The country was hit by the englade, thousands of people lost their lives in the most tragic way and nothing will be the same in the neighboring country.
By Antonis Anzoletou
Pain and fear reign in Turkey.
The country was hit by the englade, thousands of people lost their lives in the most tragic way and nothing will be the same in the neighboring country.
Even the pre-election period, which Erdogan had planned very differently.
He is now faced with a treaty that will either “take off” him or force him to move from the palace. About 13 million people have been affected by the terrifying impact of the earthquake.
This development cannot be ruled out to affect the citizens’ consciousness as to whether Turkey will be able to proceed in the absence of and against the rest of the world from now on.
On August 17, 1999 an equally powerful earthquake in Izmit had once again shaken the neighbors with more than 18,000 people losing their lives.
Bulent Ecevit was the prime minister and there had been a great uproar from the shoddy structures collapsing like paper towers spreading death.
The late Ecevit was politically damaged by this particular sad event, and this is what Erdogan is now trying to avoid.
That year the “earthquake diplomacy” was activated, as a few days later, on September 7, the earthquake also hit Athens.
With the Imia crisis in 1996 having left a heavy shadow, but also the episode with Ocalan a few months before, the tension between the two countries automatically subsided.
Greece rushed to send aid to the neighboring country, with EMAK pulling dozens of trapped citizens out of the wreckage.
Turkey did the same, while the then mayor of Athens, Dimitris Avramopoulos, had visited Constantinople. When states cannot find the solution the “nature conspires” and everything shows that even today the loss of so many thousands of lives can be the occasion for a shift in Ankara towards realism. Just this time to last.
In 2001 it was followed by George Papandreou’s zeibeki under the applause of the foreign minister’s counterpart Ismail Tzem and in 2004 by Kostas Karamanlis’ piggy bank with Tayyip Erdogan.
The crisis between the relations of the two countries, however, returned.
Erdogan’s presence at the scene of the disaster did not go as well as he would have hoped. Can such a sad event be a game changer for the Turkish president?
Turkey’s foreign policy cannot be the same anymore. How much “war” can Erdogan “sell” to his fellow citizens when his country is torn apart by such a large-scale natural phenomenon.
With the aftershocks expected to last about six months, a large part of the Turkish army will now have to assist in the area.
Turkey has recently been at “knives” with Greece, Sweden, Syria and many times remembers and attacks the USA, France and the EU. Maybe this is her chance to change her stance and stop the inflammatory rhetoric that is getting her nowhere.
The magnitude of the destruction and human tragedy is so great that for the Turkish president, the scope for new nationalist outbursts and maneuvers is very limited.
Turkey does not have only enemies, as it likes to claim, as everyone rushed to help in its most difficult moment. And it is certainly not the invulnerable power that needs no one and can live without the West.
The current developments in the neighboring country are not easy to determine. Perhaps the only sure thing is the time of the elections.
They will hardly take place on May 14th, as they will definitely have to be early in order for Tayyip Erdogan to be a candidate again.
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I have worked in the news industry for over 10 years. I have been an author at News Bulletin 247 for the past 2 years. I mostly cover politics news. I am a highly experienced and respected journalist. I have won numerous awards for my work.
