The outcome of Türkiye’s May 14 elections will not affect Turkish-American relations, State Department deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel said Monday.
“The United States will continue working on cooperation and shared priorities and deepening relations with the government the Turkish people elect,” Patel told reporters at a daily press briefing in Washington.
Türkiye is an important ally of NATO and plays a significant role in many matters the U.S. cares about, Patel went on to say.
“I want to point out Türkiye’s role in leading and organizing meetings in implementing the Black Sea Grain Initiative alone. Thanks to their leadership, a mechanism that prevents Russia from weaponizing grain has emerged,” he noted.
Stressing that Washington is not taking sides in the elections, Patel concluded, “Our only hope is to see a free and fair election based on a democratic process.”
Ankara, however, has been disgruntled with apparent favoritism from Washington many times for the opposition in the pre-election period.
Most notably, U.S. Ambassador to Ankara Jeffry Flake personally met Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, the main opposition’s presidential runner against President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, in late March, in a move that drew the Turkish leader’s wrath.
Turkish-American relations have been volatile in the run-up to the anticipated vote, especially in light of President Joe Biden’s hostility toward Erdoğan in the past, who, in a 2020 interview, made U.S. support for opposition leadership “very clear.”
Although Erdoğan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) is aligned at a position in the international community neither fully pro-Western nor fully supportive of other world powers, anti-American sentiment became more visible in the Turkish public, especially after Biden’s remarks, which are viewed even by the Turkish opposition as an intervention in another country’s domestic affairs.
Erdoğan also often fends off what he calls “attacks” from the broader West, namely biased coverage urging citizens to vote him out.
In less than a week, 61 million voters, including some 5 million first-timers, will be heading to polls to elect Türkiye’s 13th president between four hopefuls: Erdoğan and Kılıçdaroğlu, along with two more minor candidates.
Opinion surveys from the last week of April and early days of May suggested a neck-to-neck race between Kılıçdaroğlu and Erdoğan, who was ahead of his rival by more than four points.
As for their parties, the AK Party covered the majority in almost every poll with at least 31%, while its People’s Alliance grabbed 47.8% support, nearly 10 points ahead of the six-party opposition’s Nation Alliance.
Kılıçdaroğlu has recently secured the backing of the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), a party affiliated with the PKK terrorist group, in a move that spurred the approval of terrorist ringleaders who championed him in “ending the AK Party fascism” and criticism from nationalist partners and opponents alike.
The HDP, currently fighting a closure lawsuit, enjoys over 10% support nationwide.
