Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (born 26 February 1954) is a Turkish politician who has been the president of Turkey since 2014. He previously served as the 25th prime minister from 2003 to 2014 as part of the Justice and Development Party (AKP), which he co-founded in 2001. He also served as mayor of Istanbul from 1994 to 1998. Coming from an Islamist background and promoting socially conservative policies, Erdoğan has been Turkey's de facto leader since 2002. Turkey has experienced democratic backsliding and suppression of dissent under Erdoğan.
Erdoğan was born in Beyoğlu, Istanbul, and studied at the Aksaray Academy of Economic and Commercial Sciences, before working as a consultant and senior manager in the private sector. Becoming active in local politics, he was elected Welfare Party's Beyoğlu district chair in 1984 and Istanbul chair in 1985. Following the 1994 local elections, Erdoğan was elected mayor of Istanbul. In 1998 he was convicted for inciting religious hatred and banned from politics after reciting a poem by Ziya Gökalp that compared mosques to barracks and the faithful to an army. Erdoğan was released from prison in 1999 and formed the AKP, abandoning openly Islamist policies.
Erdoğan led the AKP to a landslide victory in the election for the Grand National Assembly in 2002, and became prime minister after winning a by-election in Siirt in 2003. Erdoğan led the AKP to two more election victories in 2007 and 2011. His tenure consisted of economic recovery from the economic crisis of 2001, the start of EU membership negotiations, and the reduction of military influence on politics. In late 2012, his government began peace negotiations with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) to end the Kurdish–Turkish conflict, negotiations which ended three years later.
In 2014, Erdoğan became the country's first directly elected president. Erdoğan's presidency has been marked by democratic backsliding and a shift towards authoritarianism. His economic policies have led to high inflation and the depreciation of the Turkish lira. He has intervened in conflicts in Syria and Libya, launched operations against the Islamic State, Syrian Democratic Forces, and Ba'athist Syria, and has made threats against Greece and Israel. He oversaw the transformation of Turkey's parliamentary system into a presidential system, introducing term limits and expanding executive powers, and Turkey's migrant crisis. In May 2022, Erdoğan temporarily blocked Finland and Sweden from joining NATO. Erdoğan responded to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine by closing the Bosphorus to Russian naval reinforcements, brokering a deal between Russia and Ukraine regarding the export of grain, and mediating a prisoner exchange. In 2025, Erdoğan oversaw the arrest of Istanbul mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu and his subsequent disqualification from the upcoming 2028 presidential election, for which he was considered the opposition front-runner, leading to ongoing widespread protests.
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Early life and education
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was born on 26 February 1954 in Kasımpaşa, Beyoğlu to a modest conservative Muslim family. Erdoğan's family is originally from Adjara, a region in Georgia. Although Erdoğan was reported to have said in 2003 that he was of Georgian origin and that his origins were in Batumi, he later denied this. His parents were Ahmet Erdoğan (1905–1988), a coastguard and sea captain, and Tenzile Erdoğan (née Mutlu; 1924–2011).
While Erdoğan attended school in Istanbul, his summer holidays were mostly spent in Güneysu, Rize, where his family originates from. Throughout his life he often returned to this spiritual home, and in 2015 he opened a vast mosque on a mountaintop near this village. The family returned to Istanbul when Erdoğan was 13 years old.
As a teenager, Erdoğan's father provided him with a weekly allowance of 2.5 Turkish lira, less than a dollar. With it, Erdoğan bought postcards and resold them on the street. He sold bottles of water to drivers stuck in traffic. Erdoğan also worked as a street vendor selling simit (sesame bread rings), wearing a white gown and selling the simit from a red three-wheel cart with the rolls stacked behind glass. In his youth, Erdoğan played semi-professional football in Camialtıspor FC, a local club. The stadium of the local football club in the district where he grew up, Kasımpaşa S.K. is named after him.
Erdoğan is a member of the Community of İskenderpaşa, a Turkish Sufistic community of the Naqshbandi Order.
Education
Erdoğan graduated from Kasımpaşa Piyale Primary School in 1965, and the Istanbul İmam Hatip High School, a religious vocational high school, in 1973. The same educational path was followed by other co-founders of the AK Party. One quarter of the curriculum of İmam Hatip schools involves study of the Quran, the life of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, and the Arabic language. Erdoğan studied the Quran at the İmam Hatip, where his classmates began calling him hoca ("teacher" or "religious official").
Erdoğan attended a meeting of the nationalist student group National Turkish Student Union (Milli Türk Talebe Birliği), who sought to raise a conservative cohort of young people to counter the rising movement of leftists in Turkey. Within the group, Erdoğan was distinguished by his oratorical skills, developing a penchant for public speaking and excelling in front of an audience. He won first place in a poetry-reading competition organized by the Community of Turkish Technical Painters, and began preparing for speeches through reading and research. Erdoğan would later comment on these competitions as "enhancing our courage to speak in front of the masses".
Erdoğan wanted to pursue advanced studies at the Ankara University Faculty of Political Science, commonly known as Mülkiye, but only students with regular high school diplomas were eligible to apply, thereby excluding Imam Hatip graduates. Mülkiye was known for its political science department, which trained many statesmen and politicians in Turkey. Erdoğan was then admitted to Eyüp High School, a regular state school. That he eventually received a high school diploma from this school is a subject of debate.
According to his official biography, Erdoğan subsequently studied business administration at the Aksaray School of Economics and Commercial Sciences (Turkish: Aksaray İktisat ve Ticaret Yüksekokulu), now known as Marmara University's Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences. Both the authenticity and status of his degree have been the subject of disputes and controversy over whether the diploma is legitimate and ought to be considered sufficient to make him eligible as a candidate for the presidency.
Early political career
In 1976, Erdoğan engaged in politics by joining the National Turkish Student Union, an anti-communist action group. In the same year, he became head of the Beyoğlu youth branch of the Islamist National Salvation Party (MSP), and was later promoted to chair of the Istanbul youth branch. He held this position until the 1980 military coup which dissolved all major political parties. He went on to be a consultant and senior executive in the private sector in the aftermath of the coup.
Three years later, in 1983, Erdoğan followed most of Necmettin Erbakan's followers into the newly founded Welfare Party (RP). The new party, like its predecessors subscribed to Erbakan's strain of Islamism, the National view. He became the party's Beyoğlu district chair in 1984, and head of its Istanbul branch in 1985. Erdoğan entered the parliamentary by-elections of 1986 as a candidate in Istanbul's 6th electoral district, but failed to get elected. Three years later, Erdoğan ran for the district mayoralty of Beyoğlu, finishing in second place with 22.8% of the vote.
In the 1991 general election, the Welfare Party more than doubled its share of the vote in Istanbul compared to four years prior, reaching 16.7%. At first, Erdoğan, who led his party's district list, was thought to have been elected to parliament. However, as a product of the open-list proportional representation system adopted during the previous term, after all votes expressing a candidate preference were tabulated, it was instead Mustafa Baş who earned the seat allocated to the Welfare Party. A difference of about 4,000 preferential votes separated the two, with Baş's ~13,000 to Erdoğan's ~9,000.
Mayor of Istanbul (1994–1998)
In the local elections of 1994, Erdoğan ran as a candidate for Mayor of Istanbul. He was a young, dark horse candidate in a crowded field. Over the course of the campaign, he was mocked by the mainstream media and treated as a country bumpkin by his opponents. In an upset, he won with 25.19% of the popular vote, making it the first time a mayor of Istanbul got elected from his political party. His win coincided with a wave of Welfare Party victories nationwide, as they won 28 provincial mayoralties - most out of any party - and numerous metropolitan seats, including the capital, Ankara. He said at the time: "Democracy is like a train: when we reach our destination, we get off".
Erdoğan governed pragmatically, focusing on bread-and-butter issues. He aimed to tackle the chronic problems plaguing the metropolis, such as water shortage, pollution – waste collection issues in particular – and severely congested traffic. He undertook an infrastructure overhaul: expanding and modernizing the water grid with hundreds of kilometres of new water pipes being laid, and constructing more than fifty bridges, viaducts, and stretches of highway to mitigate traffic. State-of-the-art recycling facilities were built and air pollution was reduced through a plan to switch to natural gas. He changed the public buses to environmentally friendly ones. He took precautions to prevent corruption, using measures to ensure that municipal funds were used prudently. He paid back a major portion of Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality's two-billion-dollar debt and invested four billion dollars in the city. He also opened up City Hall to the people, gave out his e-mail address and established municipal hot lines.
Erdoğan initiated the first roundtable of mayors during the Istanbul conference, which led to a global, organized movement of mayors. A seven-member international jury from the United Nations unanimously awarded Erdoğan the UN-Habitat award.
Imprisonment
In December 1997 in Siirt, Erdoğan recited a modified version of the "Soldier's prayer" poem written by Ziya Gökalp, a pan-Turkish activist of the early 20th century. This version included an additional stanza in the beginning, its first two verses reading "The mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets / The minarets our bayonets and the faithful our soldiers...." Under article 312/2 of the Turkish penal code his recitation was regarded by the judge as an incitement to violence and religious or racial hatred. In his defence, Erdoğan said that the poem was published in state-approved books. How this version of the poem ended up in a book published by the Turkish Standards Institution remained a topic of discussion.
Erdoğan was given a ten-month prison sentence. He was forced to give up his mayoral position due to his conviction. The conviction also stipulated a political ban, which prevented him from participating in elections. He had appealed for the sentence to be converted to a monetary fine, but it was reduced to four months instead (24 March 1999 to 27 July 1999).
He was transferred to Pınarhisar prison in Kırklareli. The day Erdoğan went to prison, he released an album called This Song Doesn't End Here. The album features a tracklist of seven poems and became the best-selling album of Turkey in 1999, selling over one million copies. After his release, Erdoğan sought refuge in Tetovo, Macedonia with an ethnic Albanian family with whom he stayed with for several months.
In 2013, Erdoğan visited the Pınarhisar prison again for the first time in fourteen years. After the visit, he said "For me, Pınarhisar is a symbol of rebirth, where we prepared the establishment of the Justice and Development Party".
Justice and Development Party
Erdoğan was member of political parties that kept getting banned by the army or judges. Within his Virtue Party, there was a dispute about the appropriate discourse of the party between traditional politicians and pro-reform politicians. The latter envisioned a party that could operate within the limits of the system, and thus not getting banned as its predecessors like National Order Party, National Salvation Party and Welfare Party. They wanted to give the group the character of an ordinary conservative party with its members being Muslim Democrats following the example of the Europe's Christian Democrats.
When the Virtue Party was also banned in 2001, a definitive split took place: the followers of Necmettin Erbakan founded the Felicity Party (SP) and the reformers founded the Justice and Development Party (AKP) under the leadership of Abdullah Gül and Erdoğan. The pro-reform politicians realized that a strictly Islamic party would never be accepted as a governing party by the state apparatus and they believed that an Islamic party did not appeal to more than about 20 percent of the Turkish electorate. The AK party emphatically placed itself as a broad democratic conservative party with new politicians from the political centre (like Ali Babacan and Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu), while respecting Islamic norms and values, but without an explicit religious program. This turned out to be successful as the new party won 34% of the vote in the general elections of 2002. Erdoğan became prime minister in March 2003 after the Gül government ended his political ban.
Premiership (2003–2014)
General elections
The elections of 2002 were the first elections in which Erdoğan participated as a party leader. All parties previously elected to parliament failed to win enough votes to re-enter the parliament. The AKP won 34.3% of the national vote and formed the new government. Turkish stocks rose more than 7% on Monday morning. Politicians of the previous generation, such as Ecevit, Bahceli, Yılmaz and Çiller, resigned. The second largest party, the CHP, received 19.4% of the votes. The AKP won a landslide victory in the parliament, taking nearly two-thirds of the seats. Erdoğan could not become Prime Minister as he was still banned from politics by the judiciary for his speech in Siirt. Gül became the prime minister instead. In December 2002, the Supreme Election Board cancelled the general election results from Siirt due to voting irregularities and scheduled a new election for 9 February 2003. By this time, party leader Erdoğan was able to run for parliament due to a legal change made possible by the opposition Republican People's Party. The AKP duly listed Erdoğan as a candidate for the rescheduled election, which he won, becoming Prime Minister after Gül handed over the post.
On 14 April 2007, an estimated 300,000 people marched in Ankara to protest against the possible candidacy of Erdoğan in the 2007 presidential election, afraid that if elected as president, he would alter the secular nature of the Turkish state. Erdoğan announced on 24 April 2007 that the party had nominated Abdullah Gül as the AKP candidate in the presidential election. The protests continued over the next several weeks, with over one million people reported to have turned out at a 29 April rally in Istanbul, tens of thousands at separate protests on 4 May in Manisa and Çanakkale, and one million in İzmir on 13 May.
The stage of the elections of 2007 was set for a fight for legitimacy in the eyes of voters between his government and the CHP. Erdoğan used the event that took place during the ill-fated Presidential elections a few months earlier as a part of the general election campaign of his party. On 22 July 2007, the AKP won an important victory over the opposition, garnering 46.7% of the popular vote. 22 July elections marked only the second time in the Republic of Turkey's history whereby an incumbent governing party won an election by increasing its share of popular support. On 14 March 2008, Turkey's Chief Prosecutor asked the country's Constitutional Court to ban Erdoğan's governing party. The party escaped a ban on 30 July 2008, a year after winning 46.7% of the vote in national elections, although judges did cut the party's public funding by 50%.
Referendums
After the opposition parties deadlocked the 2007 presidential election by boycotting the parliament, the ruling AKP proposed a constitutional reform package. The reform package was first vetoed by President Ahmet Necdet Sezer. Then he applied to the Turkish constitutional court about the reform package, because the president is unable to veto amendments for the second time. The Turkish constitutional court did not find any problems in the packet and 68.95% of the voters supported the constitutional changes. The reforms consisted of electing the president by popular vote instead of by parliament; reducing the presidential term from seven years to five; allowing the president to stand for re-election for a second term; holding general elections every four years instead of five; and reducing from 367 to 184 the quorum of lawmakers needed for parliamentary decisions.
Reforming the Constitution was one of the main pledges of the AKP during the 2007 election campaign. The main opposition party CHP was not interested in altering the Constitution on a big scale, making it impossible to form a Constitutional Commission (Anayasa Uzlaşma Komisyonu). The amendments lacked the two-thirds majority needed to become law instantly, but secured 336 votes in the 550-seat parliament – enough to put the proposals to a referendum. The reform package included a number of issues such as the right of individuals to appeal to the highest court, the creation of the ombudsman's office; the possibility to negotiate a nationwide labour contract; gender equality; the ability of civilian courts to convict members of the military; the right of civil servants to go on strike; a privacy law; and the structure of the Constitutional Court. The referendum was agreed by a majority of 58%.
Domestic policy
In 2009, Prime Minister Erdoğan's government announced a plan to help end the quarter-century-long Turkey–Kurdistan Workers' Party conflict that had cost more than 40,000 lives. The government's plan, supported by the European Union, intended to allow the Kurdish language to be used in all broadcast media and political campaigns, and restored Kurdish names to cities and towns that had been given Turkish ones. Erdoğan said, "We took a courageous step to resolve chronic issues that constitute an obstacle along Turkey's development, progression and empowerment." Erdoğan passed a partial amnesty to reduce penalties faced by many members of the Kurdish guerrilla movement PKK who had surrendered to the government. On 23 November 2011, during a televised meeting of his party in Ankara, he apologized on behalf of the state for the Dersim massacre, where many Alevis and Zazas were killed. In 2013 the government of Erdoğan began a peace process between the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and the Turkish Government, mediated by parliamentarians of the Peoples' Democratic party (HDP).
In 2015, following AKP electoral defeat, the rise of a social democrat, pro-Kurdish rights opposition party, and the minor Ceylanpınar incident, he decided that the peace process was over and supported the revocation of the parliamentary immunity of the HDP parliamentarians. Violent confrontation resumed in 2015–2017, mainly in the South East of Turkey, resulting in higher death tolls and several external operations on the part of the Turkish military. Representatives and elected HDP have been systematically arrested, removed, and replaced in their offices, this tendency being confirmed after the 2016 Turkish coup attempt and the following purges. Six thousand additional deaths occurred in Turkey alone for 2015–2022. Yet, as of 2022 the intensity of the PKK-Turkey conflict did decrease in recent years. In the previous decade, Erdoğan and the AKP government used anti-PKK, martial rhetoric and external operations to raise Turkish nationalist votes before elections.
During Erdoğan's time as prime minister, the far-reaching powers of the 1991 Anti-Terror Law were reduced. In 2004, the death penalty was abolished for all circumstances. The Democratic initiative process was initiated, with the goal to improve democratic standards in general and the rights of ethnic and religious minorities in particular. In 2012, the Human Rights and Equality Institution of Turkey and the Ombudsman Institution were established. The UN Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture was ratified. Children are no longer prosecuted under terrorism legislation. The Jewish community were allowed to celebrate Hanukkah publicly for the first time in modern Turkish history in 2015. The Turkish government approved a law in 2008 to return properties confiscated in the past by the state to non-Muslim foundations. It also paved the way for the free allocation of worship places such as synagogues and churches to non-Muslim foundations. However, European officials noted a return to more authoritarian ways after the stalling of Turkey's bid to join the European Union notably on freedom of speech, freedom of the press and Kurdish minority rights. Demands by activists for the recognition of LGBTQ rights were publicly rejected by government members.
Foreign policy
Turkish foreign policy during Erdoğan's tenure as prime minister has been associated with the name of Ahmet Davutoğlu. Davutoğlu was the chief foreign policy advisor of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan before he was appointed foreign minister in 2009. The basis of Erdoğan's foreign policy is based on the principle of "don't make enemies, make friends" and the pursuit of "zero problems" with neighbouring countries.
Erdoğan is co-founder of United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (AOC). The initiative seeks to galvanize international action against extremism through the forging of international, intercultural and inter-religious dialogue and cooperation.
When Erdoğan came to power, he continued Turkey's long ambition of joining the European Union. Turkey, under Erdoğan, made many strides in its laws that would qualify for EU membership. On 3 October 2005 negotiations began for Turkey's accession to the European Union. Erdoğan was named "The European of the Year 2004" by the newspaper European Voice for the reforms in his country in order to accomplish the accession of Turkey to the European Union. He said in a comment that "Turkey's accession shows that Europe is a continent where civilisations reconcile and not clash." On 3 October 2005, the negotiations for Turkey's accession to the EU formally started during Erdoğan's tenure as prime minister.
The European Commission generally supports Erdoğan's reforms, but it remains critical of his policies. Negotiations about a possible EU membership came to a standstill in 2009 and 2010, when Turkish ports were closed to Cypriot ships. The Turkish government continues its refusal to recognize EU member state Cyprus.
Relations between Greece and Turkey were normalized during Erdoğan's tenure as prime minister. In May 2004, Erdoğan became the first Turkish prime minister to visit Greece since 1988, and the first to visit the Turkish minority of Thrace since 1952. In 2007, Erdoğan and Greek prime minister Kostas Karamanlis inaugurated the Greek-Turkish natural gas pipeline giving Caspian gas its first direct Western outlet.
Turkey and Greece signed an agreement to create a Combined Joint Operational Unit within the framework of NATO to participate in Peace Support Operations.
Protests
The 2013 Gezi Park protests were held against the perceived authoritarianism of Erdoğan and his policies, starting from a small sit-in in Istanbul in defence of a city park. After the police's intense reaction with tear gas, the protests grew each day. Faced by the largest mass protest in a decade, Erdoğan made this controversial remark in a televised speech: "The police were there yesterday, they are there today, and they will be there tomorrow". After weeks of clashes in the streets of Istanbul, his government at first apologized to the protestors and called for a plebiscite, but then ordered a crackdown on the protesters.
Presidency (2014–present)
Erdoğan took the oath of office on 28 August 2014 and became the 12th president of Turkey. He administered the new prime minister Ahmet Davutoğlu's oath on 29 August. When asked about his lower-than-expected 51.79% share of the vote, he allegedly responded, "there were even those who did not like the Prophet. I, however, won 52%". Assuming the role of president, Erdoğan was criticized for openly stating that he would not maintain the tradition of presidential neutrality. Erdoğan has also stated his intention to pursue a more active role as president, such as utilizing the president's rarely used cabinet-calling powers. The political opposition has argued that Erdoğan will continue to pursue his own political agenda, controlling the government, while his new prime minister Ahmet Davutoğlu would be docile and submissive. Furthermore, the domination of loyal Erdoğan supporters in Davutoğlu's cabinet fuelled speculation that Erdoğan intended to exercise substantial control over the government.
Presidential elections
On 1 July 2014, Erdoğan was named the AKP's presidential candidate in the Turkish presidential election. His candidacy was announced by the Deputy President of the AKP, Mehmet Ali Şahin.
Erdoğan made a speech after the announcement and used the 'Erdoğan logo' for the first time. The logo was criticized because it was very similar to the logo that U.S. president Barack Obama used in the 2008 presidential election.
Erdoğan was elected as the president of Turkey in the first round of the election with 51.79% of the vote, obviating the need for a run-off by winning over 50%. The joint candidate of the CHP, MHP and 13 other opposition parties, former Organisation of Islamic Co-operation general secretary Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu won 38.44% of the vote. The pro-Kurdish HDP candidate Selahattin Demirtaş won 9.76%.
The 2018 Turkish presidential election took place as part of the 2018 general election, alongside parliamentary elections on the same day. Following the approval of constitutional changes in a referendum held in 2017, the elected President will be both the head of state and head of government of Turkey, taking over the latter role from the to-be-abolished office of the Prime Minister.
Erdoğan declared his candidacy for the People's Alliance (Turkish: Cumhur İttifakı) on 27 April 2018, with support from the MHP. His main opposition, the Republican People's Party, nominated Muharrem İnce, a member of parliament known for his combative opposition and spirited speeches against Erdoğan. In addition to these candidates, Meral Akşener, the founder and leader of the Good Party, Temel Karamollaoğlu, the leader of the Felicity Party, and Doğu Perinçek, the leader of the Patriotic Party, also announced their candidacies and gathered the 100,000 signatures required for nomination. Erdoğan won the election with 52.59% of the popular vote.
In the 2023 presidential election, Erdoğan's candidacy was contested due to his campaign launch in June 2022, with the opposition arguing that a third term would violate the constitution. In the first round of voting, Erdoğan failed to secure the required 50% threshold, leading to a runoff election against the runner-up, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu. Erdoğan ultimately won the second round on 28 May 2023, receiving 52.18% of the vote.
Referendum
In April 2017, a constitutional referendum was held, where the voters in Turkey (and Turkish citizens abroad) approved a set of 18 proposed amendments to the Constitution of Turkey. The amendments included the replacement of the existing parliamentary system with a presidential system. The post of Prime Minister would be abolished, and the presidency would become an executive post vested with broad executive powers. The parliament seats would be increased from 550 to 600 and the age of candidacy to the parliament was lowered from 25 to 18. The referendum also called for changes to the Supreme Board of Judges and Prosecutors.
In the 2019 local elections, the ruling party AKP lost control of Istanbul and Ankara for the first time in 25 years, as well as 5 of Turkey's 6 largest cities. The loss has been widely attributed to Erdoğan's mismanagement of the Turkish economic crisis, rising authoritarianism as well as the alleged government inaction on the Syrian refugee crisis. Soon after the elections, Supreme Electoral Council of Turkey ordered a re-election in Istanbul, cancelling Ekrem İmamoğlu's mayoral certificate. The decision led to a significant decrease of Erdoğan's and AKP's popularity and his party lost the elections again in June with a greater margin. The result was seen as a huge blow to Erdoğan, who had once said that if his party 'lost Istanbul, we would lose Turkey. The opposition's victory was characterised as 'the beginning of the end' for Erdoğan', with international commentators calling the re-run a huge government miscalculation that led to a potential İmamoğlu candidacy in the next scheduled presidential election. It is suspected that the scale of the government's defeat could provoke a cabinet reshuffle and early general elections, currently scheduled for June 2023.
The New Zealand and Australian governments and opposition CHP party have criticized Erdoğan after he repeatedly showed video taken by the Christchurch mosque shooter to his supporters at campaign rallies for 31 March local elections and said Australians and New Zealanders who came to Turkey with anti-Muslim sentiments "would be sent back in coffins like their grandfathers" at Gallipoli.
Domestic policy
Erdoğan has also received criticism for the construction of a new official residence called the Presidential Complex, which takes up approximately 50 acres of Atatürk Forest Farm (AOÇ) in Ankara. Since the AOÇ is protected land, several court orders were issued to halt the construction of the new palace, though building work went on nonetheless. The opposition described the move as a clear disregard for the rule of law. The project was subject to heavy criticism and allegations were made; of corruption during the construction process, wildlife destruction and the complete obliteration of the zoo in the AOÇ in order to make way for the new compound. The fact that the palace is technically illegal has led to it being branded as the 'Kaç-Ak Saray', the word kaçak in Turkish meaning 'illegal'.
Ak Saray was originally designed as a new office for the prime minister. However, upon assuming the presidency, Erdoğan announced that the palace would become the new Presidential Palace, while the Çankaya Mansion will be used by the prime minister instead. The move was seen as a historic change since the Çankaya Mansion had been used as the iconic office of the presidency ever since its inception. The Presidential Complex has almost 1,000 rooms and cost $350 million (€270 million), leading to strong criticism at a time when mining accidents and workers' rights had been dominating the agenda.
On 29 October 2014, Erdoğan was due to hold a Republic Day reception in the new palace to commemorate the 91st anniversary of the Republic of Turkey and to officially inaugurate the Presidential Palace. However, after most invited participants announced that they would boycott the event and a mining accident occurred in the district of Ermenek in Karaman, the reception was cancelled.
President Erdoğan and his government continue to press for court action against the remaining free press in Turkey. The latest newspaper that has been seized is Zaman, in March 2016. After the seizure Morton Abramowitz and Eric Edelman, former U.S. ambassadors to Turkey, condemned President Erdoğan's actions in an opinion piece published by The Washington Post: "Clearly, democracy cannot flourish under Erdoğan now". "The overall pace of reforms in Turkey has not only slowed down but in some key areas, such as freedom of expression and the independence of the judiciary, there has been a regression, which is particularly worrying", rapporteur Kati Piri said in April 2016 after the European Parliament passed its annual progress report on Turkey.
Foreign policy
In February 2016, Erdoğan threatened to send the millions of refugees in Turkey to EU member states, saying: "We can open the doors to Greece and Bulgaria anytime and we can put the refugees on buses ... So how will you deal with refugees if you don't get a deal?"
In an interview to the news magazine Der Spiegel, German minister of defence Ursula von der Leyen said on 11 March 2016 that the refugee crisis had made good cooperation between EU and Turkey an "existentially important" issue. "Therefore it is right to advance now negotiations on Turkey's EU accession".
In its resolution "The functioning of democratic institutions in Turkey" from 22 June 2016, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe warned that "recent developments in Turkey pertaining to freedom of the media and of expression, erosion of the rule of law and the human rights violations in relation to anti-terrorism security operations in south-east Turkey have ... raised serious questions about the functioning of its democratic institutions".
In January 2017, Erdoğan said that the withdrawal of Turkish troops from Northern Cyprus is "out of the question" and Turkey will be in Cyprus "forever".
In September 2020, Erdoğan declared his government's support for Azerbaijan following a major conflict between Armenian and Azeri forces over a disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh. He dismissed demands for a ceasefire. In 2022, Erdoğan and Russian president Vladimir Putin planned for Turkey to become an energy hub for all of Europe through the TurkStream and Blue Stream gas pipelines. In October 2023 Erdoğan cancelled attendance at the third European Political Community (EPC) meeting.
In May 2022, Erdoğan voiced his opposition to Finland and Sweden joining NATO, accusing the two countries of tolerating groups which Turkey classifies as terrorist organizations, including the Kurdish militant groups PKK, PYD and YPG and the supporters of Fethullah Gülen. Following a protest in Sweden where a Quran was burned, Erdogan re-iterated that he would not support Sweden's bid to join NATO. President of Finland Sauli Niinistö visited Erdogan in Istanbul and Ankara in March 2023. During the visit, Erdogan confirmed that he supported Finnish NATO membership and declared that the Turkish parliament would confirm Finnish membership before the Turkish Presidential elections in May 2023. On 23 March 2023, the Turkish parliament's foreign relations committee confirmed the Finnish NATO membership application and sent the process to the Turkish Parliament's plenary session. On 1 April 2023, Erdoğan confirmed and signed the Turkish Grand National Assembly's ratification of Finnish NATO membership. This decision sealed Finland's entry to NATO. In June 2023, Erdoğan again voiced his opposition to Sweden joining NATO.
Events
On 15 July 2016, a coup d'état was attempted by the military, with aims to remove Erdoğan from government. By the next day, Erdoğan's government managed to reassert effective control in the country. Reportedly, no government official was arrested or harmed, which, among other factors, raised the suspicion of a false flag event staged by the government itself.
Erdoğan, as well as other government officials, has blamed an exiled cleric, and a former ally of Erdoğan, Fethullah Gülen, for staging the coup attempt. Süleyman Soylu, Minister of Labor in Erdoğan's government, accused the US of planning a coup to oust Erdoğan.
Erdoğan, as well as other high-ranking Turkish government officials, has issued repeated demands to the US to extradite Gülen.
Following the coup attempt, there has been a significant deterioration in Turkey-US relations. European and other world leaders have expressed their concerns over the situation in Turkey, with many of them warning Erdoğan not to use the coup attempt as an excuse to crack down on his opponents.
The rise of ISIS and the collapse of the Kurdish peace process had led to a sharp rise in terror incidents in Turkey until 2016. Erdoğan was accused by his critics of having a 'soft corner' for ISIS. However, after the attempted coup, Erdoğan ordered the Turkish military into Syria to combat ISIS and Kurdish militant groups. Erdoğan's critics have decried purges in the education system and judiciary as undermining the rule of law however Erdoğan supporters argue this is a necessary measure as Gulen-linked schools cheated on entrance exams, requiring a purge in the education system and of the Gulen followers who then entered the judiciary.
Erdoğan's plan is "to reconstitute Turkey as a presidential system. The plan would create a centralized system that would enable him to better tackle Turkey's internal and external threats. One of the main hurdles allegedly standing in his way is Fethullah Gulen's movement ..." In the aftermath of the 2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt, a groundswell of national unity and consensus emerged for cracking down on the coup plotters with a National Unity rally held in Turkey that included Islamists, secularists, liberals and nationalists. Erdoğan has used this consensus to remove Gulen's followers from the bureaucracy, curtail their role in NGOs, Turkey's Ministry of Religious Affairs and the Turkish military, with 149 Generals discharged. In a foreign policy shift Erdoğan ordered the Turkish Armed Forces into battle in Syria and has liberated towns from IS control. As relations with Europe soured over in the aftermath of the attempted coup, Erdoğan developed alternative relationships with Russia, Saudi Arabia and a "strategic partnership" with Pakistan, with plans to cultivate relations through free trade agreements and deepening military relations for mutual co-operation with Turkey's regional allies.
Ideology and public image
Early during his premiership, Erdoğan was praised as a role model for emerging Middle Eastern nations due to several reform packages initiated by his government which expanded religious freedoms and minority rights as part of accession negotiations with the European Union. However, his government underwent several crises including the Sledgehammer coup and the Ergenekon trials, corruption scandals, accusations of media intimidation, as well as the pursuit of an increasingly polarizing political agenda; the opposition accused the government of inciting political hatred throughout the country. He has also been described as having "long championed Islamist causes".
Erdoğanism
The term Erdoğanism first emerged shortly after Erdoğan's 2011 general election victory, where it was predominantly described as the AKP's liberal economic and conservative democratic ideals fused with Erdoğan's demagoguery and cult of personality.
Ottomanism
As president, Erdoğan has overseen a revival of Ottoman tradition, greeting Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas with an Ottoman-style ceremony in the new presidential palace, with guards dressed in costumes representing founders of 16 Great Turkish Empires in history. While Prime Minister of Turkey, Erdoğan's AKP made references to the Ottoman era during election campaigns, such as calling their supporters 'grandsons of Ottomans' (Osmanlı torunu). This proved controversial, since it was perceived to be an open attack against the republican nature of modern Turkey founded by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. In 2015, Erdoğan made a statement in which he endorsed the old Ottoman term külliye to refer to university campuses rather than the standard Turkish word kampüs.
Many critics have thus accused Erdoğan of wanting to become an Ottoman sultan and abandon the secular and democratic credentials of the Republic. When pressed on this issue in January 2015, Erdoğan denied these claims and said that he would aim to be more like Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom rather than like an Ottoman sultan.
In July 2020, after the Council of State annulled the Cabinet's 1934 decision to establish the Hagia Sophia as museum and revoking the monument's status, Erdoğan ordered its reclassification as a mosque. The 1934 decree was ruled to be unlawful under both Ottoman and Turkish law as Hagia Sophia's waqf, endowed by Sultan Mehmed II, had designated the site a mosque; proponents of the decision argued the Hagia Sophia was the personal property of the sultan. This redesignation is controversial, invoking condemnation from the Turkish opposition, UNESCO, the World Council of Churches, the Holy See, and many other international leaders. In August 2020, he also signed the order that transferred the administration of the Chora Church to the Directorate of Religious Affairs to open it for worship as a mosque. Initially converted to a mosque by the Ottomans, the building had then been designated as a museum by the government since 1934.
In August 2020, Erdoğan gave a speech saying that "in our civilization, conquest is not occupation or looting. It is establishing the dominance of the justice that Allah commanded in the region. First of all, our nation removed the oppression from the areas that it conquered. It established justice. This is why our civilization is one of conquest. Turkey will take what is its right in the Mediterranean Sea, in the Aegean Sea, and in the Black Sea." In October 2020, he made a statement before the Grand National Assembly that "Jerusalem is ours", referring to the period of Ottoman rule over the city and the rebuilding of its Old City by Suleiman the Magnificent.
Authoritarianism
Erdoğan has been the de facto leader of Turkey since 2002. In the more recent years of Erdoğan's rule, Turkey has experienced increasing authoritarianism, democratic backsliding, and corruption, as well as expansionism, censorship, and banning of parties or dissent. In response to criticism, Erdoğan made a speech in May 2014 denouncing allegations of dictatorship, saying that the leader of the opposition, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, who was there at the speech, would not be able to "roam the streets" freely if he were a dictator. Kılıçdaroğlu responded that political tensions would cease to exist if Erdoğan stopped making his polarizing speeches for three days. One observer said it was a measure of the state of Turkish democracy that Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu could openly threaten, on 20 December 2015, that, if his party did not win the election, Turkish Kurds would endure a repeat of the era of the "white Toros".
In April 2014, the president of the Constitutional Court, Haşim Kılıç, accused Erdoğan of damaging the credibility of the judiciary, labelling Erdoğan's attempts to increase political control over the courts as 'desperate'. During the chaotic 2007 presidential election, the military issued an E-memorandum warning the government to keep within the boundaries of secularism when choosing a candidate. Regardless, Erdoğan's close relations with Fethullah Gülen and his Cemaat Movement allowed his government to maintain a degree of influence within the judiciary through Gülen's supporters in high judicial and bureaucratic offices. Shortly after, an alleged coup plot codenamed Sledgehammer became public and resulted in the imprisonment of 300 military officers including İbrahim Fırtına, Çetin Doğan and Engin Alan. Several opposition politicians, journalists and military officers also went on trial for allegedly being part of an ultra-nationalist organization called Ergenekon.
Both cases were marred by irregularities and were condemned as a joint attempt by Erdoğan and Gülen to curb opposition to the AKP. The original Sledgehammer document containing the coup plans, allegedly written in 2003, was found to have been written using Microsoft Word 2007. Despite both domestic and international calls for these irregularities to be addressed in order to guarantee a fair trial, Erdoğan instead praised his government for bringing the coup plots to light. When Gülen publicly withdrew support and openly attacked Erdoğan in late 2013, several imprisoned military officers and journalists were released, with the government admitting that the judicial proceedings were unfair.
Ziya Gökalp
In 2019, Erdoğan once again publicly recited Ziya Gökalp's Soldier's Prayer poem, as he had done in 1997. Historian Hans-Lukas Kieser argues that these recitations signal Erdoğan's affinity with Gökalp's pre-1923 ideal of "a modern, leader-led Islamic-Turkish state", and he associates this with a vision extending beyond the boundaries of the Treaty of Lausanne.
Women
In 2021, Erdoğan withdrew Turkey from the Council of Europe's Istanbul Convention on violence against women and has attacked groups that defend women.
Views on minorities
In 2002, Erdoğan said that "homosexuals must be legally protected within the framework of their rights and freedoms. From time to time, we do not find the treatment they get on some television screens humane", he said. However, in 2017 Erdoğan has said that empowering LGBT people in Turkey was "against the values of our nation".
In 2020, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Turkey's top Muslim scholar and President of Religious Affairs, Ali Erbaş, said in a Friday Ramadan announcement that the country condemns homosexuality because it "brings illness", insinuating that same sex relations were responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan backed Erbaş, saying that what Erbaş "said was totally right." Starting from 2023, Erdoğan began openly speaking against LGBT people, openly saying that his Coalition "are against the LGBT", and accusing the Turkish opposition of being LGBT.
In 2023, Erdogan blamed LGBTQ+ people for "undermining family values" in Turkey and called his political opponents "gays" in a derogatory manner. Third-party sources criticized this; seeing it as a bid to distract the public from the ruling party's failings—particularly on the country's economy; according to these sources, by targeting Turkey's minority groups, he rallied his base amid the country's ongoing economic troubles to raise the prospects of winning the 2023 general elections in his country, which were seen as critical for his nearly 20-year rule. At a campaign rally in the same year Erdoğan stated, "We are against the LGBT".
While Erdoğan has declared that the antisemitism is an "evil crime" that cannot be legitimized, he has been accused of invoking antisemitic tropes in public statements, particularly those regarding Israel. In 2009, regarding the 2008–2009 Gaza War, Erdoğan said Israelis "know very well how to kill" and suggested that Israel controls the media. In 2010, following the Gaza flotilla raid, he repeated the suggestion of Israel dominating the world media. The Turkish historian Rıfat Bali characterized these remarks as antisemitic and as inflammatory rhetoric well beyond legitimate criticism of Israel. In 2021, Erdoğan accused Israel of "terrorism" against the Palestinians and said, "they kill children who are five or six years old. They only are satisfied by sucking their blood", which the Anti-Defamation League and others cited as an instance of blood libel.
Armenian genocide
Erdoğan has continued Turkey's policy of Armenian genocide denial. During his premiership, he said that Turkey would only recognise the mass killings of Armenians during World War I as a genocide after a thorough investigation by a joint Turkish-Armenian commission consisting of historians, archaeologists, political scientists and other experts. In 2005, Erdoğan and the main opposition party leader Deniz Baykal wrote a letter to President of Armenia Robert Kocharyan, proposing the creation of a joint Turkish-Armenian commission. Armenian foreign minister Vartan Oskanian rejected the offer, which he asserted was insincere: "This issue cannot be considered at historical level with Turks, who themselves politicized the problem."
In 2008, Erdoğan criticised I Apologise, a campaign by Turkish intellectuals to recognise the genocide: "I neither accept nor support this campaign. We did not commit a crime, therefore we do not need to apologise ... It will not have any benefit other than stirring up trouble, disturbing our peace and undoing the steps which have been taken." In 2010, Erdoğan threatened to deport 100,000 Armenians from Turkey after the US House Committee on Foreign Affairs and the Swedish Riksdag voted in favour of recognition.
In 2011, Erdoğan called for the destruction of the 33-meter-tall (108 ft) Monument to Humanity, a statue by Mehmet Aksoy in Kars intended to represent reconciliation between Turkey and Armenia. Erdoğan condemned the monument as "freakish" and a "monstrosity", and argued it overshadowed other Kars landmarks, such as the tomb of an 11th-century Islamic scholar. The Kars municipal assembly subsequently approved a motion to demolish it on the basis that it was built illegally in a protected area. In 2015, Erdoğan was 10,000 Turkish lira for insulting Aksoy.
On 23 April 2014, Erdoğan released a statement in nine languages (including two dialects of Armenian) for Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day. Though he did not recognise the genocide, he offered condolences for the mass killings and described them as Armenia and Turkey's shared pain: "Having experienced events which had inhumane consequences – such as relocation – during the First World War, (it) should not prevent Turks and Armenians from establishing compassion and mutually humane attitudes among one another."
In April 2015, Pope Francis, during a special mass in St. Peter's Basilica marking the genocide's centenary, described it as "the first genocide of the 20th century". In protest, Erdoğan recalled Turkey's ambassador to the Vatican and summoned the Vatican's ambassador to Turkey to express "disappointment" at what he called a discriminatory message. When the European Parliament held a vote to recognise the genocide, Erdoğan said it would "go in one ear and out from the other" and that Turkey does not "carry a stain or a shadow like genocide". US president Barack Obama called for a "full, frank and just acknowledgement of the facts", but stopped short of labelling it "genocide", despite a campaign promise to do so.
Climate change
Erdogan is considering climate change a threat to humanity, comparable to global wars and pandemics. He think that new technologies are accelerating production and excessive consumption hurt nature. He emphasised Turkey's environmental initiatives, like “Zero Waste”.
Personal life
Erdoğan married Emine Erdoğan (née Gülbaran; b. 1955, Siirt) on 4 July 1978. They have two sons, Ahmet Burak (b. 1979) and Necmettin Bilal (b. 1981), and two daughters, Esra (b. 1983) and Sümeyye (b. 1985). His father, Ahmet Erdoğan, died in 1988 and his mother, Tenzile Erdoğan, died in 2011 at the age of 87.
Erdoğan has a brother, Mustafa (b. 1958), and a sister, Vesile (b. 1965). From his father's first marriage to Havuli Erdoğan (d. 1980), he had two half-brothers: Mehmet (1926–1988) and Hasan (1929–2006).
Honors, awards and recognitions
Erdoğan has received numerous national and international awards and honors throughout his political career. Internationally, he has been recognized with awards such as the Medal "In Commemoration of the 1000th Anniversary of Kazan" from Russia, the Nishan-e-Pakistan from Pakistan, and the Order of the Republic from Moldova. He has also been awarded the Grand Cordon of the Order of Leopold from Belgium, the Grand Cordon of the National Order of the Ivory Coast and the Grand Cross of the National Order of Merit from Guinea.
Domestically, Erdoğan has received accolades including the Outstanding Service award from the Turkish Red Crescent and the Dialogue Between Cultures Award from the President of Tatarstan. Additionally, he has been awarded the King Faisal International Prize for "service to Islam" and the United Nations–HABITAT award in memorial of Rafik Hariri.
