As he cosies up to Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, and picks fights with Europe and the United States, it can be hard to recall that Recep Tayyip Erdogan was once the West’s poster boy for Islamic democracy.
At the beginning of his nearly 17-year reign, Erdogan was touted as a Turkish progressive, who was loosening the army’s anti-democratic grip while taking steps towards peace with the Kurds, and even hinting at a reconciliation with Armenia and recognition of the 1915 massacres. For nearly a decade, he and his country were heralded in the West.
