Galery

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In practice, what we feared for years happened in Turkey. There were at least two ways to complete the democratization of society. The first was that this would happen with the participation of the people and without the dependence of the process on economic indicators. The second was democratization through strong economic development based on economic indicators that ignore a large part of society. The second scenario happened. Turkey is about to become an Asian "miracle", where the focus is on the development, and the construction of large shopping centres and the record rise in the financial market are considered as progress, but social harmony is not taken into account. The Turkish society has lost its harmony and the latest developments are the result of this process. Societies lose their harmony not only in terms of poverty, but also in terms of prosperity.

Is there a political alternative to the ruling party in Turkey?

I do not think the Kurds could work together with the Republican People's Party, which has not been paying any attention to them for decades.

Currently, the ruling party has no alternative that can form a cabinet. For better or worse, the answer for the alternative is inside the same party and this is not strange . Inside the party, there are people such as President Abdullah Gul, whom even voters of other parties like better than the Prime Minister. By this, I mean that the power of the party may have lost its legitimacy in the face of Erdogan but there are other people inside it who can take it forward in a new direction.

Furthermore, a huge part of the population voted for the Justice and Development Party (AKP) and now, these people are silent. When it comes to elections, they will go to the polls and vote again for the AKP. They are not interested in the events because they live well and the only thing they care about is to become a conservative middle class. They have already fulfilled this dream, they feel good and do not care about the things that we are discussing. I am not saying that they are the majority but certainly, they are a very big part of Turkish society.

Are the allegations that the Turkish Prime Minister is trying to revive the Ottoman Empire grounded and to what extent? Do you see such points in his policy?

I think that this is happening more at a verbal level than in practice. It is a kind of ostentation and aesthetics and there are his attempts to make the Turks feel proud, but this is not much different from similar actions taken by the leaders of other countries.

Proof of this is the great fiasco with Syria. Even if he had some aspirations for something like this, they were suspended after the failure as regards Syria, the dust of which has not yet subsided despite the efforts of the cabinet.

If Erdogan wanted to become a sultan, he should have invaded Syria a year ago, he should have conquered it to prove that this was his plan. I do not think that he was planning something like that and he could not do so. All this remains at an aesthetical level and rests on glorifying a glorious past. Moreover, this is good for him because this undermines the rhetoric of the Republican People's Party on Ataturk and democracy.