Page 3 - Turkey Outlook 2023

1.0 Executive Summary

In 2022, Turkey continued to collapse in all fields. The year ended with
an ill omen, namely bloodbaths on Istanbul’s main shopping
thoroughfare, when a bomb left on a bench exploded, and in the conflict
with adversaries gathered in locations around the Turkish-Syrian
border. None of this came as a surprise.

bne IntelliNews’ Outlook 2022: Turkey read: “If Turkey cannot manage
to somehow smoothly get rid of the [President Recep Tayyip] Erdogan
reign, nothing would be a surprise amid the turmoil engulfing the
country. Erdogan could at any time engage in wars, fuel violence at
home, create more economic dilemmas, announce he is moving
against another attempt at a ‘coup’, or conspire in and engender many
other things that we can scarcely imagine at the moment.”

The coming year, 2023, requires Erdogan to call presidential and
parliamentary elections. They must be held by June at the latest. Thus,
in store are 12 months that could bring markedly more dramatic and
tragic events that will stain modern-day Turkey’s history. Prepare for a
possible boom in terror and violence.

As 2022 progressed, there were some predictions that Erdogan would
go for snap polls, perhaps before the end of the year. Some current
rumours anticipate elections slightly earlier than in June, perhaps in
April or May.

Erdogan has lately been rearranging his foreign policy in order to
secure a free hand at home. The major players of the United Nations as
a whole, ranging from the US to China, appear to be part of a
consensus supporting a continuation of the Erdogan regime.

Court cases abroad that pose some threat to Turkey’s autocrat are
advancing only very slowly (in terms of the US, for example, look up the
latest on the Halkbank case, the “SBK” case, the assaults by Erdogan’s
security detail on protesters in Washington and the sanctions move
against Sitki Ayan).

The only exception so far to this relative foreign policy comfort for
Erdogan has been Syria’s Bashar al-Assad. Media reports have
suggested that Assad is refusing to smooth relations in a way that
would benefit Erdogan’s election campaign. Erdogan is, however, still
pushing for a meeting with Assad. He would use it to portray himself as
sending a great number of Turkey’s Syrian migrants back home.

The tragic grip of today’s authoritarianism held over so many Turks is,
note, not only maintained thanks to inaction from foreign partners. The
state of the so-called opposition within Turkey is more heart-wrenching.

3 Turkey Outlook 2023 www.intellinews.com