Transcript
MARK PARRIS: I cannot think of a more dramatic set of circumstances than those Turkey has faced since March of this year, when a state prosecutor asked the Constitutional Court to close down the ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP, for being, and these are terms of art, “a focal point of efforts to change the secular nature of the Republic.” As it became clear that AKP might actually be closed down, the case drew a lot of international press attention, and the press tended to describe it in fairly hyperbolic terms -- a battle for Turkey’s soul; a judicial coup d'état; the last gasp of the deep state.
The face-off spooked international markets and called into question the notion that Turkey's impressive growth of the past few years have made it immune from political risks. At one point, the Istanbul stock market dropped by 30 percent. If it were possible, the case became even more opaque for a lot of Turkish observers, when a separate legal process, an investigation into alleged ultra-nationalist plans to destabilize the country, broke into public view.
The coincidence of the AKP case and the so-called Ergenekon, in terms of timing, raised profound questions of a possible linkage. I think it's safe to say, as we begin our session this afternoon, that this whole period has helped honest observers realize how imperfect is our understanding of the wellsprings of Turkish political culture. And if that is true, last week's decision to leave the AKP open, but with the machinery of punishment hanging over the party like a Damoclean sword, can only have deepened our sense of humility.
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