Feverish comments, a few angry remarks and clearly visible concern. Since the first appointments of President-elect Donald Trump, Ankara seems to have been gripped by a slight wave of panic as the names of future collaborators of the next host of the White House are listed. Turkish officials were openly concerned about the arrival in the cabinet of the American billionaire, as secretary of state, of Florida senator Marco Rubio, an unconditional supporter of Israel and a notorious critic of Turkish policies. They were literally alarmed by the appointment of Mike Waltz, veteran of the National Guard, to the strategic position of national security advisor.
“Waltz, an advisor favorable to the PKK [Parti des travailleurs du Kurdistan] “, went so far as to title Hurriyet. The pro-government daily intended to recall the support given, on several occasions, by this elected representative of Congress to the Kurdish militias in northern Syria, themselves linked to the PKK, Ankara's bête noire for forty years.
Silent during the North American electoral campaign about the two candidates in the running, warmly congratulating his “friend Donald Trump” the day after his victory, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan also ended up expressing his fears, but in a more subdued manner. On November 12, during his return flight from Baku, where he was attending COP 29, the head of state explained that “certain messages” coming from the camp of the Republican president were “concerning”. In front of journalists, he added: “It seems to me that it is too early to comment on this. We hope that Mr. Trump will take very different steps towards the region [du Moyen-Orient] during this mandate. »
The warning came from his ultranationalist ally in the government, Devlet Bahçeli. With the sense of attack that we know him to have, the far-right leader recalled the Republican candidate's promises of peace in Ukraine and between Israel and Palestine, but above all he played on the patriotic fiber by recalling the proximity by Marco Rubio with Athens. Before the group of deputies from his party, the day after the nomination of the senator from Florida, he declared that Trump had to decide whether he “would respect international law” or if he “was going to ignore Turkey’s sovereign rights” supporting Greece and Cyprus in the Eastern Mediterranean.
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Source: Lemonde