Middle East Politics > New party to challenge Erdogan in Turkey

 

Turkey: Persecuted Opposition Leader to Create Breakaway Party to Challenge Erdogan

Jul 23, 2026 8:00 am By Christine Douglass-Williams2 Comments

Reuters reported in May about Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s unprecedented crackdown on his opponents. One of those is Özgür Özel, whose power, due to his popularity, Erdogan has attempted to neutralize. “Özel said he had been forced to leave the party founded by modern Turkey’s founder Mustafa ‌Kemal Ataturk after a court annulled the CHP congress that brought him to power, deepening the country’s political crisis.” But Özel isn’t going down so easily. More about his new party: 

Turkish opposition leader to create breakaway party to take on Erdoğan

by John Paul Rathbone, Financial Post, July 21, 2026:

The deposed leader of Turkey’s main opposition party has said he is creating a new political party to challenge President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in a bold move that could reshape Turkish politics. Özgür Özel’s gambit could unite Turkey’s fractured opposition, mobilise disgruntled voters and threaten Erdoğan at the next presidential election scheduled for 2028. But he also faces the risk of prosecution as part of a continuing legal crackdown by Turkish authorities against government critics and dissent. Recent polls suggest that Özel’s still unnamed “new party” would handily beat Erdoğan’s governing Justice and Development Party (AKP) if a vote were held today. “We are charting a new path,” Özel said to lawmakers of the main opposition Republican People’s Party, or CHP, in Ankara on Tuesday. “We will leave no one behind . . . on this march to power,” he added to rapturous applause. “We carry within us the unwavering hope of a new beginning.”

Photo: Özgür Özel, Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi, Creative Commons Attribution 3.0

Turkey has been likened to “the new Iran” for justifiable reasons. Erdogan has dreams of a revived Ottoman Empire, with himself as caliph. As a man who has declared “Our God commands us to be violent towards the kuffar” (infidels), he is dangerous beyond the region.

Erdogan will predictably continue efforts to suppress any threats to his leadership from Özel.

Last year, Jihad Watch reported about another key opponent besides Özgür Özel, who also threatens Erdogan: Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, whom Erdogan likewise targeted. Imamoglu had considerable support in his bid to challenge Erdogan for the presidency, but then he was arbitrarily detained on “corruption” suspicions — which are often conjured up against anyone who threatens Erdogan’s authority or leadership. Imamoglu was arrested, interrogated, jailed, and stripped of his title as mayor. The furious protests that subsequently erupted in Turkey were a threat to Erdogan. What happened next was even more potentially disastrous for the Turkish president. Despite Imamoglu’s incarceration, the opposition CHP party officially nominated him anyway as its presidential candidate for the 2028 elections. The numbers in support of him were overwhelming. “Some 15 million people voted” in the primary. Erdogan had hoped that Imamoglu would languish in jail and be silenced, but he is doing neither. The Guardian subsequently published a letter Imamoglu wrote from jail HERE. In February, Imamoglu dared Erdogan to call early elections.

History repeats itself in a modern-day Turkey, where Erdogan, the self-appointed embodiment of the Ottoman caliphate, stands against the past leader of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk’s CHP party, Özgür Özel, whose new breakaway party is expected to draw many from the CHP. Ideally, Özel and Imamoglu would find a way to join forces to unite the opposition and fight against Erdogan’s crackdown and tyranny.

The  Financial Post further states that with Özel’s popularity and high profile, “he helped lead the CHP to a resounding victory against the AKP in the 2024 municipal elections.” And that his successes are “likely to place him at the centre of the opposition’s efforts to unseat Erdoğan, who has governed Turkey for more than 23 years.”

Between the tenacious Özel and Ekrem Imamoglu, Erdogan finds himself facing a dual threat at the ballot box to his tight grip on power. Erdogan will no doubt continue to tyrannize both Özel and Imamoglu and wage a ferocious battle against both ahead of Turkey’s next election in May 2028, as he views these opponents as existential threats.

In the meantime, both opposition leaders can exert diplomatic pressure on Erdogan by appealing to international human rights watchdogs, as well as to NATO, of which Turkey is still a member. They can also appeal under the European Convention on Human Rights. These measures would stir media interest, and embarrass and potentially isolate Erdogan, giving Turkish democracy a fighting chance in 2028.

Erdogan's Satanic Reversal > Israel is a danger to the world, not Islam!!!

 

Erdogan Spreads Wild Fantasies About a Supposed Threat From Israel

Jul 8, 2026 2:00 pm By Hugh Fitzgerald11 Comments

The U.S. and other NATO members are courting Erdogan:

Turkey’s Erdogan is waging war on the West and Israel

– NATO must not ignore it – opinion

by David M. Weinberg, Jerusalem Post, July 4, 2026:

Erdogan said, “When we fight Zionism, we are not conducting a personal struggle for ourselves. We are conducting this struggle for our own survival and for the collective survival of our nation. Zionism threatens not only me, not only our party, and not only our alliance, but everyone.”

Zionism, in Erdogan’s view, “threatens everyone” in the world. And what do you do to such a threat? Why, you must destroy it completely. You annihilate the Jewish state, and expel or kill its Jewish inhabitants. Judea delenda est is his murderous motto.

Satanic reversal means Erdogan has completely reversed the truth in that Israel is no threat to anyone that is not a threat to them. Islam is the threat to the world, not Zionism. But, as I have been saying for a couple of years now, Erdogan is looking for an elegant way to enter the Middle East war.

Then he hit back at Israel for formally recognizing the Armenian genocide by escalating his oft-repeated false accusations of Israeli genocide: Israel being “a country that has the blood of 73,000 innocent Gazans, most of them children and women, on its hands.”…

Of the 73,000 people who have died in Gaza since October 8, 2023, all of whom Erdogan describes as “innocent” victims of Israel’s “genocide,” we know the following. About 25,000-30,000 were terrorist members of Hamas, with some — not many — belonging to, Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Another 2,000 were the estimated number of Gazans that the IDF did not kill. The Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad launched missiles from Gaza that misfired and fell short in the Strip itself, killing civilians. Most of those missiles that Palestinian Islamic Jihad launched fell short and killed Gazans.

In one memorable example, a Palestinian Islamic Jihad missile struck a parking lot next to the Al-Ahli Hospital, killing — according to Hamas — 471 people. In addition, there have been deaths in Gaza from natural causes —cancer, heart disease , COVID, diabetes, accidents, and so on. How many? Some calculate that natural deaths in a population of 2 million over a 2.5-year period amount to 39,000-41,500. This estimate is calculated using typical crude mortality rates of ~ 8.5 to 9.5 per 1,000 people.

But that strikes me as much too high. The head of the statistics team at Gaza’s Hamas-controlled health ministry, Zaher al-Wahidi, says that about 5,000 Gazans have died each year from natural causes; over the 2 ½ years since the Gaza war began, that would mean 12,500 Gazans died of such non-combat related causes. Now, let’s do the math for Erdogan, who accuses Israel of “genocide.” 73,000 total deaths minus 30,000 Hamas combatants killed equals 43,000. 43,000 minus 2,000 killed by misfired missiles that landed in Gaza equals 41,000. 41,000 minus 12,500 (natural deaths) equals 28,500, the total number of non-combatants who have died in Gaza as a result of the war. Erdogan insists that the IDF has killed “73,000 innocent civilians.” His math is way off.

But speaking in his playacting parliament, the Turkish tyrant said Israel’s military actions in Syria and Lebanon have escalated to a level that could endanger Turkey, warning that Israeli “aggression” poses a threat to the entire world and must be stopped.

How could Israel’s military action in Lebanon or Syria endanger Turkey? In Israel, the only reason the IDF has taken and is holding onto some Lebanese territory is to push the terror group Hezbollah further away from the border with Israel, so that its missiles will have a harder time reaching northern Israel. Israel and the Lebanese government are on the same side — both want Hezbollah to be disarmed and dismantled. How does that endanger Turkey?

As for Syria, the Israelis now control a small enclave inside Syria is because of fears that terror groups, at encouragement of the jihadist regime of Al-Sharaa, will attack Israeli villages. And another goal of the IDF is to support the Druze in Sweida governorate south of Damascus and the Kurds in northeastern Syria. It is this last — Israeli military support for the Kurds — that most infuriates Erdogan.

Let the NATO members remind Turkey that it is an alliance of democracies, and his authoritarianism, grading into despotism, is fast making Turkey an odd man out. He should be told that his support for Iran, a country at war with the West, that openly declares its hatred of America (“Death, death to America”) is unacceptable. His menacing posture toward Greece, a fellow member of NATO, must stop. And his annihilationist threats toward Israel are deeply distressing. Israel is not a member of NATO, but it is a founding member, one could say, of Western civilization.

Meanwhile, Senators, make sure you prevent Trump’s mad plan to sell Turkey a squadron of F-35 fighter jets from being realized.

This Day in Islamic History > The fall of the great Hagia Sophia, the center of Orthodox Christianity for a millennium

 

Erdogan Celebrates the Triumph of Savagery

May 31, 2026 7:00 am By Robert Spencer3 Comments

Sainte-Sophie by Anthony Baratier, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0

“Today,” said Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday, “is Friday, May 29, and we had the opportunity to pray at Hagia. Attendance at Hagia Sophia was also very beautiful, magnificent. Today there was a march from Fatih to Hagia Sophia.” Fatih, or “The Conqueror,” was Sultan Mehmed II, and on May 29, 1453, he did indeed march to Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, which had stood at that time for nearly a thousand years as the grandest church in the Christian world.

His march, however, was not a serene victory march. It was a pitiless display of bloodlust and inhumanity, as the conquering Muslims laid waste to the great city and joyfully continued their orgy of rape and murder even inside the great cathedral itself. Once Mehmed entered, he had a muezzin pronounce the Islamic profession of faith and declared that the great cathedral was now a mosque. After over a thousand years, the Roman Empire was no more.

There is more. Read the rest here. It is behind a paywall.

You can also search this blog for "Hagia Sophia" for a few fascinating stories on the ancient church. You may also come across my piece, which suggests that Erdogan's preaching from the pulpit of the Hagia Sophia may well have been the incident referenced in Matt 24:14-16 - The Abomination of Desolation standing in the holy place. 

Middle East geo-politics > Erdogan's biggest fears, Israel's biggest hopes

 

Erdogan on Israel, Iran, and the Kurds

Apr 30, 2026 2:00 pm By Hugh Fitzgerald2 Comments

Recep Tayyip Erdogan has firm views on Israel: he doesn’t like the Jewish state, and wishes it would disappear. He is convinced it practices “apartheid” at home and “genocide” abroad. He has fantasized about creating, and heading, a pan-Islamic army that would be able to defeat the IDF, so that “from the river and the sea/Palestine will be free” — which is the thinly-disguised call for Israel to disappear entirely, to be replaced by a state of “Palestine.”

Erdogan has watched with alarm Israel’s swift battering of Iran, a display of advanced weaponry, spectacular intelligence, and a brilliant and brave soldiery, made up of both battle-hardened professionals and reservists. But he is not entirely displeased at the weakening of the Islamic Republic. He wants Iran weakened, but not enough to lead to the regime’s collapse, that could mean Iranian Kurds would gain full autonomy. More on this can be found here: 

As Israel becomes a dominant force in the Middle East, where does Turkey stand? – analysis

by Amichai Stein, Jerusalem Post, April 27, 2026:

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Russian Presidential Executive Office, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0

As the smoke cleared over Tehran after the beginning of the Israeli-US strikes, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was quick to point the finger. “This all began following Netanyahu’s provocations,” the Turkish leader stated, “we feel deep sorrow and great concern.” He went further, issuing a chilling warning: “God willing, I have no doubt that Israel will pay the price for this.”

The casual observer might imagine that Turkey, fighting as it is with Iran for dominance of the region, would welcome the strike against the Islamic Republic.

However, Hay Eytan Cohen Yanarocak, a leading expert on Turkish affairs at the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security, explains that Turkey has a vested interest in the survival of the current Iranian regime.

“Ankara does not want to see a new ‘surprise’ in the form of regime change,” Yanarocak notes. “They are interested in the continuation of the regime because if a revolution occurs, Turkey’s monopoly as the primary bridge between the West and the Middle East simply disappears.”

Policy expert Jonathan Adiri agrees, suggesting that Turkey prefers a crippled neighbor over a liberated one.

“Turkey wants a non-nuclear, weak Iran,” Adiri says. “They want a sort of ‘weakened virus’ in the region. An Iran that is pro-Western and working with the Americans would become a magnet for foreign investment, which would directly hurt the Turkish economy.”

Right now, Turkey sees itself as the chief Muslim interlocutor with America. It has been a member of NATO since 1952, and in the past, the Americans used the Incirlik air base to spy on the Soviets and to pre-position war planes in case of need in the region. However, in recent years, Turkey has sometimes refused to allow the Americans to use that base to attack ISIS fighters in Iraq. Right now, Turkey continues, despite Erdogan’s hysterical anti-Israel animus, to be the main bridge between the Muslim world and the West, while Iran is a confirmed enemy of the West, especially of the United States, the Islamic Republic’s “Great Satan.”

Perhaps the most potent driver of Erdogan’s anxiety is the Kurdish question. For decades, the Iranian and Turkish regimes have shared a common interest in suppressing Kurdish nationalist aspirations. A destabilized Iran could lead to the emergence of an autonomous or independent Kurdish entity on Turkey’s southern border – a prospect Erdogan finds intolerable.

According to several sources, Erdogan and other senior Turkish officials pressured US President Donald Trump not to give a green light to an Israeli operation that would have resulted in Kurdish fighters in Iran starting a rebellion against the Iranian regime.

For decades, the Israelis have had clandestine ties with Kurds in Iraq and Iran. Beginning in the 1960s, Israel provided weapons and training to Kurdish forces — known as the peshmerga — in Iraq, and it still does. Since Muslim fanatics took over Iran 47 years ago, Israel has supplied weapons intermittently to Kurdish militias in that country as well. After the American pullout of forces from Syria, Israel decided to supply weapons to Syrian Kurds in their quasi-autonomous stronghold of Rojava. Erdogan is fearful of any Kurdish separatist movement in Iran or Iraq or Syria, that if successful, might prompt the Kurds in Turkey to join forces with those other Kurds in order to realize the ancient dream of an independent Kurdistan. Turkey wants Iran to be weakened, but left strong enough to suppress the Kurdish militias inside the country.

Adira [sic] points out that Erdogan and Turkey’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan drew a red line with Washington regarding the use of Kurdish forces from Iraq to move against Iran.

“Erdogan told his public: ‘Case closed,’ regarding the Kurdish story,” Adiri observes. “He is deathly afraid of that box being reopened. From Ankara’s perspective, the success of a Kurdish-led or Kurdish-supported uprising in Iran would have a domino effect on Kurds in Turkey, Syria, and Iraq.”…

That is exactly what Israel would want: that “domino effect” following upon the 15 million Kurds in Iran carrying out a successful separatist uprising. After the shellacking the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Iranian army received in recent months from Israeli and American forces, this may be the Iranian Kurds’ best chance to rise up. If they do so, they can almost certainly count on Israel’s support. The IDF could supply the Kurds with both intelligence and weapons, including missiles, drones, artillery, and likely use its fighter jets, too, in order to halt with bombs away any attempted advance by Iranian forces.