Erdogan begins third term as Turkish president, calls for reconciliation

Recep Tayyip Erdoganin power for 20 years, began this Saturday, 3, the third term as president of the Türkiye and called for the reconciliation of his polarized country. The 69-year-old head of state, who was re-elected on May 28 with 52% of the vote, swore an oath to a new five-year term and promised to assume “duty with impartiality” before the 600 deputies elected on May 14. In the evening, Erdogan hosted a gala dinner for the approximately 80 foreign heads of state and government who attended the inauguration. He also announced the formation of his new government, profoundly reformulated and with changes at the head of the Defense, Foreign Affairs and Economy portfolios. The new cabinet will meet for the first time on Tuesday, the 6th. Using a conciliatory tone, and speaking from his gigantic presidential palace on the outskirts of the capital, Ankara, Erdogan urged his detractors to “find a way to make peace”. “Let’s put aside the resentments and anger of this election period,” said the president, who defeated his rival Kemal Kiliçdaroglu in the second round. The conservative leader asked “the parties” and also “journalists, writers, society and artists to reconcile with the national will”, not to mention the tens of thousands of representatives of all these categories who are behind bars.

Opposition deputies remained seated as the assembly rose after the swearing in and the president’s speech. In the pouring rain, Erdogan made his way from parliament to the mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of modern Turkey, where he pledged to “take earthquake victims back to their homes as soon as possible”. At least 50,000 people died in the February 6 earthquake, leaving millions of people homeless in the south of the country, of which 3 million were displaced. After taking office, Erdogan returned to the sumptuous presidential palace he had built, where some 80 foreign leaders awaited him, including NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. Turkey is one of 31 member states of the US-led military alliance and maintains its veto on Sweden’s membership, claiming that the country offers refuge to opposition activists that Ankara considers “terrorists”. Stoltenberg wants Turkey to drop the veto before the summit the organization will hold in Vilnius, Lithuania, in July.

Also attending the ceremonies were the Prime Minister of Armenia, Nikol Pashinyan, and the President of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, as well as the Prime Ministers of Hungary, Viktor Orban (also opposed to Sweden’s entry into NATO) and Qatar, Mohammed bin Abderrahman al Thani, who were the first to congratulate Erdogan on his victory at the polls. Armenia and Turkey never officially established diplomatic relations and the common border has been closed since the 1990s, but in 2022 the first steps towards rapprochement were recorded, despite Ankara’s support for Azerbaijan in the territorial dispute between Yerevan and Baku over the region of Nagorno Karabakh . The presence of several African heads of state – from Congo, Senegal, Rwanda, Somalia, South Africa and Algeria – demonstrates the results of Ankara’s active diplomacy on the continent. To all of them, Erdogan promised “more initiatives to come up with solutions to global crises”. After dinner, Erdogan announced the composition and his new government.

As expected, the position of Minister of Economy, one of the most important in the current context of crisis and inflation (above 40%), was awarded to a renowned specialist, Mehmet Simsek, former Minister of Finance (2009-2015) and former -banker at Merrill Lynch. Simsek, 56, will be tasked with providing financial orthodoxy to restore investor confidence. The main ministries were also renewed. Hakan Fidan, former head of the secret services, takes over as Minister of Foreign Affairs, replacing Mevlut Cavusoglu. And at the Ministry of Defense, Yasar Güler, Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces, succeeds Hulusi Akar. Only two ministers, those of Health and Culture, retain their positions.

*With information from AFP