“Italy mafia”. “Mussolini dictator”. “Ankara’s tough reaction to Draghi”. But also: “The Italian premier said what everyone, even here, thinks and cannot say”. Turkey woke up today with a new crisis, and unfortunately it got used to it. For almost twenty years the country has been stressed by the disputes caused by its leader, and not a day goes by without a new open front.
This morning is Italy’s time. And the newspapers and online sites, 95 percent pro-government, carry the “shocking” words, as we read, of the Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi, “a makeshift prime minister”, comments the observant daily Yeni Safak. The institutional and government reactions were not long in coming. The main collaborators of the head of state, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, have shielded their president by focusing on an approach that is difficult to dismantle: regular elections are held in Turkey and our representatives are democratically elected.
But one thing is what the caste in power says, between institutions and the media. A high speech is the belly of the country. So, if you go to see social networks, those at least not yet silenced so far (many already are, but the Turks are a very creative people and have found alternative systems to communicate online), give the pulse of what emerges beyond official press releases. Users then indulge themselves in applauding “the Italian premier who finally told the truth”. And then: “Bravo Draghi”. “Someone in Europe realizes the reality of what is happening in Turkey”. “A free voice: Italy”. “Brave Dragons”. And, also, some worried “Now Turkey and Italy are at war”.
So there are those who go so far as to remember the times, just over twenty years ago, of the bitter confrontation on the Ocalan case. When between 1998 and 1999 the Kurdish leader and founder of the PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party), ousted from Syria where he had taken refuge in the war fought against the Turkish army in Anatolia, chose to go to Rome where he had just formed the red-green government of Massimo D’Alema. “Apo” was then described in the Istanbul newspapers as “the killer of children”, so journalists had to write every time they mentioned him. And in any case he was Ankara’s “enemy number one”. The result was a crisis with Rome which led to the almost breaking of diplomatic relations between the two countries, to a very difficult mending, to a Champions League match between Galatasaray and Juventus armored by tens of thousands of police forces in Istanbul with Giovanna Melandri and Piero Fassino as ambassadors, and the Italian companies that no longer sold a single wheel of tires (Pirelli, for example, through its representative).
Today there is a risk of a similar scenario, if the Italian apology does not arrive promptly through Draghi or the official ambassador to Ankara, Massimo Gaiani, immediately summoned on the same evening to the Turkish Foreign Ministry. However, it is unlikely that Italy, now also appreciated in Europe for the “frank” words expressed by its Prime Minister, will withdraw them. Community institutions must find unity, after the Ankara sofa-gate that has indignant the whole world, and the formidable quarrel between Ursula von der Leyen and Charles Michel as soon as they leave Erdogan’s room, dramatically delaying the next scheduled press conference. However, an internal solution will also have to be found in Rome, given that the Foreign Minister, Luigi Di Maio, was surprised by the premier’s words, which were never agreed with the Farnesina.
Draghi: “Erdogan is a dictator”. Lite Ankara-Roma on Von der Leyen
by Gabriella Colarusso
Another Turkish front is that of the opposition, composed therefore of the republicans of the CHP and the pro-Kurdish HDP, while the Nationalist Action Party MHP (composed of the fringes of gray wolves ready to remember in a few weeks the 40th anniversary of the attack on the Pope) is aligned with Erdogan’s positions, and indeed pushes him to more harsh statements. The Republicans have not expressed positions at the moment: Turkish observers note that the shock due to the recent end of the trial of the coup leaders with dozens of life sentences imposed, and the arrest of ten admirals who declared themselves opposed to the pharaonic project of Kanal Istanbul (a second Bosphorus), is strong, and the party does not react with other thoughts, including the pandemic and Turkey is very worried about it.
The video of the sofa-gate in Ankara: no honor chair for Von der Leyen, protocol machismo. The EPP: “Shame”
by our correspondent Alberto d’Argenio
Applause instead is gathered among the Kurds. The two co-leaders, a man and a woman, as per Kurdish tradition, of the Peoples’ Democratic Party, Pervin Buldan and Mithat Sancar, are watching international developments with attention and interest. Their formation risks closure, this is how Erdogan is planning, who fears their driving force in the elections, and a strong commitment also abroad can help a movement that strongly rejects accusations of terrorism and declares itself fully involved in democratic institutions. Even among the Kurds, Draghi is now welcome.
Sofa-gate, the leader of the Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament: “Michel acknowledge the mistake and apologize”
by our correspondent Alberto d’Argenio
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