EU Turkey High Level Political Dialogue. [European External Action Service/ flickr][some rights reserved]Until fairly recently, the Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan was regarded as a hero in the west, often described as a “Muslim democrat” who believed in both Islam and freedom. But those days are over. Now, much of the western press, especially in Europe, portrays Erdogan as a budding authoritarian and reckless Middle Eastern interventionist.
An alarming number of European politicians prefer to 'play nice' with Erdogan.
Although the European media have turned against Erdogan, politicians have not followed suit. Currently, Erdogan holds an extremely important card in his hands; he has the ability to either prevent another surge of Syrian refugees from leaving Turkey and flooding into western Europe, or, he can let them go, which would further intensify what is already one of the largest modern refugee crises.
