What will be the foreign policy of Turkey now?

After June 23, a deep calm is observed in the domestic policy of the Turkish authorities. It is inevitable. No one dares to say anything without the permission and instructions of the AKP Chairman and President Erdogan; and those who may dare to do so (for example, Bulent Arinc), most likely because of respect for Erdogan, think that it is better to keep silence.

However, since Wednesday some dynamism is observed in the ruling party, and even beyond it. The tendency of budding from the main part of the ruling party, traditional for the right wing of the Turkish policy, has been clearly outlined.

It is hard to say what it is: irony of fate, tragedy or tragicomedy, but Kemal Öztürk (former press secretary of the Mejlis"s first speaker the day after the defeat on June 23 wrote that Ali Babacan (permanent economic coordinator under the AKP governments) would resign in 10 days and create a new political body. It turns out that the former president Abdullah Gul and some of the AKP heavyweights were behind all this. Former Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, an influential foreign policy official for almost 15 years, who first spoke out sharply against the AKP after the March 31 elections, also made it known that he plans to create a new party.

Erdogan knows that it is impossible to prevent these processes. It is true that the processes taking place in the country, one way or another, will inevitably affect foreign policy. Yet, is it possible to prevent the negative impact of the June 23 election results on foreign policy?

This is possible and largely depends on the president of the AKP and President Erdogan himself; to be more exact, on the attitude of Erdogan and AKP to the results of the elections of March 31 and June 23. If the central government does not repair artificial obstacles to the municipalities that the National Union won in accordance with the basic principle of democracy, Turkey"s foreign policy will become more effective.

Based on the nearly 30-year observation of the difficulties of the policies of Turkey, it can be said that, until now, foreign media have not paid as much attention to anyone as Ekrem Imamoglu is paying today. So, in order to attend Imamoglu"s press conference, held on June 23 at 5:00 pm, 400 representatives of foreign media were accredited at the Coordination Center of the Republican People"s Party (RPP) in Ceyrantep. To interview Imamoglu, the main international correspondent of CNN and the host of the CNN International night interview program Christian Amanpour flew to Istanbul.

To calm his supporters after the March 31 elections, President Erdogan said, "Since we have superiority in the municipal council, the chairman is nothing more than "a lame duck." Both the 18-day presidency of Mr. Ekrem Imamoglu in the Istanbul Municipality and the steps that Ankara"s mayor Mansur Yavashu put on the municipality"s Majlis suggest that, alas, the AKP has not abandoned its intention to "interfere with the chairmen through municipal councils".

However, on June 23, Ekrem Imamoglu, re-elected the mayor of Istanbul with an unexpectedly large majority of votes, to a certain extent cornered the majority of the AKP in the municipal council. In negotiations with the Turkish government, the foreign states will necessarily take into account the fact that the rating of the AKP, which has lost almost all the major municipalities of Turkey, has greatly decreased in the country.

Under such situation, the AKP has no way out apart from abandoning its previous tactics since any illegal actions in the municipal councils that impede the normal operation of the mayors, will immediately attract the attention of not only the Turkish public, but also foreign media. Of course, this will lead to a further drop in the rating of the AKP.

However, if the AKP leader and President Erdogan does not want to reduce the effectiveness of Turkey"s foreign policy due to the results of the June 23 municipal elections, he should use the only correct means for this, namely: Democracy!