Turkey Faces Political Uncertainty

At the Wall Street Journal, "Turkey Faces a New Political Reality":

ISTANBUL—The surprisingly weak showing by Turkey’s ruling party in parliamentary elections is raising the specter of protracted uncertainty for a key U.S. ally facing mounting economic and national security challenges.

Sunday’s election upset derailed President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s bid to transform Turkey’s government into a strong presidential system with him at its head.

It also left the party he led for more than a decade scrambling to find a coalition partner to form a governing majority from among three parties hostile to his aims, and Mr. Erdogan himself to try to wield power without a majority from a post that technically is largely ceremonial.

“It’s going to be much harder for him to get what he wants,” said Steven Cook, a Turkey analyst at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, noting he is weaker within his own country. “The language he’s used over the past couple of years has alienated Turkish voters.”

Some of Turkey’s Western allies welcomed the brake on Mr. Erdogan’s rapidly growing power; a European official hailed the vote as a check on “the increasing Putinization” of Turkey’s political system.

Diplomats said a more diverse parliament could reverse a deterioration of relations with the U.S. and other North Atlantic Treaty Organization partners as well as the European Union, which Ankara seeks to join.

“Politics will be messy and noisy. There are difficult economic issues, difficult regional issues…but I think the republic is well-poised now to deal with them,” said Francis Ricciardone, a former U.S. ambassador to Ankara now at the Atlantic Council, a think tank. “This will be good for Turkey.”

But the election result also has fed fears that a volatile period of fractious coalition governments could destabilize Turkey at a time of gathering threats including a slowdown in growth, the threat of Islamic State militants across its southern borders and fragile peace talks to end a three-decade Kurdish insurgency that has cost 30,000 lives.

In Washington, the State Department praised the high turnout in Turkey’s elections over the weekend. “The United States looks forward to working with the newly elected parliament and with the future government,” it said.

Current and former U.S. officials said Mr. Erdogan’s setback could force him to moderate his political rule and set a less controversial path on the global stage.

But it was unclear whether that will make him a better partner for Washington, particularly on policies relating to the battle against Islamic State and internal issues like press freedoms.

President Barack Obama signaled on Monday that the U.S.’s priority with Turkey will be that it do more to cut off militant fighters flowing into Syria. The U.S. believes most of the Islamic State’s foreign fighters enter Syria from Turkey.

“If we can cut off some of that foreign fighter flow, then we are able to isolate and wear out [Islamic State] forces that are already there,” Mr. Obama said at the Group of Seven leaders meeting in Germany. Turkey has dramatically boosted intelligence cooperation with its western partners since last summer and has deported some 1,200 suspected foreign fighters seeking to cross into Syria...

Still more.