There is an idiom in German, which says, “I think I am in the wrong movie” (Ich glaube ich bin im falschen Film) to describe a situation, which is totally incomprehensible and nonsensical. This idiom describes exactly the position of Europe, especially Germany, but also the position other pro-PKK European politicians and countries take currently on issues concerning Turkey.

Imagine there is a newspaper in your country (here the daily newspaper Cumhuriyet), which leaks official secrets on its front page. It is indeed an opposition media organization, but this does not matter in this case at all. Besides, the so-called leaked information is more a defamation against the state than representation of the truth. It was a story about trucks used by the MIT (National Intelligence Service of Turkey). The trucks were on a secret mission carrying humanitarian aid to displaced people in Syria.

The state of course investigated the responsible people, especially the editor-in-chief of the newspaper, Can Dündar. However, foreign diplomats, the representatives of various nations in Turkey, attended the trial and took group selfies to show support for Dündar. This behaviour does not meet international standards of diplomacy. What is more, recently Germany gave him citizenship out of a clear blue sky. Since then, Can Dündar has been honoured with an award for freedom from the city government of Paris. It is also worth pointing out that he won a Freedom of Press Award.

If Dündar is a journalist, then, one wonders why Edward Snowden is charged with treason. Instead of being honoured with a German citizenship and awarded with a freedom of speech award, Snowden is imprisoned in an embassy for years without any attention from Western state leaders. Quite tragic. If Snowden could succeed at just being enough anti-Erdoğan and leaking things putting his personality or the Turkish government in a tight spot, he could have higher chances of being embraced by Germany. Pity for him.

Yet, what are we supposed to do with ethical journalism when it comes to leaking official secrets? Is the leaking of official secrets something that be considered part of the freedom of the press? It is doubtful. If the criminal act committed by Dündar is considered a matter of freedom of press, then, how should we evaluate Snowden’s case?

Germany, in fact, generally seems to have no problem receiving all kinds of people looking to thwart democratically elected governments, including coup plotters, with open arms.

Firstly, the man now referred to as President of Egypt, General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, has been welcomed as a “democrat.”  Sisi got no private lessons on democracy and human rights from top German officials, as it is often done enthusiastically with Turkish president Erdoğan. It seems like Germany has sometimes a problem with elected presidents when it comes to coup plotters. Besides, el-Sisi has been “democratized” with a magic wand, namely a newspaper article by Germany. The same magicians apparently work to make a dictator out of Erdoğan through media coverage. That is not how it should work with democracy and dictatorship.

Take for instance the case of FETO (Fetullah Gülen Terror Organization). Western countries again seem to be failing at taking the right position and supporting democracy, liberty, and freedom in Turkey. Germany opened its arms to the coup plotters, allowing them to remain in the country and seek political asylum. So, what was the fault of Syrian refugees? Was it that they were running for their lives and sought shelter in Europe?

The PKK and its affiliated terrorist organizations are responsible for at least 7 suicide attacks in the last two years in Turkey, and have killed more than 600 people, 377 of them from security forces. In the midst of intensified PKK violence, the HDP co-chair Figen Yüksekdağ said their party “leans on the PYD”, the Syrian branch of the PKK.  HDP co-chair Selahattin Demirtaş openly praised an independent Kurdistan in Turkey and said, “There will be the reality of Kurdistan in the next century.”

HDP lawmakers also apparently never see any harm in attending PKK terrorists’ funerals. There is clear evidence that HDP MPs and municipalities backed PKK terrorists. Consequently, they lost their immunity and then now face legal prosecution.

Unsurprisingly, Germany was very reactionary, eager and supportive of the HDP politicians turning a deaf ear and blind eye to their ties to PKK.

Does it still make sense to re-emphasize that the PKK is listed as a terrorist organization by several states and organizations, including NATO, the European Union, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany. A differentiation between “my terrorist” and “your terrorist” does not help to build world peace. Nor representing the operations against the PKK and its supporters as violations against the Kurdish people.

We believe we are in the wrong movie. The supposedly universal standards of democracy are upside down and hardly recognizable. A democratic state taking a hard line with terrorists and coup plotters is accused of being undemocratic, while criminals are welcomed and praised in Western democracies.

Yet there was a moment, back in 2009, when in his Cairo speech Obama talked about supporting the Arab people’s pleas for democracy in the Middle East, and hence made promises in this regard. However, in the aftermath of the Arab revolutions, the Obama administration preferred to move on by neglecting Middle Eastern affairs via its leading from behind strategy. That is why, several years later, Obama’s Cairo speech has left the Middle East – and the Arab World in general – in total disarray. Hence, it was no surprise to see the waves of the Arab Spring revolutions very rapidly taken hostage, either by new counter-revolutions that were led by military tutelage systems like in Egypt, or by the rise of failed states in places like Syria and Libya etc. These failing states in the region soon became the main causes of the enduring civil wars in places like Syria and Libya, and naturally this instability has once again been easily seized upon by the radical terrorist groups that arose in those weakened states.

Turkey’s stance when Obama delivered his Cairo speech in 2009 has converged with his promises made to Arab peoples’ desires in the direction of democracy, but this situation of convergence between the two sides about the prospects for the Middle East in general – and Syria in particular –soon diverged on certain crucial points.

While 2015 was an exceptional time, during which hope was aroused between Washington and Ankara as the two sides signed a deal for the use of Incilik airbase against DAESH. In return, Turkey had expected the US firstly to accept Ankara’s offer of creating a safe zone in the northern part of Syria, and secondly that it would stop its given and continuing support to the PYD, an offshoot of the PKK in Syria.

Despite the existence of the 2015 deal and Turkey’s warnings about the PYD, American promises made before the Menbic operation that Washington would not allow the PYD to cross over to the western part of the Euphrates river have so far not been fully met. That is why Turkey considered that launching the Euphrates Shield Operation was a real necessity to stop the two terrorist threats that are now emanating from Syria as direct threat to its own survival. It was alarming for Turkey to observe that DAESH’s retreat along Turkey’s southern border in Syria in the last couple of years was soon allowed to be filled by the PYD, another dangerous terrorist organization.

In the aftermath of the 2003 Iraqi invasion, Washington has been acting in the Middle East under the influence of a viewpoint that assumes the Middle East cannot be fixed, that the borders drawn after Sykes-Picot are unsustainable, and hence powers like US should not take all the responsibility of policing the region except in two instances; terrorism and the possible cut to the flow of oil.

In the last six years, while trying to fight against DAESH in places like the Middle East, Washington has preferred to cooperate with non-state terrorist groups like the PYD in Syria. In the Iraqi case, it is cooperating both with Shia militias – like Hasdi Shabi – and supporting the stationing of PKK groups in Sincar. Washington’s different alignments in the Syrian and Iraqi cases have surely increased the pace of the disintegration process that is already happening in these countries.

It is quite awkward that Western democracies in association with the Middle East are acting with the utmost pragmatism and doing everything to assure the international community that Islam and democracy cannot exist in this region, despite the wishes of the Arab peoples themselves.

Instead of supporting democratic models to sustain here, they are now presenting several models of fragmented state, in which one can find small statelets based on either ethnic or religious homogeneity, as the new prefiguration of the new Middle East.

However, because of the current fault lines present in the fragmented situations both in Syria and Iraq, and due to the forced migration and other oppressive methods that led to the displacement of people, the continuation of bloody wars seems certain unless they are given permission to return back. If not prevented, this chaotic picture is very much likely to give way to the complete disintegration of these countries. This likely chaos in the region is then expected to take many years, if not decades, during which time the people of this region will surely be deprived of democracy.

Unfortunately, the current US plans to redesign the Middle East with a divide-and-rule principle go back to the 2003 Iraqi intervention, and even further back, to the 1990s. Today’s fragmented and weakening central states in the Middle East are certainly the real evidence before us. This American preference for the Middle East is creating a real threat to regional stability as well as to Turkey’s security, because the US’s help for the PYD in Syria is not only giving these groups more fighting power but also strengthening the terrorist campaign that the PKK is waging against Turkey.

Moreover, this American assistance to the PYD in Syria is also fueling the division of the country by helping the set-up of a PKK-based Kurdish state in northern Syria across the border from Turkey. This is surely putting the future territorial sovereignty and integrity of Syria at risk.

The US’s efforts to support the PYD under the myth that it was the only capable fighting force on the ground has come to an end with the successful Euphrates Shield Operation of the Turkish Armed Forces and Free Syrian Army (FSA).

In the Syrian case before and during the Mosul operation, Turkey has developed serious security concerns due to the Americans’ behavior at the inception of the push to end the occupation of the city by DAESH. Ankara, from the beginning of the preparations for the Mosul operations, has made clear that she wouldn’t give up her existing base in Bashika and would take part via Ninova Keepers forces at the Mosul battle on the ground, as well as in the diplomatic negotiations regarding the future of Iraq’s territorial integrity.

Turkey’s legitimate warnings regarding the Mosul operation now seem to have been partially considered by the Obama administration. However, it is certain that Ankara, as in the case of Syria, is convinced to step up war against terrorist groups like DAESH and the PKK that have bases in Iraq. So, Turkey is keen to see what the US’s next move will be in the face of Turkey’s legitimate concerns about Syria and Iraq, especially in the wake of the Mosul Operation.

Amid the West’s projected plan that was outlined above, Turkey certainly stands out as a country that is capable of constantly adapting itself to the changing geopolitical conditions that surround it. Especially after seeing the West’s rejection of Turkey’s legitimate concerns about the developments both in Syria and Iraq, and after having left her alone in the fact of both soft and hard security threats emanating from these places, it recently decided to change its security paradigm.

First, Ankara’s 65th government, in line with the new contours of its foreign policy has decided to diversify its relations with both near and distant countries, reaching out to Israel, Russia, and Egypt over points of commonality. Turkey, before launching its Euphrates Shield Operation, has benefited a lot from these newly normalized relations. And it still does.

So far, Ankara’s operation has proceeded with great success in Syria, where DAESH has been cleared along its southern borders in an area about 100 km deep. Ankara, which has heard many times of Washington’s unfulfilled pledges that the PYD group would not be given permission to cross West of the Euphrates river, is now determined to meet the security threats beyond its borders, wherever they arise, and can hence be expected to act preventatively. But on the other hand, the Turkish Government is also very much serious about the preservation of the territorial integrity of both Syria and Iraq. Having experienced the failed coup of 15th July, Ankara is ready to continue defending the value of democracy at home.

Moreover, Turkey is even more prepared to see her neighbors pass on to practicing democratic governance, following the clearance of their homeland from occupation by all terrorist groups, thus giving way to the return of the groups who had been displaced by terrorist groups. On the night of 15th of July, when Ankara stood bravely with the Turkish people against the plotters, has helped to refute the stereotypical viewpoint that Islam cannot live with democracy. Hence, I fully share the viewpoint of many Turkish people that the Middle East sooner or later will eventually get a democracy established as the natural reflection of the people’s consent and will.

Fourth, there are two main options for Turkish-American relations going forward.  First, the United States may convincingly demonstrate that it will not employ the Gülenists, or any other similar instrument, to exert influence in the Turkish military, bureaucracy, judiciary, media, and politics-at-large. Exerting such influence through covert networks is against the spirit of a genuine “alliance” between two sovereign political entities. According to leading Turkish policy-makers, including President Erdoğan and Prime Minister Yıldırım, the minimum prerequisite for the pursuit of this option seems to be the extradition of Fethullah Gülen from the United States to Turkey, which would signal the willingness of the United States to recalibrate bilateral relations as a genuine alliance.

The second option is the breakup of the Turkish-American alliance, and Turkey’s realignment with one or several other great powers to balance against the United States, since the United States would then be reclassified as a hostile power for sheltering Gülen and the leading Gülenists, who are implicated in the failed coup plot. Moreover, the United States may even be designated as the foreign state sponsor of Gülenist terrorism against Turkey. Russia, Brazil, Iran, Saudi Arabia, China, Pakistan, and France are among the many middle or great powers with which Turkey has established amicable relations, at least for a limited time (in the case of Russia and Iran), under AK Party governments since 2002. Russia is the most likely and nearby great power with which Turkey may seek to build such a balancing coalition in the near future. Turkish Eurasianists, an ideologically pro-Russian group composed of Kemalists, Maoists, and other leftist nationalists, have advocated such a pro-Russian reorientation in Turkish foreign policy for almost the past two decades, as I argued and demonstrated in my articles in Turkish Studies(2015) and in Ab Imperio (2004). However, pro-Russian sympathies go far beyond this radical intellectual movement in Turkey after the failed military coup, for various reasons.

Russian President Putin was the first major world leader to call President Erdoğan on the day after the military coup attempt to state his support for the democratically elected government of Turkey, and Russia is the first country to which Erdoğan will be paying an official visit since the coup. These two observations alone are indicative of a palpable pro-Russian reorientation after the coup. There are even reports, emphatically accepted and circulated by some Turkish journalists, that Russian intelligence warned Erdoğan just hours before the impending coup, even though there is no official verification of these reports. Moreover, the Turkish pilots who shot down a Russian bomber aircraft in November 24, 2015, which brought Turkey and Russia to the brink of war, have been taken into custody as suspects in the Gülenist conspiracy. This incident is cited as evidence of Gülenists deliberately trying to instigate a military conflict between Russia and Turkey, in the service of US interests.

Fifth, any new alliance that Turkey may form with another great power, including Russia, is unlikely to be as asymmetric and as exclusive as the Turkish-American alliance has been since Turkey’s entry into NATO in 1952. There is at least one objective and one subjective/attitudinal reason for this. Objectively, there is no other great power whose military economic capabilities would massively overshadow Turkey’s capabilities as do those of the United States. Thus, if a Turkish-Russian alliance was to be established, for example, the difference in bilateral military economic capabilities would not be as incomparable or as asymmetric as the difference in bilateral capabilities in the Turkish-American alliance. I have argued elsewhere that the military economic capability gap between Russia and Turkey closed considerably with the dissolution of the Soviet Union, only to widen somewhat with the rise in oil prices in the early 2000s. Subjectively, if Turkish-American alliance breaks up precisely because of the anti-American public opinion that the asymmetry of this alliance engendered over time, it is unlikely that the Turkish public opinion would be convinced to be part of another asymmetric alliance.

Finally, despite all of the above, it is still more likely, for structural reasons and simple path dependence, that the Turkish-American alliance will persist after a lengthy and tortuous renegotiation, in which significant political capital will have to be spent on both sides of the Atlantic. If such a renegotiation of the alliance succeeds, in the end, Turkey will continue to be a key US ally as it has been since 1952, but Turkey’s status within the Western alliance might then resemble that of France, a country that has been a US ally but with a set of preferences and priorities that differ significantly from the United States in certain important respects.

It suffices to remember that, as late as 2003, France led the opposition to the Iraq War within NATO, and Turkey surprised the world, including many Turks themselves, by refusing to participate in the US-led invasion of Iraq (although French foreign policy in general changed significantly during Nicolas Sarkozy’s presidency). These kinds of disagreements are to be expected and should be respected and tolerated in a genuinely multilateral alliance. The American-British initiative to invade Iraq, executed with a “coalition of the willing,” and its disastrous consequences for millions of Iraqis and the wider Middle East, including Turkey, provides a tragic cautionary tale against the dangers of asymmetric alliances with unilateral decision making.

Today, mainstream economists, who are heavily influenced by neoliberalism, have a remarkably unfavorable view of the minimum wage.

However, mainstream economists fail to see one major obstacle in the determination of fair wages, particularly for less educated people: the increasingly exacerbating power asymmetry between firms and employees. While trade union power has dwindled tremendously for over three decades in the neoliberal era in most countries across the globe, on the other hand, the power of the big and mostly international and/or multinational firms in any industry has continued to grow to the disadvantage of other local and medium-sized firms; hence, the emergence of the colossal power of near-monopolies and giant oligopolies that we see today.

For example, in 1992, the cumulative assets of the five biggest banks accounted for only some 12 percent of the total assets of the banking industry in the US. This share reached 20 percent in 2002 and a shocking 36 percent in the run-up to the global financial crisis of 2008-09. As the main culprits of the crisis, these so-called too-big-to-fail banks kept growing in the wake of the crisis, reaching close to an incredible 50 percent, let alone facing the consequences of their misdeeds. On the other hand, trade union density weakened dramatically from around 34 percent to only 17 percent for OECD countries from 1980 to 2014, with an almost seamless downward trend. These curious developments amounted to the rapid diminution of the bargaining power of employees in favor of employers, or big firms. This is why, among other reasons, global income inequality has risen to unprecedented levels today. Therefore, a fair minimum wage is now more necessary than ever.

The opponents of minimum wage raise concerns regarding its alleged detrimental effects on the real economy, such as decreasing employment rate due to higher costs to the employer and increasing inflation rate due to higher consumer demand. However, this stance does not withstand empirical scrutiny. Numerous studies have been devoted to the effects of minimum wage increases on the employment level and the inflation rate. Yet, these studies consistently indicate that a higher minimum wage does not have any discernible impact on either employment levels or inflation rates across time periods and countries.

After the November 1 election victory in 2015, the AK Party government declared that it would raise the minimum wage by a staggering 30 percent, as promised before the election. Subsequently, the minimum wage increased from 1000 to 1300 TL in January 2016 in Turkey. While this increase was hailed as a very good development for the poor, some opposed it on the grounds that it would increase both the unemployment rate and the inflation rate, reflecting neoliberal thinking and textbook economics.

The real economy in Turkey seems not to have been affected negatively at all by the minimum wage increase.

While it is relatively early to have a definitive result, the real economy in Turkey seems not to have been affected negatively at all by the minimum wage increase. Actually, the inflation rate has decreased tremendously by 37 percent from 9.58 to 6.57 percent in just three months due to the rapid decrease of food prices. In the previous month, May, the inflation rate barely changed and stood at 6.58 percent. In addition, the non-farm unemployment rate, too, actually declined in the wake of the minimum wage increase, from 12.2 to 11.5 percent, and the non-farm employment figure rose by some 370.000 from 21,6 to 21,97 million in just three months. Moreover, in the first quarter of this year, household final consumption expenditures increased by 6.9 percent year-on-year, the highest increase in the last 18 quarters, contributing significantly to the quarterly economic growth rate of 4.8 percent, thanks to the minimum wage increase, to a great extent.

Actually, this is not the first time the AK Party government has increased the minimum wage tremendously. A similar increase happened in 2004 with a 24 percent increase in real terms in just one year. In addition, moderate increases also took place, since social policy has always been a top priority for the AK Party government. Prior to the recent 30 percent increase in the minimum wage, between 2002 and 2015, the minimum wage had already increased by two-thirds in real terms – with the last increase, the overall increase will be over 90 percent in real terms between 2002 and 2016. Yet, neither the inflation rate nor the employment level were affected negatively by the stunning increase in the minimum wage in 2004.

Ironically, the inflation rate declined to one digit figures after 34 years in 2004, which is the same year the minimum wage increased by a significant 24 percent. Moreover, the inflation rate stayed at a very low level compared to previous decades from then on, as the minimum wage kept on increasing in real terms. The employment level also was a similar story. While the Turkish economy grew by around 57 percent between 2005 and 2015, Turkish non-farm employment rose by some 52 percent, from around 14 to over 21 million people, despite the country having endured the global financial crisis in 2008-09 and its aftermath with a rather weak global economy and consumer demand after 2012.

All in all, the case against minimum wage is rather unwarranted.

All in all, the case against minimum wage is rather unwarranted. In numerous countries, minimum wage increases have not resulted in lower employment levels or higher inflation rates in any discernible way, time and again. In this sense, the Turkish experience is totally in compliance with the global case. Despite dramatic increases in the minimum wage in 2004 and 2016 and also annual incremental increases in the 2000s, no negative impact on either the inflation rate or the employment level has been felt in the Turkish economy. In this way, the Turkish government has been able to increase the welfare level of millions of people and their families significantly and decrease income inequality markedly, without hurting and even empowering the real economy to a considerable extent.