ISTANBUL: Turkey’s main opposition scored a major blow against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan last month when it won control of Istanbul, but now faces a wounded government reluctant to relinquish power.
With Erdogan expected to stay in office until at least 2023, the new mayor of Istanbul, Ekrem Imamoglu of the secular Republican People’s Party (CHP), knows he must find a way to work with the president.
But the signs are mixed.
After Erdogan’s ruling AKP party lost Turkey’s largest city in a rerun vote on June 23, the president congratulated Imamoglu and described the vote as the “will of the people.”
But just days later his government moved to strip Imamoglu of key mayoral powers of patronage.
The show of strength raises strategic questions for Imamoglu, who has vowed to work “in harmony” with Erdogan but is also talked about as a future presidential challenger.
Having called for a meeting with Erdogan to address the urgent problems of the 15-million-strong metropolis, the new mayor has so far remained fairly vague about his plans.
He has promised to crack down on alleged lavish spending at the municipality and bring in international-standard auditors to assure transparency, warning that the city faces bankruptcy if urgent action is not taken.
Imamoglu also said he would create green belts in Istanbul, and return trees and grass to Taksim square in the heart of the city — echoing the demands of protesters who triggered a mass anti-government movement over the redevelopment of neighboring Gezi park in 2013.
Urban planners remain skeptical about his promises.
“Istanbul’s green space problem is not only about hostility to nature — it’s also a question of the economy,” said Sedat Durel, environment engineer at the Chamber of Environmental Engineers.
Durel said nothing will change without a fundamental change in the current governing mentality, which favors mass commercial development over natural spaces.
Imamoglu, who started out in his family’s lucrative real estate and restaurant business in western Istanbul, does not appear to have an obvious background to shift that mindset.
“Although there is hope it will not continue this way, we have yet to hear anything concrete,” said Durel.
After failing to mount serious challenges in elections for decades, Turkey’s main opposition has been revitalized by Imamoglu’s win.
Aside from the sky-high expectations, his biggest challenge may be overcoming a municipal council dominated by AKP members and its right-wing ally, the MHP, which together control 25 of 39 city districts.
Ege Seckin, an analyst at IHS Markit, said Imamoglu’s new job would be an “uphill struggle.”
“The government will go to great lengths to impede his work, seeking to validate their long-standing claim that the AKP is the only game in town when it comes to delivering basic services, and that all alternatives, including the CHP, are incompetent,” Seckin told AFP.
The first sign of trouble came immediately after the June 23 election, when Erdogan’s government issued a circular shifting the power to assign managers of municipal companies from the mayor to the council.
“We were informed of a change in legislation,” Imamoglu told reporters this month, warning against “political maneuvering” to limit his power.
The first municipal council meeting chaired by Imamoglu on July 8 — which was aired live, as part of his efforts at greater transparency — nonetheless saw positive messages from the AKP rank and file.
One AKP councilor, Tevfik Goksu, assured that the party would avoid “negative” attitudes and support any project that serves Istanbul.
The CHP remains unconvinced.
“Do I expect serious obstacles on some areas? Yes, I do, given their power and majority in the assembly,” said Tarik Balyali, a CHP spokesman in the municipal council.
But he warned the public would also blame the AKP if the party tried to undermine Imamoglu’s efforts to improve municipal services.
Many opponents of Erdogan hope Imamoglu can use the platform of Istanbul to mount a serious challenge at the national level — just as the president himself did in the 1990s.
But Imamoglu’s prospects depend not only on getting results in the city, but also on his ability to maintain support from divergent opposition groups including secular Turks and Kurdish opposition voters, and maybe even AKP dissidents, said Seckin.
“This was a relatively easier task for a municipal election, but a national-level competition is likely to be more vicious, and the fault lines separating different opposition factions are likely to matter far more,” he said.
Istanbul’s new mayor Ekrem Imamoglu faces tough road ahead after landslide win
Istanbul’s new mayor Ekrem Imamoglu faces tough road ahead after landslide win
- Ekrem Imamoglu must find a way to work with Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan
- The president has congratulated opposition leader Imamoglu and described the vote as the ‘will of the people’
Israeli military raids in Syria raise tensions as they carve out a buffer zone
- Syria’s interim president, Ahmad Al-Sharaa, who led the rebels who took over the country, said he has no desire for a conflict with Israel
- Damascus has struggled to push Israel diplomatically to stop its attacks and pull its troops out of a formerly United Nations-patrolled buffer zone
BEIRUT: Qassim Hamadeh woke to the sounds of gunfire and explosions in his village of Beit Jin in southwestern Syria last month. Within hours, he had lost two sons, a daughter-in-law and his 4-year-old and 10-year-old grandsons. The five were among 13 villagers killed that day by Israeli forces.
Israeli troops had raided the village — not for the first time — seeking to capture, as they said, members of a militant group planning attacks into Israel. Israel said militants opened fire at the troops, wounding six, and that troops returned fire and brought in air support.
Hamadeh, like others in Beit Jin, dismissed Israel’s claims of militants operating in the village. The residents said armed villagers confronted Israeli soldiers they saw as invaders, only to be met with Israeli tank and artillery fire, followed by a drone strike. The government in Damascus called it a “massacre.”
The raid and similar recent Israeli actions inside Syria have increased tensions, frustrated locals and also scuttled chances — despite US pressure — of any imminent thaw in relations between the two neighbors.
An expanding Israeli presence
An Israeli-Syria rapprochement seemed possible last December, after Sunni Islamist-led rebels overthrew autocratic Syrian President Bashar Assad, a close ally of Iran, Israel’s archenemy.
Syria’s interim president, Ahmad Al-Sharaa, who led the rebels who took over the country, said he has no desire for a conflict with Israel. But Israel was suspicious, mistrusting Al-Sharaa because of his militant past and his group’s history of aligning with Al-Qaeda.
Israeli forces quickly moved to impose a new reality on the ground. They mobilized into the UN-mandated buffer zone in southern Syria next to the Golan Heights, which Israel captured from Syria during the 1967 Mideast war and later annexed — a move not recognized by most of the international community.
Israeli forces erected checkpoints and military installations, including on a hilltop that overlooks wide swaths of Syria. They set up landing pads on strategic Mt. Hermon nearby. Israeli reconnaissance drones frequently fly over surrounding Syrian towns, with residents often sighting Israeli tanks and Humvee vehicles patrolling those areas.
Israel has said its presence is temporary to clear out pro-Assad remnants and militants — to protect Israel from attacks. But it has given no indication its forces would leave anytime soon. Talks between the two countries to reach a security agreement have so far yielded no result.
Ghosts of Lebanon and Gaza
The events in neighboring Lebanon, which shares a border with both Israel and Syria, and the two-year war in Gaza between Israel and the militant Palestinian group Hamas have also raised concerns among Syrians that Israel plans a permanent land grab in southern Syria.
Israeli forces still have a presence in southern Lebanon, over a year since a US-brokered ceasefire halted the latest Israel-Hezbollah war. That war began a day after Hamas attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, with Hezbollah firing rockets into Israel in solidarity with its ally Hamas.
Israel’s operations in Lebanon, which included bombardment across the tiny country and a ground incursion last year, have severely weakened Hezbollah.
Today, Israel still controls five hilltop points in southern Lebanon, launches near-daily airstrikes against alleged Hezbollah targets and flies reconnaissance drones over the country, sometimes also carrying out overnight ground incursions.
In Gaza, where US President Donald Trump’s 20-point ceasefire deal has brought about a truce between Israel and Hamas, similar buffer zones under Israeli control are planned even after Israel eventually withdraws from the more than half of the territory it still controls.
At a meeting of regional leaders and international figures earlier this month in Doha, Qatar, Al-Sharaa accused Israel of using imagined threats to justify aggressive actions.
“All countries support an Israeli withdrawal” from Syria to the lines prior to Assad’s ouster, he said, adding that it was the only way for both Syria and Israel to “emerge in a state of safety.”
Syria’s myriad problems
The new leadership in Damascus has had a multitude of challenges since ousting Assad.
Al-Sharaa’s government has been unable to implement a deal with local Kurdish-led authorities in northeast Syria, and large areas of southern Sweida province are now under a de facto administration led by the Druze religious minority, following sectarian clashes there in mid-July with local Bedouin clans.
Syrian government forces intervened, effectively siding with the Bedouins. Hundreds of civilians, mostly Druze, were killed, many by government fighters. Over half of the roughly 1 million Druze worldwide live in Syria. Most other Druze live in Lebanon and Israel, including in the Golan Heights.
Israel, which has cast itself as a defender of the Druze, though many of them in Syria are critical of its intentions, has also made overtures to Kurds in Syria.
“The Israelis here are pursuing a very dangerous strategy,” said Michael Young, Senior Editor at the Beirut-based Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center.
It contradicts, he added, the positions of Saudi Arabia, Turkiye, Egypt — and even the United States — which are “all in agreement that what has to come out of this today is a Syrian state that is unified and fairly strong,” he added.
Israel and the US at odds over Syria
In a video released from his office after visiting Israeli troops wounded in Beit Jin, barely 5 kilometers (3 miles) from the edge of the UN buffer zone, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel seeks a “demilitarized buffer zone from Damascus to the (UN) buffer zone,” including Mt. Hermon.
“It is also possible to reach an agreement with the Syrians, but we will stand by our principles in any case,” Netanyahu said.
His strategy has proven to be largely unpopular with the international community, including with Washington, which has backed Al-Sharaa’s efforts to consolidate his control across Syria.
Israel’s operations in southern Syria have drawn rare public criticism from Trump, who has taken Al-Sharaa, once on Washington’s terror list, under his wing.
“It is very important that Israel maintain a strong and true dialogue with Syria, and that nothing takes place that will interfere with Syria’s evolution into a prosperous State,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social after the Beit Jin clashes.
Syria is also expected to be on the agenda when Netanyahu visits the US and meets with Trump later this month.
Experts doubt Israel will withdraw from Syria anytime soon — and the new government in Damascus has little leverage or power against Israel’s much stronger military.
“If you set up landing pads, then you are not here for short-term,” Issam Al-Reiss, a military adviser with the Syrian research group ETANA, said of Israeli actions.
Hamadeh, the laborer from Beit Jin, said he can “no longer bear the situation” after losing five of his family.
Israel, he said, “strikes wherever it wants, it destroys whatever it wants, and kills whoever it wants, and no one holds it accountable.”
