Cyprus-Forum.com

[miltiades]

I found this part of his speech rather amusing, or is it ?
In his speech he said:
"Today, not only those who love us, but also those who don't have won."

Well, we the Cypriot people do not love either you or Turkey, we would perhaps if you pulled your occupying troops out of our northern parts. Have we ...won ?

For reasons that I shall not elaborate right now, I'm pleased that Erdogan has won another 5 years. Much will happen over the next few years in the troubled region where everyone is at everyone's throat .

Libya, Iraq, Syria, Gaza, maybe Lebanon soon, as well as other ME nations have a very tough time ahead.

The solution to their problem which causes the death of thousands is staring them in the face, but they are unable to see it, I don't think they will ever see it.

"Once embraced by the West as a prime minister who could combine Islam and democracy, Mr Erdogan has since drifted into isolation.

Relations with Europe and the US have deteriorated, and tensions were exacerbated recently when he accused Israel of "genocide… reminiscent of the Holocaust" during the Gaza crisis.


His backing for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt has put him in conflict with the new government in Cairo.

His support for the Syrian opposition has led to charges that he is allowing jihadi groups to flood Turkey's borders"

[Tim Drayton]

It is a sad day for those of us who support secularism as a universal value.

[miltiades]

It is a sad day for those of us who support secularism as a universal value.

For the last 10 or so years Turkeys direction has been the Islamic path. I dont think Turkey will revert to secularism any time soon.

[kurupetos]

It is a sad day for those of us who support secularism as a universal value.

For the last 10 or so years Turkeys direction has been the Islamic path. I dont think Turkey will revert to secularism any time soon.

Good.

[GreekIslandGirl]

He clearly represents the people of Turkey and how they want to appear to the rest of the world. After all his dictatorial over-reactions to protesters and political bluffs and blunders, the Turkish people still think he represents them. So, that's how the Turkish people are - madly religious, happy to live in the past and suppress freedom for individuals!

Good luck to them but I wish someone would hurry up and remove these anachronists from occupying Cyprus.

[kurupetos]

He clearly represents the people of Turkey and how they want to appear to the rest of the world. After all his dictatorial over-reactions to protesters and political bluffs and blunders, the Turkish people still think he represents them. So, that's how the Turkish people are - madly religious, happy to live in the past and suppress freedom for individuals!

Good luck to them but I wish someone would hurry up and remove these anachronists from occupying Cyprus.

Sooner than you hope.

[supporttheunderdog]

He clearly represents the people of Turkey and how they want to appear to the rest of the world. After all his dictatorial over-reactions to protesters and political bluffs and blunders, the Turkish people still think he represents them. So, that's how the Turkish people are - madly religious, happy to live in the past and suppress freedom for individuals!

Good luck to them but I wish someone would hurry up and remove these anachronists from occupying Cyprus.

I will join you whole heartedly. At the same time as a part of a comprehensive settlement I say the SBA should be abolished. They too are anachronistic.

[Nikitas]

GIG, women should know their place and are not allowed to laugh, nor presumably post on the net. Get in line with the new dogma according to Erdo. Ah yes, and must have more kids, none of this 2 and stop stuff.

And TCs are, according to him always, are parasites and therefore not entitled to talk.

Interesting times lie ahead.

[Tim Drayton]

The Guardian view on Recep Tayyip Erdogan: presidential overreach

The president-elect wants to embed his power through a new constitution. He may have overestimated his support

If you watch Turkish television you can’t escape Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the prime minister for the last 11 years, and now president-elect. Channel switching brings no relief. He is somehow always the man of the hour. Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, his main opponent in the recent presidential elections, complained sadly that state TV ran 553 minutes of Mr Erdogan’s campaign speeches, compared to three minutes of his.

During that campaign, Mr Erdogan, although there was never the slightest possibility he would lose, deployed all the advantages of incumbency without hesitation: direct or indirect control of most of the media, access to the financial resources of a business elite which has prospered under his rule, government transport, the support of stars and celebrities. He is not a man to ignore a sledgehammer, if there is one to hand. He is now giving more heavily televised speeches again, calling on the ruling Justice and Development party, or AKP, to work for a stronger parliamentary majority in general elections next year so that the constitution can be changed to create an executive presidency. The contradiction is that Mr Erdogan has been elected to a post to which the Turkish constitution assigns very limited powers. The president is supposed to be above party, there are ceremonial duties, and in certain political situations there is an expectation that he will be a neutral arbiter. This of course is not what he has in mind.

The same constitution also meant that he could not have another new term as prime minister so, like Mr Putin in a similar situation, he wants to take his powers with him. To be fair, he campaigned on that basis. The plan is to win enough seats in general elections next year, which must be held before June, to change the constitution, upgrading Mr Erdogan’s new job and downgrading that of whoever is the prime minister at the time of the change. In the interim, however, Mr Erdogan is not going to be wasting his time cutting ribbons on bridges.

He intends instead to exercise the president’s right, rarely used in the past, to call cabinet meetings and so maintain his grip on affairs. He will be, he says, an active president. Whether there is a reasonable argument that Turkey should move from a parliamentary to a presidential system has never been properly debated. This is not about the best constitutional arrangements for the country but about the best constitutional arrangements for Mr Erdogan. He has been the unchallenged boss of Turkish politics for 11 years, and he wants to continue in that role.

On the face of it, he should get his way. He controls the state apparatus, he has curbed the military and cowed the judiciary, and his friends in business and the media give him strong support. His appeal to a religiously and socially conservative constituency in rural areas or newly settled in the cities is undiminished. He brought that “new class” properly into politics, both aiding and benefiting from its fuller enfranchisement.

But now there is another new class. This is not the old secular elite of westernised Turks, although it includes them, but a wider and still amorphous liberal grouping which Mr Erdogan met and failed to vanquish, except in the immediate physical sense, during the protests over Gezi Park.

Nearly half of Turks did not vote for him in this last election, nor did they in the two elections before it. Mr Erdogan may well have hit his ceiling. This other Turkey is alienated by Mr Erdogan’s autocratic methods, alive to ecological issues, opposed to the over-development which is wrecking beautiful districts, dismayed by the AKP’s views on the role of women, and ashamed of the fact that Turkey is the world’s leading jailer of journalists.

It has yet to find a clear political expression but it will sooner or later do so. A leader of a different ilk than Mr Erdogan might have been able to meet it halfway. But all his instincts push him in the opposite direction. And that, in the end, may be his undoing.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre ... -overreach

[B25]

The US created this Frankenstein, and this monster is going to turn on its creator. Pass the pop corn!