A top House Republican condemned the “creeping authoritarianism” plaguing a NATO ally, in a pointed break with President Trump’s reaction to the results of an election that expands the power of Turkey’s president.
“Turkey’s creeping authoritarianism continues,” House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Ed Royce said Tuesday. “All who value democracy, pluralism and Turkey’s key role in the region should be concerned about the elimination of important checks and balances in the Turkish system.”
That’s a sharp divergence from President Trump, who congratulated Erdogan “on his recent referendum victory after a constitutional referendum expanding his authority passed with just over 51 percent of the vote, even as opposition leaders alleged that he won due to fraud. I am especially troubled by initial reports of irregularities and an ‘unlevel playing field’ from independent election observers, and I will review the full body of facts when they are released in the days ahead,” Royce said.
Turkey has long appeared a model of republican government in a Muslim-majority country, which eased the strategically and historically significant nation’s entry into NATO. That makes Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s anti-democratic tendencies a nettlesome problem for western powers. He has used a failed coup attempt over the past year to justify a crackdown on journalists and political opponents. And the results of the referendum campaign, which gave rise to vicious attacks on European leaders who declined to allow Erdogan’s team to hold campaign events in their countries, is widely feared to have been manipulated by Erdogan.
Trump’s team prioritized collaboration on foreign policy issues in their public statement, such as the recent U.S. airstrike against Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime, rather than criticism of the conduct of the election. “President Trump thanked President Erdogan for supporting this action by the United States, and the leaders agreed on the importance of holding Syrian President Bashar al-Assad accountable,” the White House readout of the call said. “President Trump and President Erdogan also discussed the counter-[Islamic State] campaign and the need to cooperate against all groups that use terrorism to achieve their ends.”
