Turkish Interior Minister: "Anyone Who Promotes Pro-American Policy Is a Traitor" | Israel Hayom

A huge election poster on a large building near the bridge connecting the two European parts of Istanbul was photographed alongside Turkey's incumbent president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and incumbent Interior Minister Suleiman Soylu.

Since his appointment as interior minister in August 2016, about a month after the attempted military coup against Erdogan, Soylu has been the radical pioneer in the president's team. The 53-year-old businessman, who specializes in insurance and has served for the past 11 years as the number two man in the leadership of the ruling Justice and Development Party, wields a very tough arm against opposition parties – mainly those affiliated with the Kurdish underground, whose hundreds of elected officials in local authorities were arrested on his orders – and lashes out with extreme attacks against opponents of his president and party. In the current presidential election campaign, he played a major role in making the strongest accusations against the opposition and in radicalizing the tone of the entire campaign.

Elections in Turkey,

A day before the polls opened for the second and decisive round of voting in the presidential election, Soylu made two particularly aggressive statements, both internally and externally. The Turkish interior minister called "anyone who henceforth promotes pro-American policies" a traitor. This strong statement joins accusations made by Soylu on the eve of the first round of voting, in which he accused the Biden administration of attempting to stage a coup d'état in Turkey, citing statements of support for Erdogan's opponents made before Biden's election. These anti-American statements come against the backdrop of growing tensions between Ankara and Washington over the supply of F-16 fighter jets to Turkey and Turkey's delay in giving the green light for Sweden to join NATO. Turkish media have been reporting in recent days that Erdogan is conditioning Turkey's agreement to Sweden's accession to NATO on his invitation to the White House and on the area of the delayed F-16 deal.

At the same time, Soylu launched an unexpected attack on Iran: according to him, the headquarters of the Kurdish underground PKK, which the Turkish army fought in Turkish territory, northern Syria and northern Iraq, had left northern Iraq and settled in Iranian territory. This accusation is likely to put Turkey and Iran on a path of confrontation, contrary to Turkey's efforts to work with Iran to find a solution to the civil war in Syria that would allow the return of millions of Syrian refugees from Turkey to their homeland.

An unexpected attack on Iran. Soylu, Photo: Reuters

A day before voting begins in Turkey's presidential election, most recent polls indicate a fairly clear victory for Erdogan, who is expected to receive about 53% of the vote. However, opposition candidate Kemal Kilicdaroglu still hopes to surprise by recruiting voters who abstained from voting in the first round of voting.

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