How Recep Tayyip Erdoğan inflamed tensions in Turkey

News of an attempted military coup in Turkey, with soldiers manning strategic points in Ankara and Istanbul and sudden announcements in the media, is a throwback to more unstable times – but appears to reflect growing unease in a country disenchanted by the rule of an unpopular president.

In the immediate background are terrorist attacks blamed variously on Islamic State and the Kurdish PKK, escalating as the war in neighbouring Syria has dragged on into its sixth year. In early June, 11 people died and many more were badly injured when a car bomb exploded in central Istanbul. Two weeks later, a suicide bombing at Istanbul International airport killed 42 and left more than 200 wounded.

Information was sketchy but Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has alarmed many with his staunchly Islamist and increasingly authoritarian views, especially in the military, which has traditionally seen itself as a guardian of the country’s secular heritage, embodied by Kemal Atatürk, the founder of the modern republic. The president’s rhetoric has polarised the country and inflamed ethnic and sectarian tensions.

Erdoğan’s involvement in the Syrian crisis – opposing the president, Bashar al-Assad, and backing Islamist groups fighting to overthrow him – has created the opposite of the old aspiration of “zero problems” with the neighbours. The resumption of conflict with the PKK after a two-year ceasefire complicated matters even further.

In recent weeks, however, he has moved to mend fences with both Russia and Israel following years of estrangement over the killing of activists on the “peace flotilla” sent to deliver aid to the blockaded Gaza Strip.

Earlier this week, the prime minister, Binali Yıldırım, stunned the Syrian rebels by declaring that Ankara would work to normalise relations with Damascus – suggesting a significant change of policy. For some analysts, however, this meant something short of a U-turn and was rather intended to appease Erdoğan’s worried supporters in a business community hit hard by mounting economic problems.

Turkey watchers have long warned that the Kurdish issue might trigger a military response, but few predicated a coup. “The military might act if fighting between the PKK and the state spirals out of control, if mass violence in western urban centres leads to a security collapse and a major economic downturn, and if the government becomes increasingly authoritarian”, wrote Gonul Tol in Foreign Affairs.

“Such circumstances could trigger massive anti-government protests. If Erdoğan responds with a brutal police crackdown and more chaos and bloodshed ensues, there could be growing public demand for the generals to take action. Even under these dangerous and undesirable scenarios, the generals would probably prefer to intervene by political rather than military means in pressuring the government to resign. Turkey has come too far in its political and economic evolution to be governed by a military junta.”

Ironically, earlier this week, Erdoğan signed a bill giving soldiers immunity from prosecution while taking part in domestic security operations, requiring cases against commanders to be approved by the prime minister. The bill was seen as reflecting improved relations part between the government and the army, playing an increasingly important role in operations in Kurdish areas.

If a successful coup has taken place, it would have profound implications for the country’s external relations. Turkey is a member of Nato and a key US ally in a profoundly unstable region. Having to endorse a military takeover would be a repeat of the scenario Barack Obama faced in Egypt in 2013.

Still, there is no mistaking western unease at Erdoğan’s policies, which have included a crackdown on journalists and human rights advocates in his country. Britain’s new foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, penned an irreverent poem about the Turkish leader. The US, Britain and other European countries have also expressed concern about Ankara’s failure to stop foreign Islamist fighters crossing the border into Syria.

Military coups were a normal feature of life in Turkey in the the 1970s and 1980s, but it had appeared for some time that they were a thing of the past.