President Erdoğan took the opportunity to slam the United States during his visit to the Istanbul office of the nationalist Grey Wolves. He referred to the visit of the US Ambassador to CHP leader Kılıçdaroğlu, his presidential rival, at the CHP headquarters. However, not only the US but also many ambassadors from Russia to Qatar already visited Kılıçdaroğlu. (Photo: Twitter/@trthaber)
Until last week, President Tayyip Erdoğan had not been utilising the US-bashing discourse. The foreign policy items such as demand for the F-16 fighter jets, the YPG issue in Syria, and the $100 billion trade volume prevented him from using the anti-US rhetoric that would have cemented his image as a world leader in the eyes of his loyal supporters during the elections. But last week, something happened that made him stop holding back: He seized the opportunity when he visited Grey Wolves’ one of the representatives of ultra-nationalism in Türkiye.
On April 2, during his visit to Grey Wolves’ Istanbul branch, the President found the opportunity to slam the US Ambassador to Ankara, Jeff Flake, and said that “the presidency had closed its doors to the ambassador.”
The reason was US Ambassador Flake’s visit to the Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader and the opposition coalition’s presidential candidate, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu at the CHP headquarters on March 29.
A message to the ambassador
“We need to teach America a lesson in these elections,” the President said and addressed the wolves, who are banned from speaking about the murder of their former chair, Sinan Ateş.
” What does Biden’s ambassador here do? He goes and visits Mr. Kemal. Shame on you. Use your intelligence a little. You are the ambassador. Your interlocutor here is the President.”
“How will you ask for an appointment with the President after this? Our doors are closed to him, you will never see him again. Why? You (Flake) should know your place. You should know your duty as an ambassador. You should learn how an ambassador works. If you don’t learn this, this door is not an ordinary door, and you cannot enter.”
Erdoğan had previously imposed this ban on another US ambassador during his rule. Ambassador Eric Edelman was unable to get an appointment with Erdoğan, who was the prime minister at the time, for months during tensions over the invasion of Iraq, and he withdrew in mid-2005.
I don’t know what Flake said when he read these words, but it is not hard to imagine that Murat Mercan, Turkey’s ambassador to Washington, who has to knock on every door for Türkiye’s demands, is not over the moon.
The agenda to slam the US
It is not hard to understand that Erdoğan’s decision to use Flake’s visit to Kılıçdaroğlu as an opportunity to hit out at the United States was made in anticipation of the May 14 elections.
“We need to teach America a lesson,” he said, and he did not stop there either:
“That is why, God willing, we are preparing well for May 14th, we are working hard. By the grace of God, we have more than 6 million young people. The stance of these young people in the elections is very, very important.”
It is also possible to translate it as follows: “The economic crisis has devastated you young people. Those of you who do not have support from higher places were either forced to work for a pittance or left unemployed. But you see, America is against us, if you vote for me in the election, we will defeat the USA”.
Will it work? It might work to some extent. It might influence some young people who have grown up in a political environment where only Erdoğan has been presented as the state and the country for twenty years. He thinks it would be profitable to influence as many young people as possible. It is with this calculation that Erdoğan, on the one hand, partnered with HÜDA-PAR and, on the other hand, made a speech at the Grey Wolves’ Heart to use the anti-US rhetoric.
President Erdoğan was disturbed by the visit of US Ambassador Flake (second from left) to his rival Kılıçdaroğlu at the CHP headquarters. Ten days earlier, Flake had met with AKP Deputy Chairman Numan Kurtulmus at the party headquarters. (Photo: Twitter/@secimtr2023)
Russia’s timing is significant
On April 3, a day after Erdogan used Flake’s visit to Kılıçdaroğlu as an opportunity to slam the US, a Turkish delegation left for Moscow. It is headed by Deputy Foreign Minister Burak Akçapar. They will discuss the Turkish-Syrian rapprochement with their Russian, Syrian, and Iranian counterparts. If they agree, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, who accompanied Emine Erdogan to New York last week to speak at a UN meeting, will hold the same talks at his level.
“Wait a minute,” you might object, “didn’t Syrian President Bashar al-Assad say after his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on March 16 that he would only meet with Erdoğan if the Turkish troops withdrew from Syria?” Yes, he did. But the talks are taking place.
Russia makes no secret of the fact that it wants Erdogan to stay in power, but it doesn’t count as foreign intervention as long as it works in Erdogan’s favour. The Russian Ambassador to Ankara, Alexei Yerkhov, who met with the press recently, said that “some military-technical issues” also play a role in Russia’s view of the elections. This meant whether Turkey’s programme to purchase S-400 missiles from Russia would continue. (By the way, I learned that Flake did not specifically ask Kılıçdaroğlu about the S-400.)
Will the Presidency also be closed to the Russian ambassador?
Of course, it would have been better for Erdoğan if Kılıçdaroğlu and Flake had met at a dinner or something like that; all the partisan press headlines would have said “clandestine meeting,” “Kılıçdaroğlu had instructed,” or something like that. But he visited him at the CHP headquarters.
Perhaps in the following days he will ask for a meeting with the other presidential candidates, Muharrem İnce and Sinan Oğan, pay them a visit, and ask them about their foreign policy, in particular the lines they will follow in their relations with the US if elected.
But when Flake asked Erdoğan for an appointment, Erdoğan said he would no longer grant it.
This brings to mind another question.
Would Erdoğan, like the US ambassador, get angry at all the ambassadors who came to visit Kılıçdaroğlu and close the doors of the Presidential Residency?
For example, Russian Ambassador Yerkhov? Because he also visited Kılıçdaroğlu at the CHP headquarters. So did Chinese Ambassador Liu Shaobin and Qatari Ambassador Mohammed Cesim al-Sani.
Kılıçdaroğlu’s Chief Foreign Policy Advisor Ünal Çeviköz has the full list, anyone can ask: From the EU Permanent Representative to the British, German, French, and Israeli ambassadors, many ambassadors representing their countries in Ankara visited Kılıçdaroğlu at the CHP headquarters. Perhaps Erdoğan does not want other ambassadors to be seen at the CHP during the election process.
But according to Erdoğan, to slam other countries does not bring votes, only to slam the US and Western Europeans do. This is the agenda.
