If Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his AKP are defeated in this month’s elections, the next government, led by the CHP, will likely prove more agreeable — or at least no more difficult — on virtually every issue of importance to the United States and Turkey’s other allies in the NATO. There undoubtedly will still be areas of contention, including some of the same ones that have bedeviled the West’s relations with Turkey under Erdoğan. For reasons both ideological and economic, however, a new Turkish government would want a closer relationship with the West than Erdoğan has pursued for many years.
Turkey's 2023 Elections: Perspectives on a Critical Vote
It is a cliché for politicians to claim that an upcoming election is the most critical vote in the history of the country. In Turkey’s case, however, the presidential and parliamentary elections on May 14 are indeed the most consequential ever. The prospects for Turkey’s democratic future are at stake.
