Why was there an attempted coup in Turkey?

HARI SREENIVASAN, PBS NEWSHOUR WEEKEND ANCHOR:

To help us understand the events in Turkey, I'm joined now from Washington by Eric Edelman, the former U.S. ambassador to Turkey during the Bush administration, and here in New York by David Phillips, director of the program on peace-building and human rights at Columbia University.

Mr. Edelman, I want to start with you. Most people watching TV last night said, oh, gosh, there's a coup, but what precipitated this? Why now? Why did it happen?

ERIC EDELMAN, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO TURKEY:

Well, Hari, Turkey is an extremely divided and polarized society, and the former prime minister now President Tayyip Erdogan is an enormously polarizing figure. He has been driving the country in a direction of greater division because of his desire to establish an executive presidency. There's a lot of concern about his autocratic rule and those divisions, as it turns out, also appeared to be mirrored in the military. And some members of the military, obviously, yesterday decided to — or earlier, but activated yesterday a plan to take him out of office.

HARI SREENIVASAN:

David Phillips, this is a long time coming?

DAVID PHILLIPS, DIRECTOR OF THE PROGRAM ON PEACE-BUILDING AND HUMAN RIGHTS AT COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY:

His autocratic governance has alienated a large section of the society. When you look at the statement that the military issued, they said they wanted to restore constitutional order. Just recently, Turkey's been attacked by ISIS and suffered significant loss. Their policy in Syria is failing.

So, it's the accumulation of several years' worth of mismanagement on Erdogan's part.

HARI SREENIVASAN:

So, Eric Edelman, what does Erdogan do now considering he knows there's this dissatisfaction among the public and especially inside the military?

ERIC EDELMAN:

Well, he was able to yesterday to rally his supporters, which is a big slice of the public, about 50 percent of the public, to come out and stop this coup from succeeding. I think what you can see happening already is he's doubling down on some of the things David was just talking about, the kind of policies he's followed up to this point. He's purging not only the military which he had already been doing for some period of time, but he is now purging the judiciary and I think you're going to see a period of some turmoil internally in Turkey while he tries to use this to his advantage to establish what he calls an executive presidency, but which many people fear is really just a more authoritarian personalized regime in Turkey.

HARI SREENIVASAN:

David Phillips, does this play right into his interests in a way, saying, hey, you know what, look, here's all these bad guys that are trying to get me out of office, trying to ruin what we have as an idea of democracy and I'm going to tighten up things?

DAVID PHILLIPS:

He's been warning a coup for some time. He's not acknowledging the events of yesterday as a coup. He's calling it a terrorist action.

In Erdogan's world view, he's surrounded by terrorists, the PKK, the Syrian Kurds, civil society in Turkey, the media. He's demonized everybody and that's part of the polarization that exists in the country. If he practices a kind of "victor's justice", purging the military, the judiciary and potential opponents in the polarization that Ambassador Edelman talked about, it's going to become more severe and Turkey is going to become more unstable.

HARI SREENIVASAN:

Ambassador Edelman, it's almost impossible to understate the geographic importance of Turkey considering the fights that the Western world is launching against ISIS and parts of the Syrian government.

ERIC EDELMAN:

Yes, I mean, Turkey is a pivotal country. It's a NATO ally. It's astride several zones of conflict. Of course, it's a Black Sea literal state, so it has concerns about its neighbor to north, Russia, and what's happened in Ukraine, the seizure of — annexation of Crimea. But it, of course, also borders Iran, Iraq and Syria. So, it — you know, it sits astride, you know, an incredibly important zone of conflict and one in which our military forces are currently engaged.

And, unfortunately, I think what's happened in the U.S.-Turkish relationship is on both sides, there's been an assumption that Turkey is too big, too important to fail and, as a result, there's been not as much attention in my view as should have been paid to some of these domestic Turkish issues that David and I have been talking about with you, Hari.

HARI SREENIVASAN:

Yes.

DAVID PHILLIPS:

The Erdogan administration adopted a policy called "zero problems with neighbors" and within a couple of months, it found itself in conflict with almost all its neighbors and those conflicts were really largely of Erdogan's making. Turkey has historically been a valued member of NATO, but if NATO were being established today because Erdogan's new Turkey is Islamist, anti-democratic, it simply wouldn't qualify for membership.

There is also a lot of documentation about Erdogan's support for jihadi groups, the jihadi highway that ran from Urfa to Raqqah, provided weapons, money, medical care to wounded warriors coming out of Syria. So, Turkey's hardly been a reliable NATO ally member in this fight against violent extremism in the region.

HARI SREENIVASAN:

So, David, what does Erdogan do in this interim period because if there are these forces working against him as he says, or as this is a tough neighborhood to live in — how can he placate the interests of the West and figure out a way to keep his neighborhood safe?

DAVID PHILLIPS:

Turkey (ph) had a motto peace at home and peace abroad. Turkey hasn't been able to realize either under President Erdogan. Right now, there is a moment to pivot, to focus on domestic issues instead of cracking down on independent media and civil society to reactivate the peace process with Turkey's Kurds. If they're looking for international mediators, there is a history of international involvement discreetly in this area.

So, resolving the Kurdish issue would put Turkey back on the right track, coordinating more closely with the U.S. and the multinational coalition against ISIS would also be a wise move. But Erdogan has hardly displayed good judgment when it comes to critical decisions and he's likely to take this opportunity to consolidate his dictatorship, which would make Turkey less prone to cooperation with the West and less likely to reconcile with its own citizens.

HARI SREENIVASAN:

Finally, Ambassador Edelman, regardless of what Erdogan does in reaction to this attempted coup, this is still a country that NATO and the U.S. will continue to rely on.

ERIC EDELMAN:

Well, in the best of all possible worlds, that's true, Hari. But, unfortunately, I have to agree with what David just said. One would hope that it would be possible to do the things and it would be in Turkey's, I think, interest for Erdogan to do the things that David suggested as an agenda post-coup.

But the early return suggests that is not the direction in which he is moving and I think David's correct, I think we're going to see a period of internal focus, retribution and a movement away from the kinds of engagement with not only the Kurdish community but the rest of Turkish civil society that might help stabilize the situation. So, I think we're in for a period of intensified instability in Turkey. And how far it will go? I don't know that anyone can say right now.

HARI SREENIVASAN:

All right. Eric Edelman, former U.S. ambassador to Turkey, and David Phillips, director of the program on peace building and human rights at Columbia — thanks so much.

DAVID PHILLIPS:

Thank you.

ERIC EDELMAN:

Thank you.

END