As the lira tanks, so does the stock of Turkey’s president
But it is too soon to write off Recep Tayyip Erdogan
A GOOD DUST-UP with one Western ally or another is something that Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, always relishes. On October 23rd he took on ten of them at the same time, announcing that he had ordered the American, French, German, Dutch, Canadian, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Finnish, and New Zealand ambassadors to be declared personae non gratae, a prelude to having them kicked out of the country. Their offence was to have signed a letter urging Turkey to release Osman Kavala, a philanthropist locked up on farcical terror and coup charges. It took another couple of days, the exhortations of Turkish officials, who warned him of the dire potential consequences to the country’s economy, and a carefully crafted statement by the American embassy, in which the mission said it did not meddle in Turkey’s domestic affairs, before Mr Erdogan backed down. The envoys were allowed to remain in Ankara.
This article appeared in the Europe section of the print edition under the headline “Autumn of the patriarch”
Europe October 30th 2021
- As the lira tanks, so does the stock of Turkey’s president
- The EU is being asked to pay for border fences to keep migrants out
- Serbia is on a shopping spree for weapons
- The strange French addiction to acronyms
- Russia’s once-tame Communist Party is becoming an opposition force
- Nuclear energy united Europe. Now it is dividing the club
From the October 30th 2021 edition
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Ursula von der Leyen has a new doctrine for handling the hard right
The boss of the European Commission embarks on a second term
Marine Le Pen spooks the bond markets
She threatens to bring down the French government, but also faces a possible ban from politics
The maths of Europe’s military black hole
It needs to spend to defend, but voters may balk
Ukraine’s warriors brace for a Kremlin surge in the south
Vladimir Putin’s war machine is pushing harder and crushing Ukrainian morale
Vladimir Putin fires a new missile to amplify his nuclear threats
The attack on Ukraine is part of a new era of missile warfare
A rise in antisemitism puts Europe’s liberal values to the test
The return of Europe’s oldest scourge