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How Brexit is playing into Erdoğan’s hands in Turkey
Turkey is losing its champion in Europe, just as the president distances himself from the EU – and democracy
- Elçin Poyrazlar
- The Guardian
In the early hours of 4 October, 2005, Jack Straw, the then British foreign secretary, and Abdullah Gül, his Turkish counterpart, walked, tired-eyed and hand-in-hand, into a packed press conference in Luxembourg.
The EU had just opened membership talks with Ankara, in what seemed like an answer to the centuries old-question of whether the west should open its arms to Turkey.
“Now we are part of Europe!” Gül proclaimed.
That was 14 years ago and a…