99.08% of the votes were counted, Erdogan had 52.07% of the vote, with opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu lagging behind at 47.93%.
Speaking from the porch of his home in Istanbul, the Turkish President hailed his supporters and the Turkish people.
According to the Turkish President, Kilicdaroglu, the leader of the Republican People's Party, leased parliamentary seats to certain parties.
Read more: Turkey police seeking 5 people suspected of 'election disinformation'
