Turkey’s Erdogan seeks to revive bid for executive president

The government has refused to resurrect peace talks, with Deputy Prime Minister Yalcin Akdogan saying Tuesday conditions were not yet ripe.

Last Wednesday the Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor’s office said that an ISIS cell from southeastern province of Gaziantep that borders Syria, carried out the October 10 bombing, which was the deadliest in recent Turkish history.

“We saw it today that it (battling with terror) has nothing to do with election”, he noted.

“ISIL threatens our way of life and security”.

After the election, the government said it may resume the process but the violent elements that have a potential to derail the process must first be dealt with.

Ankara’s harsh stance against the PKK-affiliated Democratic Union Party (PYD) in northern Syria also prevents it from becoming a game-changing actor in the region and leads to frictions with the U.S.-led global coalition fighting IS. After the PKK killed two Turkish police officers in the city of Urfa, Turkish warplanes bombed PKK positions in southeastern Turkey and Iraqi Kurdistan, and sent troops into a few Kurdish dominated cities. Five months of fearmongering and attacks and counterattacks were meant to appeal to the instinct of rallying around the sitting government. It won the AKP the support of voters.

The bottom line is that today’s Turkey needs strong leadership.

“We declare our self-management”, said Muhsin Kula, who claimed to be part of the new government.

Erdogan, the strongman of Turkish politics for more than a decade, has always been pushing for a new constitution to replace a military-drafted charter and expand the powers of the presidency.

Seyfetting Gursel, an economist, said the AKP government has an ambition to adopt policies that will boost high economic growth. The government has failed to reach its growth target every year since 2012, and the worldwide Monetary Fund predicts 2.9% growth next year and 3.5% by 2020. Larry is our main news editor.

“We will learn the answer soon”, he remarked. The Turkish lira is up 3% against the dollar after plummeting by 25% over the course of the year. Turkey’s location, combined with its North Atlantic Treaty Organisation membership, makes it an indispensable partner in dealing with Russian activity in the region, Islamic State, the Syrian civil war and the unfolding migrant crisis. Erdogan himself has asked the global community to accept the results and said that the “national will” of the country favours stability. “It is still valid today”, he said.

In a surprise result on Sunday, the AKP won 317 seats in the 550-member parliament – enough to return it to single-party rule but still short of the 330 needed to change the constitution. The global community has spoken of the violence against opposition parties and crackdown on press freedom, both of which reportedly hindered the ability of the opposition to campaign freely.

It’s all up to the president now to chart a new inclusive course for the country’s future with a pluralistic vision. And particularly, it depends on whether President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who was not on the ballot but remains the figurehead of AK Party, shows he is capable of playing a conciliatory role.