Erdoğan slams The Economist for ‘interfering’ in Turkish politics

ANKARA

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has slammed the British magazine The Economist over its recent cover story, saying that it has been penned down with a malicious intent to interfere in the country’s politics and manipulate the national will.

“We will not allow our domestic politics to be directed and the national will to be swayed by the covers of magazines, which are the operational apparatus of global powers,” Erdoğan tweeted on May 5 in response to the magazines cover “Could Erdogan be ousted in Turkey’s coming election?” “Save democracy” and “Erdogan must go.”

Elaborating on Türkiye’s foreign policy, Erdoğan said the country has been governed by a uniaxial foreign policy for years despite its geopolitics at the heart of the continent.

“With the efforts of our diplomats, we have implemented a self-confident, entrepreneurial and humanitarian foreign policy practice,” the president said.

Türkiye became one of the five countries with the largest diplomatic network in the world by increasing the number of its foreign representatives from 163 to 260, he explained.

Ankara stands by its “brothers” with all its means, when necessary, as in Libya, Syria, and Karabakh, which was liberated after 30 years of occupation, and contributes to the solution of regional crises with captive exchange and grain corridor agreements, the president stated.

“As a state whose history is full of glorious victories, we are coming to the place we deserve in the international system,” Erdoğan said.

“Hopefully, with the ‘Century of Türkiye,’ we will carry all these diplomatic achievements to the top,” he said.

Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu withdrew his article from publication in The Economist in response to the magazine’s comment about the elections in Türkiye and President Erdoğan.

Speaking in Alanya on May 4, Çavuşoğlu stated that he has withdrawn an article that was due to be published in the next issue of The Economist.

“In that cover, of course, it says ‘Erdoğan must go,’ dot by point. It says, ‘Erdogan must go, he must go.’ Did they decide on behalf of the Turkish nation or are they trying to give advice to the Turkish nation? Why should Erdoğan go? What harm does it do you? What harm does he do to Britain?” he said.

“If Erdoğan had not been there today, the world would have a food crisis. Today, without Türkiye, Europe’s security is in danger. Why do you interfere in the domestic politics of a country?” Çavuşoğlu stated.

Presidential spokesperson İbrahim Kalın also reacted against the article. “They were excited again. And they added: ‘The new government will repair the damaged relations with the West…’ I know this language, discourse and in what context it is said,” he tweeted.

“Calm down. Gone are the days when you instructed my country. The people will have the last word at the ballot box,” he said.