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Turkey votes in pivotal elections that could end Erdogan’s 20-year rule

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Turks voted on Sunday in one of the most important elections in modern Turkey’s 100-year history, which could either unseat President Tayyip Erdogan and halt his government’s increasingly authoritarian path or usher in a third decade of his rule.

The vote will decide not only who leads Turkey, a NATO-member country of 85 million, but also how it is governed, where its economy is headed amid a deep cost of living crisis, and the shape of its foreign policy, which has taken unpredictable turns, Reuters reported.

Opinion polls give Erdogan’s main challenger, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, who heads an alliance of six opposition parties, a slight lead, but if either of them fail to get more than 50% of the vote there will be a runoff election on May 28.

Voters will also elect a new parliament, likely a tight race between the People’s Alliance comprising Erdogan’s conservative Islamist-rooted AK Party (AKP) and the nationalist MHP and others, and Kilicdaroglu’s Nation Alliance formed of six opposition parties, including his secularist Republican People’s Party (CHP), established by Turkey’s founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

Polls opened at 8 a.m. (0500 GMT) and will close at 5 p.m. (1400 GMT). Under Turkish law, the reporting of any results is banned until 9 p.m. By late on Sunday there could be a good indication of whether there will be a runoff vote for the presidency.

In Diyarbakir, a city in the mainly Kurdish southeast which was hit by a devastating earthquake in February, some said they had voted for the opposition and others for Erdogan.

“A change is needed for the country,” said Nuri Can, 26, who cited Turkey’s economic crisis as the reason for voting for Kilicdaroglu. “After the election there will be an economic crisis at the door again, so I wanted change.”

But Hayati Arslan, 51, said he had voted for Erdogan and his AK Party.

“The country’s economic situation is not good but I still believe that Erdogan will fix this situation. Turkey’s prestige abroad has reached a very good point with Erdogan and I want this to continue,” he said.

Queues formed at polling stations in the city, with some 9,000 police officers on duty across the province.

Many in the provinces affected by the earthquake, which killed more than 50,000 people, have expressed anger over the slow initial government response but there is little evidence that the issue has changed how people will vote.

Kurdish voters, who account for 15-20% of the electorate, will play a pivotal role, with the Nation Alliance unlikely to attain a parliamentary majority by itself.

The pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) is not part of the main opposition alliance but fiercely opposes Erdogan after a crackdown on its members in recent years.

The HDP has declared its support for Kilicdaroglu in the presidential race. It is entering the parliamentary elections under the emblem of the small Green Left Party due to a court case filed by a top prosecutor seeking to ban the HDP over links to Kurdish militants, which the party denies.

If Turks do oust Erdogan it will be largely because they saw their prosperity, equality and ability to meet basic needs decline, with inflation that topped 85% in Oct. 2022 and a collapse in the lira currency.

Kilicdaroglu, a 74-year-old former civil servant, promises that if he wins he will return to orthodox economic policies from Erdogan’s heavy management.

Kilicdaroglu also says he would seek to return the country to the parliamentary system of governance, from Erdogan’s executive presidential system passed in a referendum in 2017. He has also promised to restore the independence of a judiciary that critics say Erdogan has used to crack down on dissent.

In his time in power, Erdogan has taken tight control of most of Turkey’s institutions and sidelined liberals and critics. Human Rights Watch, in its World Report 2022, said Erdogan’s government has set back Turkey’s human rights record by decades.

If he wins, Kilicdaroglu faces challenges keeping united an opposition alliance that includes nationalists, Islamists, secularists and liberals.

The final days of the campaign were marked by accusations of foreign meddling.

Kilicdaroglu said his party had concrete evidence of Russia’s responsibility for the release of “deep fake” online content, which Moscow denied. Erdogan accused the opposition of working with U.S. President Joe Biden to topple him. A U.S. State Department spokesperson said Washington does not take sides in elections.

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Israel consulted US on its strikes in Gaza, White House told Fox News

Dozens of people were killed in the aftermath of a series of the most violent air attacks on Gaza by Israel since a ceasefire was reached on January 19

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The administration of President Donald Trump was consulted on Monday by Israel on its deadly strikes in Gaza, a White House spokesperson told Fox News’ “Hannity” show.

“The Trump administration and the White House were consulted by the Israelis on their attacks in Gaza tonight,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a Fox News interview.

Palestinian medics in Gaza reported dozens of people were killed in the aftermath of a series of the most violent air attacks by Israel on the Palestinian enclave since a ceasefire was reached on January 19 between Israel and Hamas militants.

A senior Hamas official said Israel had unilaterally overturned the ceasefire agreement, Reuters reported.

“As President Trump has made it clear – Hamas, the Houthis, Iran, all those who seek to terrorize not just Israel, but also the United States of America, will see a price to pay. All hell will break loose,” the White House spokesperson said.

Trump had previously publicly issued a warning using similar words, saying Hamas should release all hostages in Gaza or “let hell break out.”

The latest bloodshed in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict was triggered on Oct. 7, 2023, when Palestinian Hamas militants attacked Israel, killing 1,200 and taking about 250 hostages.

Israel’s subsequent military assault on Gaza has killed over 48,000 Palestinians, according to the local health ministry, while also triggering accusations of genocide and war crimes that Israel denies. 

The assault has internally displaced nearly Gaza’s entire 2.3 million population and caused a hunger crisis.

Trump has also been condemned over his plan to displace Palestinians from Gaza and for the U.S. to take over the enclave. 

Rights groups, the U.N., Palestinians and Arab states have said Trump’s proposal, which he has put across as a re-development plan, would amount to ethnic cleansing.

Washington separately launched a new wave of airstrikes on Saturday in Yemen in which it said dozens of members of the Houthi movement were left dead. 

The Houthis said at least 53 people were killed. Reuters could not independently verify those casualty numbers.

 

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Trump and Putin expected to speak this week as US pushes for Russia-Ukraine ceasefire

Trump has warned that unless a ceasefire is reached, the conflict between Moscow and Kyiv has the potential to spiral into World War Three.

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U.S. President Donald Trump is expected to speak with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin this week on ways to end the three-year war in Ukraine, U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff told CNN on Sunday after returning from what he described as a “positive” meeting with Putin in Moscow, Reuters reported.

“I expect that there will be a call with both presidents this week, and we’re also continuing to engage and have conversation with the Ukrainians,” said Witkoff, who met with Putin on Thursday night, adding that he thought the talk between Trump and Putin would be “really good and positive.”

Trump is trying to win Putin’s support for a 30-day ceasefire proposal that Ukraine accepted last week, as both sides continued trading heavy aerial strikes through the weekend and Russia moved closer to ejecting Ukrainian forces from their months-old foothold in the western Russian region of Kursk.

Trump said in a social media post on Friday that there was “a very good chance that this horrible, bloody war can finally come to an end.” He also said he had “strongly requested” that Putin not kill the thousands of Ukrainian troops that Russia is pushing out of Kursk.

Putin said he would honor Trump’s request to spare the lives of the Ukrainian troops if they surrendered. The Kremlin also said on Friday that Putin had sent Trump a message about his ceasefire plan via Witkoff, expressing “cautious optimism” that a deal could be reached to end the conflict.

In separate appearances on Sunday shows, Witkoff, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Trump’s national security adviser, Mike Waltz, emphasized that there are still challenges to be worked out before Russia agrees to a ceasefire, much less a final peaceful resolution to the war, read the report.

Asked on ABC whether the U.S. would accept a peace deal in which Russia was allowed to keep stretches of eastern Ukraine that it has seized, Waltz replied, “Are we going to drive every Russian off of every inch of Ukrainian soil?” He added that the negotiations had to be grounded in “reality.”

Rubio told CBS a final peace deal would “involve a lot of hard work, concessions from both Russia and Ukraine,” and that it would be difficult to even begin those negotiations “as long as they’re shooting at each other.”

Trump has warned that unless a ceasefire is reached, the conflict between Moscow and Kyiv has the potential to spiral into World War Three.

His administration took steps last week to induce further cooperation on a ceasefire. On Saturday, Trump said that General Keith Kellogg’s role had been narrowed from special envoy for Ukraine and Russia to only Ukraine, after Russian officials sought to exclude him from peace talks.

A license allowing U.S. energy transactions with Russian financial institutions expired last week, according to the Trump administration, raising pressure on Putin to come to a peace agreement over Ukraine, Reuters reported.

The U.S. Treasury Department is looking at possible sanctions on Russian oil majors and oilfield service companies, a source familiar with the matter said, deepening steps already taken by Biden.

 

 

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Trump says he still has good relations with leader of ‘nuclear power’ North Korea

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U.S. President Donald Trump said on Thursday he still has a good relationship with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, with whom he held several summits during his first term, and referred to North Korea once again as a “nuclear power.”

Asked by reporters during an Oval Office meeting with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte whether he had plans to reestablish relations with Kim, Trump said: “I would … I have a great relationship with Kim Jong Un, and we’ll see what happens, but certainly he’s a nuclear power,” Reuters reported.

On January 20, when he was inaugurated for his second term, Trump said North Korea was a “nuclear power,” raising questions about whether he would pursue arms reduction talks rather than denuclearization efforts that failed in his first term in any re-engagement with Pyongyang.

After referring to Russia and China’s nuclear arsenals, Trump said: “It would be a great achievement if we could bring down the number. We have so many weapons, and the power is so great.

“And number one, you don’t need them to that extent. And then we’d have to get others, ’cause, as you know, in a smaller way – Kim Jong Un has a lot of nuclear weapons, by the way, a lot, and others do also. You have India, you have Pakistan, you have others that have them, and we get them involved.”

Asked if Trump remarks represented any shift in policy towards North Korea’s nuclear weapons, a White House official said: “President Trump will pursue the complete denuclearization of North Korea, just as he did in his first term.”

On February 15, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and his Japanese and South Korean counterparts reaffirmed their “resolute commitment to the complete denuclearization” of North Korea in accordance with U.S. Security Council Resolutions.

Last week, Kim Jong Un’s powerful sister Kim Yo Jong criticized the Trump administration for stepping up "provocations" and said it justified North Korea increasing its nuclear deterrent. This week North Korea fired multiple ballistic missiles, its first since Trump took office.

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