The ongoing violence in Istanbul’s Taksim Square, where protesters have been demonstrating against Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is a sign that no nation in the volatile Middle East, including Turkey, long considered a stable NATO ally, is immune from popular protest.

Erdogan, who has led the Turkish government for the past decade and is responding to these peaceful protests with overwhelming force, is facing the most serious and public challenge to his leadership since he first took office.  In the past three years, Erdogan has attempted to increase his influence in the Middle East, moving from Turkey’s long-standing positive ties with the State of Israel to his backing of the ill-fated “Gaza Flotilla” in which he organized and financed an attempt to run the blockade of the Gaza Strip. When Israeli troops intercepted the ships, a melee ensued, notably on the Mavi Marmara, sailing under Turkish flag, in which IDF forces were attacked with knives and metal batons. Some nine Turkish nationals, including one with dual Turkish-American citizenship, were killed in what became a bitterly divisive incident that strained Turkey’s relations with Israel.

More recently, Erdogan sent an official delegation to the Gaza Strip to cement his ties to the radical Hamas regime, which has backed rocket attacks against Israel. Secretary of State John Kerry has tried, thus far without material success, to patch things up between Erdogan and Israel, even extracting an “apology” by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the Gaza Flotilla incident.  Erdogan had been expected to ease tensions with Israel and resume the cordial cooperation that had existed for decades between Israel and the Turkish military; thus far there is scant evidence that Erdogan has fulfilled his part of the bargain.

In the ongoing current crisis over Erdogan’s plans to take over the popular Gezi Park in Taksim Square, Erdogan may have at last been given the splash of cold water to snap him out of his malevolence abroad and pay closer attention to domestic issues.  At first, Erdogan denounced the peaceful protesters as the work of “looters and thugs,” but after days of violence, which have caused tourists to flee from the capital city, he has agreed to a “dialogue” with some of the protest leaders.

In the clashes with Erdogan’s security forces, three people have been killed and more than 2,300 have been injured, in protests that New York Times reporter Sebnem Arsu said “revealed some deep-seated resentment toward Mr. Erdogan.”  

The original intent of the demonstrators was to save Gezi Park, which Erdogan’s government intends to develop into a shopping mall.  The demonstrations escalated when riot police officers used tear gas and water cannons to disperse participants.  Now, according to Arsu’s reporting, the protesters have widened their grievances into a “broad rebuke of what they consider the authoritarian style of Mr. Erdogan and his political party, which is supported by religious conservatives in Turkey.”

Erdogan should pay even closer attention to regional politics. He has only to look back about two years to the onset of the “Arab Spring” and take note of what happened to President Zine Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia, who was forced into exile in Saudi Arabia after protests over the death of a fruit vendor escalated into general attacks on his regime.  He can also consider the fate of former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who was forced to resign after a 30-year autocratic reign in Cairo.  Mubarak is serving a life sentence for his role in ordering his troops to crack down on demonstrators in Tahrir Square.  Or Erdogan can ponder the fate of former Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi, who was not only ousted from power, but executed summarily by one of his own citizens.

Turkey is a key NATO ally and its stability is essential to preventing the already explosive Middle East from totally spiraling out of control.  We hope that Erdogan’s “dialogue” with protest leaders is sincere and will lead to a cessation of the violence and to the cancellation of his ill-advised plan to destroy a beloved city park in Istanbul.  If he fails to respond positively to the legitimate concerns of his own people, he might face a similar threat to his power as that of some of his former neighboring leaders.  Let’s hope he gets the message.

Additional Reading:

• Turkey is no caliphate, Erdogan no dictator, Haroon Siddiqui, Toronto Star, June 6

(http://goo.gl/8SOsN)

• Turkey protests test Obama’s ties with Erdogan, June 11, Yahoo News (AP) (http://goo.gl/HU866)

•No more tolerance for protests”: June 11, Majid Mohamed, The Independent (http://goo.gl/gERci)