Siddiqui asserts "Erdogan's reelection one of mant miracle in Turkey"

YAYINLAMA
GÜNCELLEME

An article by Haroon Siddiqui published on the Canadian daily Canada Star writes that a miracle of democracy occurred in Turkey, but the West has some difficulties to understand this. "The election of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) on Sunday to a record third straight majority represents a miracle but only one of many in today's Turkey. He is now the country's most successful democratic leader ever. In leading Turkey away from its authoritarian and military-dominated past, he has made it the model for democracy-hungry Arabs, to whom he has lent strong support, including taking in 4,000 Syrians fleeing Bashar al-Assad's butchery. Another miracle is Turkey's economy. At 9 per cent, its growth is second only to China's and higher than India's. Its $1 trillion economy is now not too far behind Canada's. The third miracle is Turkey's emergence as a strong regional power. Its relations with the United States and Israel may be more strained since Erdogan's election in 2002, but Erdogan's independent foreign policy of ‘zero problems with neighbors' has normalized relations and increased trade with neighbors in the Balkans, the Middle East and the Black Sea basin. The fourth miracle - still in the making - is that instead of Europe resisting Turkey's entry into the European Union, it is Turkey that may no longer want the membership," Siddiqui writes.