(Ankara) Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in power for 20 years, began his third term as president on Saturday in heavy rain that fell on Ankara.
The 69-year-old head of state, re-elected on May 28 with 52% of the vote, was sworn in before Parliament for a new five-year term and promised “to assume his duty impartially”.
He was then to meditate at the mausoleum of the founder of the Republic, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, before protocol ceremonies at the presidential palace and a large dinner in the evening, after which he will announce the composition of his government.
“As President, I swear to protect the existence and independence of the state, the integrity of the homeland, the unconditional sovereignty of the nation, the rule of law [et] the principle of a secular republic” as conceived by Atatürk, the “father of the Turks”, declared the president known for the defense of Islamo-conservative positions.
In addition to around twenty heads of state and government, according to the pro-government press, Jens Stoltenberg, the secretary general of NATO – to which Turkey belongs – had confirmed his presence.
He must try once again to lift the Turkish veto on Sweden’s entry into the Atlantic Alliance, barred for 13 months, if possible before a summit of the Organization in Vilnius in July.
NATO and Sweden
“Clear message to our Swedish friends! Respect your commitments […] and take concrete steps in the fight against terrorism. The rest will follow,” current Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu tweeted Thursday evening.
Despite an amended Constitution and a new law against terrorism, Ankara still accuses Sweden of harboring Kurdish refugees whom it describes as “terrorists”.
Stockholm also authorized a demonstration on Sunday on the theme “No to NATO, no Erdogan laws in Sweden”, organized in particular by associations supporting Kurdish armed groups in Syria.
Another burning issue, the list of ministers which will be announced in the evening, after the festivities, should give an idea of the orientations adopted by the Head of State to redress the economy in crisis.
For this arduous task, the name of a recognized expert, Mehmet Simsek, has been circulating insistently for several days.
Former Minister of Finance (2009-2015) then Deputy Prime Minister for the Economy (until 2018), Mr. Simsek, 56, a former economist at the American bank Merrill Lynch, would be responsible for restoring a little orthodoxy in order to restore investor confidence.
Armenia and Azerbaijan
In addition to inflation at more than 40%, encouraged by the steady decline in interest rates, the national currency was in free fall on Friday despite billions of dollars swallowed up during the campaign to delay its sinking.
According to the Turkish media, more than twenty Heads of State and Government and 45 foreign ministers were to attend the ceremonies which will end with a reception at the gigantic presidential palace built by the Head of State on a hill at the away from the center of the capital.
Among the crowd of traditional allies, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian will sit alongside Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Hungarian Prime Ministers Viktor Orban — who is also reluctant to open NATO’s doors to Sweden — and of Qatar, Mohammed ben Abderrahmane Al-Thani, who were among the first to congratulate him on his re-election.
Armenia and Turkey have never officially established diplomatic relations and their common border has been closed since the 1990s, but a rapprochement has been initiated since the beginning of 2022, despite Ankara’s open support for Baku on the issue. of Nargorny-Karabakh which opposes Yerevan to Azerbaijan.
Mr. Erdogan, forced for the first time in a second round, obtained 52.18% of the votes against 47.82% for his opponent, the social democrat Kemal Kiliçdaroglu, according to the official results published Thursday, after a bitter campaign that leaves the country polarized between the two camps.
The Parliament, elected on May 14 at the same time as the first round of the presidential election was held, took up residence on Friday in Ankara: the president’s AKP party and its allies hold the majority of the 600 seats there.