Turkey: “Don’t be surprised if Erdoğan declares: ‘Greece is my friend’,” says former minister

“Don’t be surprised if Erdoğan declares: ;Greece is my friend’,” said his former close associate and current president of the DEVA party, Ali Babacan, when commenting on the Turkish president’s foreign policy.

“One day he accuses the United Arab Emirates of being the financier of the treasonous coup attempt, and the next day he goes to the United Arab Emirates and hugs them,” Babacan emphasised, continuing in the same vein.

“For Egypt, he said that ‘I don’t sit at the table with them’ and now to be able to sit at the same table with them, he makes a thousand and one efforts,” he commented following the recent Erdoğan-Sisi handshake in Qatar.

“Turkey’s foreign policy depends on the whims of one man alone. He does whatever his heart desires. Today he thinks ‘Let’s challenge Greece a little’, but if later he declares: ‘Greece is my friend,’ don’t be surprised,” said Erdoğan’s former finance minister scathingly.

“On the one hand, he left nothing unsaid about [Syrian President] Bashar Assad and tomorrow he comes back and declares ‘my brother Assad”, he does everything… There is no consequence,” he continued.

Babacan was a founding member of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) in Turkey, a former vice president and finance minister of the Erdoğan government.

In 2019, citing “deep differences” with the APK leadership, he left, subsequently founding the DEVA party which is now a component of the opposition coalition against the Turkish president ahead of the 2023 elections.

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