Today’s Zaman, 17 November 2013
In June 2008, European social democrats coming together in Athens invited the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) to become a member of the Socialist International (SI), the world’s umbrella organization of socialist and labor parties.
In response, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan asked them to first expel the Republican People’s Party (CHP). This exchange came after European socialists had accused the CHP of pursuing a tutelage democracy in Turkey and claiming that the CHP does not have a “socialist agenda” at all.
Five years later, the CHP hosted an SI meeting in İstanbul on Nov. 11-12, 2013. In this meeting, many criticisms were levied against the AK Party, especially over its so-called undemocratic way of handling the Gezi protests in the summer of 2013. What does this striking transformation say to us about power relations in Turkey?
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