Your trusted source

At the moment Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan is "increasingly becoming untenable" and is "certainly discredited to a considerable degree now," said in an interview to Voice of Russia Professor Dr. Thomas Diez. He commeted on the potential consequences of the high-level corruption scandal in Turkey. 

Dr. Thomas Diez is Professor of Political Science and International Relations at the University of Tübingen.

- Could you comment briefly on the potential consequences of the high-level corruption scandal in Turkey? Do you think it could undermine the rule of Prime Minister Recept Erdogan?

- I think it is certainly very dangerous at the moment. I think there is both disquiet within his own party, there is obviously a Gulen movement, that is quite influential. And then of course there is a general disquiet and people who were on the streets a year ago, they will now take this up and will try to make something out of this to get possibly rid of Erdogan.

- A few words, please, about the rift between Mr.Erdogan and Fethullah Gulen, a highly-influential Muslim cleric. Is it possible that Mr.Gulen was behind the anti-government corruption probe?

- We know that Gulen has a lot of influence over some of the secret service, of the intelligence services. It may possibly be that the fact that Erdogan is now trying to close some of his schools seems to be personal between the two. It seems that this may be behind this. I think though that whoever was behind this, if a religious government is facing such accusations, it is very dangerous for this government being dependent on whoever is behind the allegations.

- What’s the basic aim of the reshuffle campaign announced by Mr.Erdogan?

- Erdogan has to cleanse the government from some of the more problematic ministers. He needs to get rid of those who are accused, otherwise there is a dark shadow behind him. So, if you were Prime Minister, you would probably do the same. You would try to replace them.

- Is it going to affect the country’s foreign and domestic policy and the country’s image abroad? If so, how?

- I think the damage is done. I think at the moment Erdogan is increasingly becoming untenable and I don’t think that he will be able to stay in this position at least not after the next elections. I think whatever he does is going to be very difficult both inside and outside. He is certainly discredited to a considerable degree now through this. He has been able to hold on to his followers. His followers admire him, partly this is due to the economic vice of Turkey, but there are some signs that it may also not be sustainable, partly because of the observation he gets from some of the societies in the Middle East. But I think there is disquiet in Gezi Park movement protest that we had in the last year, starting out in Istanbul, but there’s a lot of disquiet amongst the population of Turkey, and in addition to this now there is accusations rivalry and if half of it turns out to be true, then this will certainly be a problem within an Islamic government.

- You’ve just mentioned there is going to be a problem within the Islamic government. What do you mean by this problem? How is that going to look?

- We already saw that there are ministers within the government who would have liked Erdogan to have responded differently. He’s removed 400 policemen from Istanbul police, he has accused foreign powers of having infiltrators in Turkey. He should rather look at what is happening and try to lean back a bit and say, we’ve got to let the judiciary do what they have to do. We’ve got to try to clear this up and to see what is behind this. At the moment he is behaving in a way that he has unfortunately behaved in the past, that he thinks everything that the judiciary does or the journalists do that may be interpreted against him. He is actually personally against him and that is the way that he is behaving. I think that will cause disquiet within the government increasingly because that provides a reason for those outside the government, for those who are in the opposition, for those who are in the civil society movements, who have tried now to protest against the government. That gives them new power, new force. I also think that bribery from an Islamic point of view is very difficult charge. I do think that that will cause problems within a very pious society that is supported the AKP government at the moment.