Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed this Friday, ahead of decisive elections next Sunday, to “defend the country’s independence and future”, as he did in 2016, against an attempted military coup.
“If necessary, as on the night of July 15 (2016, the date of the failed coup), we will defend our independence and our future, even with our lives,” the Turkish head of state said on the social network Twitter.
Bizim sevgimiz de mücadelemiz de aziz milletimiz Dentrodir. Whether kimseyle kavga etmeyiz, milletimiz so konusu old of kimseyi tanımayız.
Can make takarak smaller, sevdalısı olduğumuz milletimizin koşturmayı görev biliriz…. pic.twitter.com/ZimhlkLQDy
– Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (@RTErdogan) May 12, 2023
Erdogan, whose electoral defeat polls predict after two decades in power in Ankara, assured he “will not give up” on serving his country.
Several political analysts and the opposition have warned of the possibility that Erdogan, facing defeat at the polls, could resist recognizing the result, as his party, the AKP (Justice and Development Party, conservative Islamist), did when it lost the mayor of the city of Istanbul in 2019.
At the time, the AKP contested the result and forced a re-vote, which it lost by a much larger margin.
At the end of April, Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu compared Sunday’s parliamentary and presidential elections to the attempted coup in 2016.
“July 15 was a literal coup attempt; May 14 is a political coup attempt,” the minister stated at the time, referring to the date when the country’s next election acts will take place.
Polls show that Erdogan lost the presidential election to the candidate of a six-party opposition alliance, Social Democrat Kemal Kiliçdaroglu.
One of the messages from Erdogan and his AKP during the campaign was that if the opposition bloc – which brings together social democrats, nationalists and Islamists – wins, chaos will take over the country.
The serious economic problems and the loss of rights and freedoms that Turkey has suffered over the past two decades are the main problems that could mobilize the anti-Erdogan electorate.
On Turkey-Greece relations, Erdogan said Ankara and Athens should “set aside hostility and rivalry” and that he wants elections in both countries – next Sunday in Turkey and next Sunday, May 21, in Greece – to “signal the beginning of a new phase” in bilateral relations.
“We can put aside the animosity and rivalry, everything that has exhausted both countries and should not continue,” Erdogan said in an interview with the Greek daily Kathimerini.
Greece and Turkey, both member states of NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Western Defense Bloc), are in disagreement over the limits of airspace and the delimitation of the respective maritime zones in the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean.
Last year, Erdogan even threatened his neighbor to the west with “sudden military action” and “a missile to Athens” if it continued what he saw as a confrontational stance in the Aegean Sea.
Asked by the Greek newspaper about the results of Sunday’s elections, the Turkish president was convinced of his victory, despite most polls pointing to his social-democratic opponent Kemal Kiliçdaroglu, leader of the People’s Republican Party (CHP), the winner of the vote.
Source: DN
