Voices arguing that Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan should ease up on his authoritarianism in the interests of strengthening the home front at a time of great danger in the Middle East are growing louder.

Commentators are urging Turkey’s president to think very carefully when it comes to his next steps in his approach to the country’s Kurdish minority and in relation to the jailing and prosecution of his chief political rival, Ekrem Imamoglu.

Halil Karaveli, a senior fellow at the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program Joint Center and editor of the Turkey Analyst, takes up key issues in a March 25 assessment titled “Erdogan and the Iran War: Authoritarianism Makes Turkey Vulnerable.”

He contends: “Provided that he succeeds in maintaining Turkish neutrality and in shielding Turkey from the fallout of the Iran war, Erdogan’s standing with the Turkish public will presumably be bolstered. But Erdogan nonetheless faces difficult challenges and dilemmas ahead, as his personal power ambitions and national security imperatives ultimately cannot be reconciled.

“Democracy must be restored if Turkey is to consolidate its home front. Having to contend with Israel’s regional domination and expansionism, Turkey is compelled to accommodate Kurdish aspirations, something that Erdogan has so far been extremely reluctant to do. And societal reconciliation will elude Turkey if reforms for the Kurds are coupled with oppressive measures against the main opposition party.

“While Erdogan’s foreign policy leadership may appear well suited for the perilous moment, his authoritarian rule isn’t.”

Writing for Foreign Policy, Selim Koru, an analyst at the Economic Policy Research Foundation of Turkey and author of the Substack blog Kültürkampf, similarly advises that at a time of great peril – Erdogan himself has spoken of the great need to keep Turkey out of the “ring of fire” encircling much of the region – it is time for the country’s 72-year-old leader of 23 years to strengthen unity in the country by healing divisions.

Says Koru: “Turkey’s opposition will remain fiercely patriotic, but as Erdogan slowly weakens the bond between state and society, his appeals to solidarity will grow hollow and the country as a whole will grow weaker.”

Co-opting the Kurds

Erdogan in an October 2024 speech to the Turkish parliament spoke of the need to “fortify the home front” in the face of “Israeli aggression”.

Co-opting the Kurds has thus become “a national security imperative for Turkey”, says Karaveli.

“Turkey’s leaders,” he writes, “are haunted by the fear that Israel will exploit Turkey’s ethnic divisions, as statements by Israeli officials indeed attest to. In November 2024 Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar described the Kurdish people as victims of Turkish and Iranian oppression and Israel’s ‘natural ally’ and called for strengthening Israel’s ties with them.”

Erdogan last year entered into negotiations with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which for almost all of the preceding 41 years had waged a bloody insurgency in Kurdish-majority southeastern Turkey.

Pondering whether the talks can succeed, Koru reflects: “In terms of political resilience, Erdogan considers the Kurdish minority, which has a history of armed resistance, as Turkey’s weak underbelly. This is why he has systematically degraded the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), not only in Turkey but across the border in Syria and Iraq as well. The ‘Turkey without terror’ project now seeks to conclude Turkey’s war against the group and possibly absorb its political leadership into Erdogan’s ruling block.”

The United States and Israel have tried to mobilise Kurdish support in Iran and among Kurdish groups in Iraq as part of their attempt to break Iran apart and bring about the end of the Islamic Republic, but in Turkey, Tulay Hatimogullari, co-chair of the pro-Kurdish Democracy and Equality (DEM) Party, has denounced their war as an act of imperialism. Leading PKK representatives have also spoken out against the conflict.

And, as related by Koru, after Iran came under attack, Devlet Bahceli, leader of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) that serves as Erdogan’s junior coalition partner, asked his critics, “Do you now understand our purpose, why we have invoked Turkish-Kurdish brotherhood?”

Erdogan the unjust

Erdogan is sometimes heard proclaiming to the Turks that “We are one, we are together”, but at the same time, his jailing of main political opponent Imamoglu on what are widely seen as trumped-up charges of corruption, goes against the will of at least half of Turkey’s people, and possibly that of a good deal more (prior to his jailing, Imamoglu was seen by some Turkey watchers as a politician who would sweep Erdogan aside in a presidential election should he be allowed to contest one).

“The level of authoritarianism in Turkey,” says Koru, “is, obviously, nowhere near as extreme as in Iran. Opposition politicians and civil society leaders aren’t forced to perform confessions on video or executed by hanging. They are, however, jailed on bogus charges, especially if they’re very successful.”

The arrest of 55-year-old Imamoglu “may be the heaviest blow against Turkey’s republican tradition since the 1980 coup, and the public has noticed”, he adds. “Only about a quarter of the population approves of Imamoglu’s arrest, and nearly three-quarters believed the protests immediately after the arrest were legitimate. This means that the vast majority of the country, including a large chunk of Erdogan supporters, considers Imamoglu’s arrest unjust.”

Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP), concludes Koru, can only claim to represent all Turkey’s citizens if their election victories are seen as legitimate. “Erdogan,” he cautions, “has often stretched the limits of what is considered ‘free and fair’ but never before to this extent.

“The jailing of the opposition’s preferred candidate means that the will of half the country has been silenced. This won’t build a stronger ‘domestic front.’ Rather, it could loosen the opposition’s ties to the state and weaken the country’s coherence as a whole.”