Reporter | Tian Siqi
On Saturday, October 23, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced that he had instructed the country's Foreign Ministry to list 10 foreign ambassadors as "undesirable persons." This usually means that these diplomats cannot stay in Turkey or be deported.
As of the evening of the 24th local time, the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs has not yet implemented this instruction of the president. Reuters said that once the directive is implemented, it will create the deepest rift with the West in Erdogan's 19 years in power.
This follows the embassies of Canada, France, Finland, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden and the United States in Turkey calling on Turkey to release human rights activist Osman Kavala. To that end, the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs had summoned ambassadors from those countries to remind them of their adherence to the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.
Osman Kavala is the founder of the Anadolu Cultural Foundation in Turkey. The foundation supports projects for a number of ethnic and religious minorities, such as reconciliation between Turkish and Armenians and the peaceful settlement of the Kurdish issue.
In response to allegations that Kavala attempted to overthrow the government in the 2013 Gozzie Park protest case in Istanbul, a Turkish court acquitted him in February 2020. But istanbul's procuratorate issued a new arrest warrant on the same day, accusing Kavala of participating in an attempted coup d'état in Turkey in July 2016. In 2019, the European Court of Human Rights had demanded Kavala's immediate release, saying there was no evidence of a crime to legally prolong the activist's detention.
Erdogan argued that the ambassadors of these countries did not respect the Turkish judiciary and had no right to demand Kavala's release.
It is worth mentioning that the joint statement calling for Kavala's release is mainly led by the United States, and 7 of these countries are NATO allies of Turkey. The United Kingdom, Italy and Spain, several European countries, did not sign the statement.
The Guardian notes that the UK has always said it has close ties with Turkey and has not yet issued a statement condemning Turkey's possible expulsion of the ambassador; Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi has called Erdogan a "dictator", who responded that Draghi was rude and rude; and that Spanish banks have more exposure to the Turkish lira than other European countries.
For Erdogan's decision, the Turkish opposition party gave a different answer. Kemal Kilikdaroglu, leader of the Republican People's Party (CHP), said Erdogan was "rapidly dragging the country to the brink" and diverting attention. He tweeted: "The purpose of these initiatives is not to protect the national interest, but to make up some artificial justification for the destruction of the economy." ”
The diplomatic crisis also came as the Turkish lira fell to a record low. Against the backdrop of rising inflation and weak lira, Turkey's central bank chose last week to go against global trends by cutting the benchmark repo rate by a full 200 basis points to 16 percent.
Analysts said turkey's central bank's latest rate cut could put new pressure on the crisis-plagued lira, further curbing foreign capital as Turkey's foreign investment approaches a 20-year low. So far this year, the lira has fallen by almost a quarter. Although the International Monetary Fund (IMF) expects Turkey's economy to grow by 9 percent this year, inflation is more than double that figure.
Soner Cagaptay of the Institute for Near East Policy in Washington, D.C., tweeted: "Erdogan believes he can win the next election [in 2023] by accusing the West of attacking Turkey – despite Turkey's deplorable economic situation." ”
Sinan Ulgen, a former Turkish diplomat, said Erdogan had chosen the timing not right as Turkey sought to readjust its foreign policy to avoid the tensions that had persisted in recent years.
A diplomatic insider said turkey's foreign ministry would make a final decision at a cabinet meeting on Monday (October 25).