With a decree issued on the Official Gazette on July 15, President Tayyip Erdoğan has placed Turkey’s chief of General Staff under the Defense Ministry, in a move debated since Turkey entered the Western defense alliance NATO in 1952.
It was a nightmare. When it started with road blocks on the Bosphorus Bridge in Istanbul and jets flying over the Turkish Parliament in Ankara at around 9 p.m. on July 15, 2016, many of us wished it was something else; many of us thought the time of coup d’états was over.
The outcome from the NATO Summit on July 11-12 was not bad. Perhaps Turkish President Tayyip Erdoğan could not get everything he wanted, but after all, there was no one, from United States President Donald Trump to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, to French President Emmanuel Macron, who could have everything they wanted.
Prophecies that the Western defense alliance NATO would become obsolete after the disintegration of the Soviet Union have already been proven wrong. It is more than a quarter of a century now and NATO is planning to have a stronger and more updated structure.
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is a politician who likes to take risks, believing that without taking risks it is not always possible to win. First he simplifies the problem, preferably to a one-unknown equation, mobilizes all his capabilities on that target without giving much importance to collateral consequences and does whatever is needed to reach the target.
Turkey’s new administrative system, which could be dubbed the “Second Republic phase,” started after President Tayyip Erdoğan took his oath on July 9.
Turkey officially shifts to a new system in which President Tayyip Erdoğan will be able to use all executive powers after his oath-taking ceremony on July 9.
On June 29, in the middle of a key executive board meeting of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Parti), President Tayyip Erdoğan gave a break to receive important guests from the U.S. at the party headquarters in Ankara.
In an executive meeting of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Parti) on June 29, President Tayyip Erdoğan, who chaired it, reportedly asked party officials not to get too comfortable due to the June 24 election win and to focus on the municipal elections of March 2019.
