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Article: Sliding Backward; An ugly nationalist mood is brewing in Ankara, stalling once hailed reforms.
- Article from:
- Newsweek International
- Article date:
- April 24, 2006
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Byline: Owen Matthews (With Sami Kohen in Istanbul)
Whatever happened to Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the outspoken prime minister whose bold reforms brought Turkey to the very threshold of Europe? He was a rebel who loosened the Turkish military's stranglehold on political power. He brought cultural rights to the country's Kurdish minority and overhauled a quasi-totalitarian legal system. But these days? He sounds more and more like the reactionary old guard he came to power vowing to overturn.
Consider some contrasts. Last August Erdogan electrified crowds in the largely Kurdish city of Diyarbakir by telling them they were citizens with equal rights. But ...