Epstein Secrets

5 EFTA02689710 3 foreign policy was rarely up for open discussion. Over the past decade, however, the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has considerably trimmed the military's influence over political life, foreign policy included. To meet EU accession criteria, Erdogan's AKP stripp

1998 over Syria's hosting of Kurdish separatist leader Abdullah Ocalan, who now sits in a Turkish prison. Yet since the ascension of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Justice and Development Party (AKP) in Turkey EFTA_R1_02029349 EFTA02689724 17 and Bashar al-Assad's inheritance of the Syrian presidency, relat

of 178 countries)—only just ahead of Ethiopia (139th) and Russia (140th). The AKP's Islamist-based politics is gradually leading Turkey away from Ataturk's legacy of secular democracy toward religious-based authoritarianism, which should be a major concern for the U.S. and Europe. Foreign Policy and

the movement of covered heads from villages to cities. The story is of course a little more complicated than that. One Turk told me that, with the Erdogan government running things, a businessperson has a better shot at getting a government contract if he or she shows signs of devoutness, and for a wo

Turkey is of course famous for being a secular Muslim country--an identity that goes back to early twentieth-century Turkish leader Mustafa Kemal Ataturk's forceful campaign to westernize the country after the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire. But the campaign was less successful than it seemed.

the movement of covered heads from villages to cities. The story is of course a little more complicated than that. One Turk told me that, with the Erdogan government running things, a businessperson has a better shot at getting a government contract if he or she shows signs of devoutness, and for a wo

the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire. But the campaign was less successful than it seemed. Though the cosmopolitan elites who ran Turkey after Ataturk were largely secular, out in the villages traditional religious practice persisted. And over the past few decades there has been a huge migration o