Turkey’s people deserve more than silence

The United States has long been willing to befriend unsavory foreign governments, sometimes with good reason. In a dangerous world, democracies cannot afford to alienate every nondemocracy. (Illustration by Rebecca Chew/The New York Times)

By The Editorial Board

The United States has long been willing to befriend unsavory foreign governments, sometimes with good reason. In a dangerous world, democracies cannot afford to alienate every nondemocracy. But any alliance with an autocratic regime requires at least a careful weighing of trade-offs. How valuable is the relationship to American interests? And how odious is the regime’s behavior?

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey has personified this dilemma for much of his 22 years in power. Turkey, at the crossroads of Europe, Asia and the Middle East, is an important American partner, with the second-largest military in NATO. Yet Turkey has been sliding toward autocracy over the past decade. Erdogan has changed its constitution to expand his power, brought the courts under his control, manipulated elections, purged professors, shut down media organizations and arrested journalists and protesters.

Last month, Erdogan took the assault on democracy to a new level. As dissatisfaction with his government grew, it detained his likely opponent in the next presidential election, Ekrem Imamoglu, the popular mayor of Istanbul, along with almost 100 of Imamoglu’s associates, on dubious charges. The arrests put Turkey on the path that Russia has traveled over the past two decades, in which a democratically elected leader uses the powers of his office to turn it into an autocracy. “This is more than the slow erosion of democracy,” Imamoglu wrote from Silivri Prison in these pages. “It is the deliberate dismantling of our republic’s institutional foundations.”

The response from the rest of the world has been weak. A short time after Imamoglu’s arrest, President Donald Trump said of Erdogan, “I happen to like him, and he likes me.” Many European leaders stayed quiet. The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, said only that the arrest was “deeply concerning.” There are no easy answers, given Turkey’s strategic importance and Erdogan’s grip on power. But the world’s democracies are getting the balance wrong. They can do more to support Turkey’s people and pressure Erdogan.

A crucial point is that Turkish voters seem to have tired of Erdogan. If elections were held today, Imamoglu would probably win, according to polls and political analysts. A self-described social democrat, Imamoglu, 54, is a member of the Republican People’s Party, which Mustafa Kemal Ataturk founded in 1919 as a resistance group and which later became the first governing party of the modern Turkish republic. The party is committed to a secular government for Turkey.

For all their differences — Imamoglu is a secular progressive, while Erdogan, 71, is a religious conservative — Imamoglu has the potential to be a version of what Erdogan once seemed to be: a pragmatic and popular Turkish leader who could provide stability at home while helping restrain conflicts of the Middle East. In his early years in power, Erdogan gathered a broad political coalition, brought the army officer corps under civilian control, grew the economy, fostered a moderate Islamism, tried to resolve a long conflict with the Kurdish minority and normalized relations with Greece, a neighbor and longtime rival. His approach prompted President George W. Bush and President Barack Obama to cultivate relationships with him.

Over time, though, Erdogan became more extreme, more corrupt and more focused on consolidating power. He took power in 2003 as prime minister and, after being elected president in 2014, moved to change the constitution to transfer power to that office. Since then, he has often prioritized his authority over everything else. “The healthy paranoia and self-confidence of a successful politician metastasized into egomania and vindictiveness,” Steven Cook of the Council on Foreign Relations has written. “He destroyed every institutional check and balance — such as they were — in the Turkish political system.” The arrest of Imamoglu is a sign that Erdogan aspires to be Turkey’s president indefinitely.

His next step toward that goal may be an attempt to avoid the term limits that would prevent him from running for reelection in 2028, when the next election is scheduled. He could do so by calling for earlier elections or changing the constitution again.

It is notable that Erdogan ordered his rival’s arrest only two months after Trump returned to the White House. Trump has shown disdain for democracy, both through his attempts to consolidate power at home and through his repeated praise for autocrats such as Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Trumpist view of the world is a version of might makes right, which emboldens like-minded leaders to use their own might to crush domestic opposition.

But Trump’s influence on Erdogan contains a silver lining: It is a sign that Erdogan can be affected by the attitudes of foreign governments. As with any country, Turkey needs to care about its relationships with the rest of the world. And other democracies, including the European nations, Canada, Japan and India, have reason to be unhappy with Erdogan’s recent moves. Even Trump has cause for concern.

Turkey’s drift toward Islamist extremism suggests that it could become another country that supports terrorism and threatens Israel. The most obvious potential for instability is in Syria, Turkey’s southern neighbor, which is trying to emerge from Bashar Assad’s dictatorship. In Europe, political leaders who are anxious about Putin’s ambitions and the rise of authoritarianism in Hungary should be worried that Turkey will become another sign that democracy is in retreat. Europe does have levers to influence Erdogan: Germany is Turkey’s largest trading partner, and several other Western European nations are not far behind.

By speaking up, these countries can make Erdogan’s life less comfortable. They can make clear that Turkey is risking cooperation on a wide range of issues that matter to it, such as trade, migration and military supplies. The rest of the world may not be able to prevent Turkey’s slide toward authoritarianism and extremism. But it should certainly try.

After Imamoglu’s arrest, hundreds of thousands of Turks filled streets with the largest protests in years. Doing so required courage. Authorities responded by arresting hundreds of protesters, many of whom are facing sham trials. Their bravery deserves more than global silence.