Turkey won’t have ‘Arab spring’ – Senator Shnyakin

Turkey map

(Interfax – MOSCOW, June 6, 2013) Valery Shnyakin, military expert and deputy head of the Federation Council committee on international affairs, believes the situation with protests in Turkey will gradually stabilize and will not follow the “Arab spring” scenario.

“Turkey is a special country in the Arab world. It’s a secular and democratic state and I think Prime Minister Erdogan will be able to resolve the situation and he will meet the protesters halfway,” Shnyakin told Interfax on Wednesday.

The senator said the recent developments in Turkey cannot be compared to the “Arab spring.”

At the same time, he pointed out that the protests were targeted against the Party of Justice and Development, which is led by the incumbent prime minister. “His party received the most votes in the past elections. It is noteworthy that the protest united people of various political views, right-wing, nationalists, liberals, democrats, environmentalists, left-wing, etc.,” he said.

Shnyakin believes the Turkish administration cannot be overthrown like the administrations of Egypt and Libya. “Turkey associates itself with Europe. At the same time, the revolutions in the ‘Arab spring’ countries were caused by the fact that authoritarian regimes had not been replaced,” he said.

The senator also pointed out the position taken by the army, which has always been the stronghold of secular Turkey. “Now the army is not manifesting itself in any way. It has to be taken into account that Erdogan worked on weakening the military leadership in the past few years. At the same time, despite the fact that he has achieved some success, causing the military to leave politics, it cannot be said that the military will stay uninvolved in this,” Shnyakin said.

The senator believes the army will see how the situation develops and the military will intervene if the situation develops according to the most acute scenario. “Prime Minister Erdogan is a sensible and rational politician, and he understands very well that the use of military force will hurt his rating and will make it impossible for him to stay in power in the next few years. Moreover, such a scenario will cause division in the ruling elites with all ensuing consequences,” he said.

Shnyakin also said the external factors should also be taken into account, saying that neither the West, which sees Turkey as its key ally in the Middle East, nor Europe want destabilization in Turkey.

“Destabilizing the situation in Turkey would mean jeopardizing the entire Middle Eastern politics for the U.S. Europe is not interested in the exacerbation of the situation in this country either. For this reason, I think the protest activity will decline,” Snyakin said.

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