The Justice and Development Party of Turkey (AK Party) scored a stunning electoral victory last weekend. Feyza Gumusluoglu spoke to Yasar Yakis former foreign minister of Turkey and a founding member of the AK Party about the election results and its domestic and regional implications.

In June elections the result was completely different. Now the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) has the majority in the parliament. What changed in five months?

First of all we should appreciate the political talent of the President Recep Tayyiop Erdogan. He is a very strong leader. He was able to persuade the Turkish electorate on several points. The message I received from the election result is that Turkey wanted to punish the MHP the nationalist party because of the attitude of its chairman Devlet Bahçeli during the coalition negotiations after the previous elections.

In the case of Kurdish Party the HDP some of its votes were borrowed from the CHP the Republican People’s Party and the liberals. The voters who voted for the HDP may have thought “now the HDP does not need these borrowed votes anymore in order to pass the 10 percent threshold we can take back our votes.” There were also many terrorist attacks happened in Turkey in the last months. This also negatively affected the HDP. People wanted to give the message to the HDP that “you did not criticise the PKK. You did not dissociate yourself from the PKK.” So the voters wanted to punish them. The Party having played this chessboard more skillfully than the opposition parties increased its votes.

Do you think whether this strong position will help Turkey to move forward with democratic reforms and economic development?

It is in the hands of the party to turn this position into a source of stability. If the party cannot use this chance properly Turkey may get into more crises. Being in a position of strength is a golden opportunity for the party. It can lead Turkey into stability. With this position of strength the AK Party can do a lot of things that had been more difficult to achieve in the past. It is a single party which is a recipe for strong government.

But of course it will depend on the practices of the ruling party. If the party does not continue to divide the society into segments it may strengthen the stability. For the establishment of stability in Turkey now all conditions are present. Now it is up to the AK Party to capitalise on it. In the June 7 elections people showed the ‘yellow card’ to the AK Party. And the party took lessons from this while the opposition parties did not. Now it should do what the voters expect from them to do.

Were you expecting this result?

No I was not expecting. I was nicely surprised since I am one of the founders of the party. It is a very big success. Very few people in our party did expect such a victory. I hope the party will capitalise on it. In any initiative it will undertake the party is going to start from this position of strength which is very important. This applies to the question of the democratisation process or the Kurdish opening. Now the party is in a position of strength it can do it more easily.

What about foreign policy?

It can also take initiative to adjust Turkey’s foreign policy towards the Middle East in general and Syria in particular according to the realities in the field. This is important especially after the arrival of the Russians and a few dozens of American soldiers to help Northern Syrians. This is what they say. But of course when we talk of the Americans supporting the opposition in northern Syria it means the Kurds. In these new circumstances Turkey has to adjust its Syria policy to the new realities.

As a former foreign minister how do you see Turkey’s Syria policy from the very beginning?

Turkey started by taking the right step at the very beginning. When Bashar al Assad started using military power against his own people Turkey took the side of Syrian people. It was the right decision at that time. It was also the right initiative by the Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu to visit Bashar and advise him that rather than oppressing the demonstrators he should initiate a democratisation process in Syria and lead this process. When the process ended he could run for presidency; if he won then he could continue as the new president if he lost the elections he would be recorded in the history of Syria as the person who brought democracy to the country. This would be a good honour. It is what Davutoglu advised Assad in their famous six hours conversation. Bashar Assad promised that he would do it. But he was not able to keep his promise for reasons that we have not discussed much. He could not have done it because the Baathist corruption circle that he inherited from his late father would not or did not allow him. Or he also might have made a different assessment. We have to try to figure out under which conditions he changed his mind. Turkey was doing the right thing in the beginning.

When did it begin to go wrong?

In my opinion it began to go wrong when Turkey started acting together with the international community to help the opposition and supply them arms and more importantly when the international community or Western countries found out that the weapons provided to the opposition were ending up in the wrong hands. So they put on break but Turkey did not do so. And Turkey was left in football terminology on the off-side position. Since then Turkey could not correct this mistake.

If you were the foreign minister now what would you do?

Turkey could have done the following: Either the prime minister or foreign minister could have gone to TV and say “We have based our Syria policy on the assumption that Bashar Assad’s fall was imminent. But it will not happen immediately. So we have to adjust now our Syria policy to the new reality.” If they had done this the AK Party’s votes would rise immediately. If I were the foreign minister I would have done this. It is not changing the policy it is adjusting it to the realities.

After the Russians how do you see the likelihood of Turkey making its own counter military intervention?

I hope that our authorities do not consider anything like it. This is because the Russian intervention in Syria came upon the request from what some in the international community regard as the ‘legitimate authority’ in Syria. If you look from the stand-point of international law sending the Russians troops is legitimate because of this official request. The intervention of other countries like Turkey however can be presented as illegitimate. But ultimately if you ask my point of view of course the Russian intervention is not legitimate because the Russians are not doing it for the sake of the Syrian people but for their own strategic targets.

What is Russia’s ultimate target?

Russia did not go to Syria in order to save Bashar Al Assad. Russia could use its intervention as a stepping-stone to establish itself in Syria and then widen its position in other countries in the Middle East. The Russians have been waiting for an opportunity to come back to the Middle East after the dismemberment of the Soviet Union.

In the Soviet era there was a very strong Russian presence in Syria. The Syrian army and Russia had very close relations at that time. After the dismemberment of the Soviet Union these relations have become weaker. But Russia started to seek an opportunity to come back to the region as soon as the American image in the Middle East began to tarnish.

The Russians welcomed the Arab spring as an opportunity to play a role. When the Arab spring spread to Syria it was an added opportunity. Having seen that ISIS could not be destroyed by other countries and then receiving Assad’s request the Russians must have been much happier. They could not miss such an opportunity.

Was the Arab Spring an opportunity for Turkey as well in order to play a bigger role? If yes did Turkey miss this opportunity?

Yes I think we missed it. After the Arab Spring Tunisia went to poll and the results were in favour of Islamists Annahda Party Rashed Gannushi said that they were inspired by Turkey’s secular and moderate regime of the AK Party. Then the Arab spring broke out in Egypt and Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohammed Mursi was elected as the President. When it finally came to Syria one could expect that again the Muslim Brotherhood would be the leading opposition there.

Turkey may have thought that a belt of the Muslim Brotherhood is forming all the way from Tunisia to Libya Egypt and Syria. Turkey thought having a better experience in democracy it could lead this Muslim Brotherhood minded belt. If it could have played with soft power without reference to new Ottomanism without putting too much emphasis on religious or sectarian differences Turkey could have indeed led it and could have preserved its presence there and would not have been pushed into isolation.

Turkey fell into isolation because of several decisions. One of them was giving the impression to the outside world that Turkey’s approach was tainted with sectarianism. Whether it is true or not of course is not important. In international relations perception is sometimes more important than reality.

The Peninsula