Erdogan Uses NATO Summit to Shield Domestic Crackdown
Turkey's July 7-8 NATO summit in Ankara -- where Trump is expected -- is giving Erdogan substantial cover for the legal campaign against the CHP: Western governments are privately concerned but publicly confining visits to defence briefings at TUSAŞ and ASELSAN. DEVA leader Ali Babacan warned that a court ruling annulling the 2023 CHP congress with 'absolute nullity' risks convincing young Turks that governments can no longer be changed through elections. Erdogan also announced the merger of three state-owned Islamic banks -- Ziraat, Vakif and Halk Katilim -- and an IPO for Emlak Katilim at the Global Islamic Economy Summit in Istanbul.
Turkey's position as NATO host for the July 7-8 Ankara summit -- the alliance's first summit on Turkish soil -- has handed President Recep Tayyip Erdogan a structural insulator against Western criticism at a moment when his government is pursuing the most aggressive legal campaign against the main opposition in two decades. Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu remains in pre-trial detention; the cases against CHP chair Ozgur Ozel and Ankara Mayor Mansur Yavas have been consolidated; and a court of appeals has annulled the CHP's 2023 party congress with a ruling of absolute nullity. US President Donald Trump is expected to attend the NATO summit, making Turkey's cooperation diplomatically essential. Western governments visiting Ankara have confined their delegations to defence-sector briefings at firms including TUSAŞ and ASELSAN -- the defence industry behemoths Erdogan has built up since Turkey's exclusion from the F-35 programme -- rather than raising political prisoners with Turkish officials directly. The July 7-8 summit comes at a moment when Turkey's borders face four concurrent conflicts: the Russia-Ukraine war, the US-Israeli campaign against Iran, Israel's ongoing operations in Lebanon and Gaza, and expected Armenian elections. In this environment, as US Secretary of State Marco Rubio recently described Turkey as 'the most important NATO ally' in the current situation, Ankara's leverage is higher than at any point in the post-Cold War period.
On June 4, CHP chair Ozel was photographed shaking hands with Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) chair Devlet Bahceli -- a gesture that opposition analysts said was intended to signal CHP's readiness to seek coalition protection. The image circulated widely on Turkish social media. Babacan, appearing on Murat Yetkin's YouTube channel on June 3, described the political atmosphere as 'very bitter' and said Turkey is at a 'very critical juncture.' The European Court of Human Rights rulings on the detention of philanthropist Osman Kavala and former HDP co-chair Selahattin Demirtas remain unenforced; Turkey is accumulating ECHR judgements without compliance, a pattern that European institutions note but have not been able to compel compliance with given Turkey's NATO value.
DEVA Party leader Ali Babacan, a former economy minister and foreign minister who served under Erdogan before breaking with the AKP in 2020, warned that the court of appeals ruling annulling the CHP's 2023 congress could have consequences beyond the internal party situation. Speaking on June 3, Babacan said the ruling of absolute nullity is 'not just an issue for the party' but could deepen a perception that the government cannot be changed through elections. His central concern was the effect on younger voters: 'My biggest fear is that young people may conclude that democratic politics no longer exists in this country,' he said. Babacan called on citizens not to give up on democratic processes, but noted that the cumulative effect of judicial interventions in opposition party governance -- the CHP congress ruling following the Imamoglu detention -- is eroding the baseline assumption of electoral alternation that sustains democratic participation.
On the economic front, Erdogan on Friday announced the consolidation of Turkey's three state-owned Islamic participation banks. Speaking at the 3rd Global Islamic Economy Summit in Istanbul, he said Ziraat Katilim, Vakif Katilim and Halk Katilim would be merged, and that Emlak Katilim would be taken to an initial public offering. 'Combining the strengths of these three participation banks will create significant synergy. God willing, the sector will gain new momentum,' Erdogan told the summit. No timeline was given. The Islamic banking sector in Turkey has grown significantly under the AKP government as part of a deliberate strategy to build a viable alternative to conventional banking for religiously conservative clients. The merger would create a single dominant state-owned Islamic bank better positioned to compete with private sector participants, though analysts note that mergers of state entities in Turkey have historically proceeded slowly due to civil service integration challenges.