U.S. newspaper, The Los Angeles Times, said on Friday that Turkey had solidified its position as a superpower in the Middle East.
"With the passage of the constitutional reforms, Turkey took another step toward solidifying its position as the new superpower of the Middle East: the shining model of what a modern, Muslim-majority democracy can achieve if given the opportunity," The Los Angeles Times` columnist Reza Aslan wrote in his OP-ED.
Aslan said the Justice & Development (AK) Party had brought Turkey closer to a "full-fledged democracy" than it has ever been.
In his OP-ED titled "Turkey`s democratic push", Aslan wrote, "the reforms strengthen the rights of women, children and the handicapped, provide greater freedoms for Turkey`s Christian and Kurdish minorities, relax Turkey`s restrictive labor laws, curtail the role of the military in political affairs and allow for the creation of more democratic institutions throughout the country."
"More crucially, the reforms reorganize the structure of the court system, providing greater legal protections for ordinary citizens while stripping the military of its immunity against prosecution in civilian courts," Aslan said.
Aslan said not only had Turkey become a freer, more liberal, more inclusive and more democratic country under the AK Party, it had also become a more dominant global power and has experienced an unprecedented period of economic growth.
"Indeed, the Turkish economy has come out of the global recession stronger than ever, posting a 10.3% growth in GDP in the second quarter of this year," he wrote.
Aslan defined as "nonsense" the claims that Turkey was turning away from its strategic alliance with the West and instead building an "Islamic axis" against America`s interests in the region.
"If Turkey has been focusing its diplomatic efforts on the Middle East, Central Asia and the Persian Gulf, it is because that is where its economic growth is coming from, not from Europe or the United States," he said.
"Further, Turkey`s more robust foreign policy and its attempts to insert itself as a mediator in the region`s conflicts are the result of its revived sense of national confidence. Turkey is no longer willing to be subordinate to the U.S. but insists on being treated as an ally and equal, with its own proposals and policies for dealing with the region`s problems," Aslan also said.
The columnist defined it a good thing because Turkey`s interests in the region ? whether regarding a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, or building stability in Iraq and Afghanistan, or keeping Iran from developing nuclear weapons ? aligned with those of the U.S.
"In fact it is no exaggeration to say that Turkey is now America`s most important strategic ally in the Middle East," Aslan also said.
Aslan ended his OP-ED as saying, "more significantly, Turkey has provided the peoples of the Middle East with a more authentic example of Islamic governance than one finds in the secular dictatorships of Egypt, Jordan and Syria or the religious authoritarianism of Iran and Saudi Arabia. The AK Party has proved that there need not be any contradictions between Islam and democracy, that a party committed to Islamic values can be equally committed to human rights, constitutionalism, pluralism and the rule of law."
(BRC-CE)