Page 13 - Turkey Outlook 2023

Since then, he has shown no acceptance of the cold reality that the
sultan is overthrown when his money runs out. Even the Ottoman reign
of Suleiman the Magnificent came to an end.

‘Erdogan will be smashed between Washington and Moscow’

The perennial story suggesting that Erdogan will be smashed between
Washington and Moscow was a favourite when Vladimir Putin first
attacked Ukraine in February last year. Not long after, it was displaced
by ‘Putin will help Erdogan win the elections’.

Stories on ‘Turkey is becoming a proxy of Russia/China’ have been
missing lately. ‘The West keeps silent on Erdogan’s misdeeds due to
the Ukraine war” has recently become popular.

Let’s remember an important piece of advice: Those who take the EU
seriously are incurable. Leave them to themselves.

Never forget

“Scientists are sounding the alarm over how much damage could be
inflicted by a big earthquake that strikes Istanbul, a city of 15mn full of
unregulated construction and old building stock.”

Black swan?

What black swan? In 2023, nothing will be a surprise in Turkey.

Longer term

Turkey never solves its problems and steadily becomes more and more
gangrenous. Indicators on Turkey’s overall turmoil exceed those of the
historic financial tumult suffered in 2001.

The indicators are now comparable with what was seen at the end of
the 1970s, when a-several-years-long great depression in Turkey
ended with the military coup in 1980 that led to a junta ruling for three
years.

Across the post-World War II era, Turkey’s economic and political
cycles have gone through good decade, bad decade, good decade,
and so on. Across a decade there is an inflow of dollars. The Turks
object that the country is developing too far, too quickly. Then, across
the next decade, the dollars disappear and Turkey returns to a point
behind where it began (for instance, Turkey more or less had food
security in 2002, but it has been lost since a period of so-called rapid
development). And, it repeats.

Since 2013, Turkey has been enduring a bad decade. The next one will

13 Turkey Outlook 2023 www.intellinews.com