Fear and Loathing in Erdogan’s Palace

Turkish Finance Minister’s Instagram Farewell: the Unmaking of the Erdogan Dynasty?

Erdogan’s axing of his son-in-law after Biden’s win in the U.S. reveals the reign of anxiety over the next course of the Turkish-U.S. relationship amid fears of sanctions against Halkbank.

The whole world, the New York Times accurately reported, held its breath when more than 150 million American voters cast their ballots on a historic election last Tuesday. The identity of the next occupant of the Oval Office was important beyond any definition and who won the election mattered more than anything else, given its world-wide ramifications for international politics, not just for the American domestic affairs. For this particular reason, countries around the world divided along the lines of Trump and Biden in accordance with their respective national interests. They prayed, they wished, and they waited in anxiety. The state of limbo was no deeper in Turkey than anywhere else.

The Biden win unleashed a political earthquake in Turkey where months of rooting for the re-election of Donald J. Trump is now tempered by the sober realization of a new course of relations ahead. A…