Turkey's prime minister trumpets their democratic credentials

Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey's prime minister, said Sunday that Turkey's?successful?democracy should serve as an example to all Muslim countries. Critics say Erdogan is too?authoritarian?and stifles dissent.?

By Jonathon Burch,?Reuters / September 30, 2012

Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, (r.), and Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi salute the members of Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party in Ankara, Turkey, Sunday. Morsi is in the Turkish capital to strengthen an emerging alliance between two moderate Islamist governments in a region beset by conflict and instability.

Kayhan Ozer/AP

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Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan trumpeted Turkey's credentials as a rising democratic power on Sunday, saying his Islamist-rooted ruling party had become an example to the Muslim world after a decade in charge.

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Addressing thousands of party members and regional leaders at a congress of his Justice and Development (AK) Party, Erdogan said the era of military coups in the nation of 75 million people was over.

He vowed to forge a more diverse constitution and turn a new page in relations with Turkey's 15 million Kurds, in a speech lasting almost two and half hours and meant to chart the AK Party's agenda for the next decade.

"We called ourselves conservative democrats. We focused our change on basic rights and freedom," Erdogan told thousands of cheering party members at the congress in a sports stadium in the capital Ankara.

"This stance has gone beyond our country's borders and has become an example for all Muslim countries."

Leaders including Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi, Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev and Masoud Barzani, president of Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region, were among the guests.

Under Erdogan's autocratic grip, the AK Party has won three consecutive landslide election victories since 2002, ending a history of fragile coalition governments punctuated by military coups and marking Turkey's longest period of single-party government for more than half a century.

Per capita income has nearly tripled in that time and Turkey has re-established itself as a regional power, with its allies seeing its mix of democratic stability and Islamic culture as a potential role model in a volatile region.

"Turkey has shown the bright face of Islam," Khaled Meshaal, Hamas's leader in exile, told the congress. "Erdogan, you are not only a leader in Turkey now, you are a leader in the Muslim world as well."

AUTHORITARIAN STYLE

But critics accuse Erdogan of an?authoritarian?approach, saying that he stifles dissent and uses the courts to silence his enemies. They also say he has failed to bring any hope of an end to a 28-year-old conflict in the mainly Kurdish southeast.

The crisis in neighbouring Syria has thrust Turkey to the forefront of international diplomacy, with Washington seeing it as the key player in supporting the Syrian opposition and planning for the era after President Bashar al-Assad.

Erdogan renewed his criticism of Russia, China and Iran, which have backed Assad in the 18-month uprising, saying history would "not forgive those who stand by oppressors".

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/ztaDqXAxvnU/Turkey-s-prime-minister-trumpets-their-democratic-credentials

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