Dear Mesdames and Sirs,
I hope you understand the importance of what I saw last night. While walking home from watching Turkey’s election results, and on one of İstanbul’s most prestigious streets, a car went by honking its horn with people waving yellow-red-green flags, that is the Kurdish flag, out of its windows.
This was an unimaginable sight ten years ago, and it is the AKP government that made it possible.
As I hope you have realized after examining the election results, Turkey’s democracy is alive, well, vibrant, and energetic. As in previous elections, voting was carried out with very few problems and irregularities. The results are real and accurate, just as in previous elections. Turkey proudly displayed its free, open, transparent, and just election system yet once again. The AKP received more than 15 percent more votes than any other party, and an openly Kurdish party, for the first time, will take seats in the Turkish parliament with that identity (and not as independent candidates).
For the past year you have carried out a campaign of editorial comment aimed at casting doubt over Turkey’s democratic system, and at affecting international opinion concerning Turkey’s government. You should by now realize that your understanding of Turkish politics, and of the Turkish political system, is gravely flawed.
You must realize that the Turkish people do not need your advice in relation to their political choices. Your attitude is condescending and imperial, and damages the reputation of your publication. Turkey’s citizens made their choice freely and now the political parties, as in other European parliamentary democracies, will work to create a coalition. If no coalition emerges, Turkey will go to fresh elections.
That’s how a democracy works.
With deepest respect from democratic Turkey. — Adam McConnel.