Skip to footer

Could Turkey-US tensions complicate business ties?

Anti-American sentiment is rising in Turkey. Already Erdogan has used state resources to dig into business matters of a US-based Islamist preacher who is a political rival.

|
AP
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan addresses his supporters at the parliament in Ankara, Turkey, April 29, 2014.
  • By Elizabeth Dickinson Correspondent

Anti-American sentiment is rising in Turkey ahead of presidential elections this summer. And Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan may be the main beneficiary.

Last week, Mr. Erdogan announced he had requested the extradition of Pennsylvania-based Islamist preacher Fethullah Gulen – one of his main political rivals. The request is very unlikely to be approved, our correspondent says. But that may not be the point. “This is something which will help Erdogan domestically,” our reporter explains, noting that it could transfer the blame to the United States. “It is likely to play very well with his base.”

Mr. Gulen and his movement have been engaged in something approaching an all-out political war with Erdogan in recent months. The Turkish prime minister has blamed the group for being behind a series of corruption allegations against his government. “No one has proven that Gulen’s network was behind these corruption allegations, but no one seriously believes they are not involved in it,” our Istanbul-based correspondent says.

Erdogan has fought back with economics, The Christian Science Monitor’s reporter says.... For the rest of the story, continue reading at our new business publication Monitor Global Outlook.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Could Turkey-US tensions complicate business ties?
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Global-News/2014/0507/Could-Turkey-US-tensions-complicate-business-ties
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe