Almost a quarter century ago, Recep Tayyip Erdogan visited Washington. Former Reagan-era defense official Richard Perle introduced him to the White House, affirming his bonafides as a democrat and reformer. When Erdogan subsequently won election, both White House and State Department officials endorsed him. President George W. Bush, for example, told Erdogan, “I appreciate so very much the example your country has set on how to be a Muslim country and at the same time a country which embraces democracy and rule of law and freedom.” Secretary of State Colin Powell, meanwhile, described Turkey as “a Muslim democracy living in peace with its friends and neighbors.” Such wishful thinking continued for years as American officials described the Erdogan for which they wished rather than the Erdogan who actually existed. While a generation of American diplomats praised Erdogan’s supposed democratic reforms, he reverted Turkey into one of Europe’s most vicious police states.
Diplomatic negligence had consequence. Turkey has the fifth largest decline in Freedom House rankings over the past decade, even greater than Hong Kong after Communist China shredded that territory’s guarantees. The murder rate of women has increased over 1,400 percent. Press freedoms are non-existent. Far from defending Western interests, Erdogan cozies up to Russia and Iran, and embraces terrorist leaders.
The question now is whether Washington and its European partners have learned any lesson.
Consider Albania. On September 11, 2013, Edi Rama took office as Albania’s 12th post-Cold War prime minister. When President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden subsequently met Rama, they praised his leadership, his efforts for Balkan security and stability, and his promotion of religious tolerance. Secretary of State John Kerry was effusive during a 2016 visit to Tirana.
President Obama and I and the American people are very grateful for the leadership that you are offering and for your team’s efforts to not just care about Albania and Albanian’s interests but to embrace a broad set of values which define all of us,
he told Rama. In February 2020, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo praised Rama’s supposed support for judicial reforms. As with Erdogan, however, questions about illegal donations into the American political system percolate.
There are signs, however, that Rama sees himself as a young Erdogan. Here, the case of Fredi Beleri should be a warning. On May 12, 2023, two days before Albania’s municipal elections, Albanian forces arrested Beleri, an ethnic Greek seeking the mayoralty of Himara, a town on the Albanian Riviera. Charges were dubious. Prosecutors from Rama’s apparatus accused Beleri of seeking to buy four votes for a total of around $320. Voters saw the charges as a cynical attempt to sideline an opposition candidate and deprive Albania’s ethnic Greek community control over increasingly valuable real estate that Rama’s associates hoped to develop. Beleri won, but Rama refused to allow him into office.
The parallels to Turkey are stunning. First, Erdogan also fabricated allegations of financial impropriety to sideline political opponents and confiscate their properties. Second, he would use dubious judicial means to prevent ethnic minorities from taking the offices they won. For years, though, Erdogan suffered no diplomatic consequence for his actions; convinced in the truth of their own spin about how Erdogan was a reformist, US diplomats would even whitewash the abuse. Just over a decade ago, for example, Obama lauded Erdogan in Sabah, ignoring that the Turkish leader had just confiscated the paper and transferred it to his son-in-law. Obama’s error was not his alone; he had relied on diplomats who drank Erdogan’s Kool-aid.
Like Erdogan, Rama is a tactician. He realizes that, so long as key diplomats and officials in Washington and Brussels view him as a reformer, as they once did Erodgan, they will allow Rama to use courts to target political opposition. That former Ambassador Yuri Kim ignored Rama’s abuse as she maneuvered for a follow-on posting in Ankara was icing on the cake.
Washington should not make the same mistake twice. More than Balkan security cooperation is at stake. Left unchecked, Erdoganism metastasizes and abuses and instability follow. It is time to judge Rama by his actions, not his spin, and declare Beleri a political prisoner.
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