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“You don’t grant immunity to individuals unless you are getting something from them — and we wouldn’t be here.”

Six months earlier, Matthew G. Whitaker, the acting attorney general who ran the department from November 2018 until Mr. Barr arrived in February 2019, rejected a request from Mr. Berman for permission to file criminal charges against the bank, two lawyers involved in the investigation said. Mr. Whitaker blocked the move shortly after Mr. Erdogan repeatedly pressed Mr. Trump in a series of conversations in November and December 2018 to resolve the Halkbank matter.

Mr. Erdogan had a big political stake in the outcome, because the case had become a major embarrassment for him in Turkey.

And Mr. Trump’s sympathetic response to Mr. Erdogan was especially jarring because it involved accusations that the bank had undercut Mr. Trump’s policy of economically isolating Iran, a centerpiece of his Middle East plan.

Former White House officials said they came to fear that the president was open to swaying the criminal justice system to advance a transactional and ill-defined agenda of his own.

the administration’s bitterness over Mr. Berman’s unwillingness to go along with Mr. Barr’s proposal would linger, and ultimately contribute to Mr. Berman’s dismissal.

It predated Mr. Trump’s election but came to encompass a broad cast of players, including Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former New York mayor; Michael T. Flynn, Mr. Trump’s first national security adviser; and Brian D. Ballard, a lobbyist and fund-raiser for the president.

he investigation of Halkbank, Mr. Erdogan claimed, was a “big conspiracy” instigated by his rival Fethullah Gulen, a charismatic Muslim cleric. Mr. Gulen left Turkey in the late 1990s and moved to Pennsylvania, where, in Mr. Erdogan’s telling, he plotted an unsuccessful coup attempt just a month earlier, according to a summary of the conversation provided to The Times by the Biden aide.

Mr. Erdogan asked Mr. Biden to remove Preet Bharara, then the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. That office was in the early stages of an investigation into Halkbank and had already indicted a Turkish-Iranian gold trader, Reza Zarrab, for helping to orchestrate the sanctions-evasion scheme.

Mr. Erdogan also wanted the Obama administration to remove the judge overseeing Mr. Zarrab’s case in Manhattan, the Biden aide said. And he wanted Mr. Zarrab released and allowed to return to Turkey.

“If the president were to take this into his own hands, what would happen would be he would be impeached for violating the separation of powers,” Mr. Biden said

“Top leadership in Turkey felt that Trump would be a tough-minded businessman, but a businessman they could work with,” Robert Amsterdam, a lobbyist for Turkey, recalled.

The National Security Council asked the Education Department about a network of charter schools, partly funded with federal money, that were said to be linked to Mr. Gulen, the Erdogan rival who was living in Pennsylvania. The agency was then asked if the money could be blocked, one official involved in the conversations said. But Education Department officials resisted, saying they did not have the legal authority to stop the funding.

But the investigation by the federal prosecutors in Manhattan ground ahead. By early 2018, it had led to the indictments of nine defendants, including Turkey’s former economy minister and three Halkbank officials, on charges such as bank fraud and money laundering related to the sanctions-evasion scheme.

ut Mr. Mnuchin raised concerns about how large a fine might be imposed on Halkbank. The French banking giant Société Générale agreed that same year to pay U.S. authorities more than $2 billion to resolve charges that it had violated U.S. sanctions against Cuba and bribed officials in Libya, among other accusations

A fine on that scale would threaten the future of Halkbank, lobbyists and lawyers for the bank argued, as did top Turkish officials in conversations with members of the Trump administration

Mr. Erdogan made clear that he was frustrated with the continued pestering by Southern District prosecutors concerning Halkbank, and he wanted Mr. Trump to intervene to help wrap up the investigation, Mr. Bolton said in the interview

Mr. Trump also told Mr. Erdogan that he wanted to replace the prosecutors in Mr. Berman’s office in Manhattan, whom Mr. Trump considered to be holdovers from the Obama era.

Mr. Rosenstein was convinced that the evidence was compelling, perhaps even more so than in other sanctions-evasion cases in which the United States had charged banks, lawyers familiar with the investigation said. The memo from the prosecutors also noted that the actions Halkbank was accused of taking were helping to support Iran’s economy, which was antithetical to Mr. Trump’s foreign policy goal of tightening economic pressure on the country.

Mr. Rosenstein urged Mr. Berman to come to Washington to present the Southern District’s argument to Mr. Whitaker. The goal was not to file charges immediately against the bank. Instead, the plan was to give the Southern District more leverage to squeeze Halkbank to accept a deferred prosecution agreement that included an admission of wrongdoing.

Discussions between Halkbank and the Southern District continued, according to lawyers involved in the case. But the bank maintained its refusal to admit to wrongdoing and insisted on a deal that would end investigations and drop existing charges.

At times, the prosecutors were left with the impression that bank officials felt they had all the leverage because of the relationship between Mr. Trump and Mr. Erdogan.

The suggestion that the Justice Department would offer Turkish officials protection from criminal charges, even without their agreement to assist in the investigation, was unacceptable and unethical, Mr. Berman argued, according to lawyers close to the investigation.

Mr. Barr sought to persuade Mr. Berman that the so-called global settlement would enforce U.S. sanctions law and avert a rift with an ally in a volatile part of the world.

“That is the biggest prize that Erdogan could ever receive,” Mr. Erdemir said. “Erdogan was not trying to save the bank. He was trying to save his ministers and save himself.”

ust how idiosyncratic became more apparent last October, when Mr. Erdogan sent troops into Syria. Mr. Trump, who had initially given Mr. Erdogan the green light to do so, then faced an intense bipartisan backlash, leading him within days to take a tougher line with Turkey, threatening economic reprisals.

On Oct. 15, the Justice Department gave the prosecutors in Manhattan approval to file charges against Halkbank, a direct slap at Mr. Erdogan.The prosecutors rushed to present evidence before a grand jury and secured a six-count indictment that same day charging Halkbank with money laundering, bank fraud and conspiracy to violate the Iran sanctions. So far, no additional individuals have been charged.

Mr. Erdogan offered an assessment appealing to his religious Sunni Muslim base — and echoed by militants with the Islamic State — that the Middle East crisis stems from the actions of the British and French after World War I, and the borders drawn between Iraq and Syria under the Sykes-Picot pact. Mr. Erdogan invoked Sykes-Picot saying, “each conflict in this region has been designed a century ago.” He suggested a new plot was underway, and that “journalists, religious men, writers and terrorists” were the collective reincarnation of T.E. Lawrence, the British diplomat and spy immortalized in the movie “Lawrence of Arabia.”

Mr. Erdogan has partly consolidated his power by purging thousands of police officers, prosecutors and judges who he believed were behind the corruption probe. He accused those people of being followers of the Muslim preacher Fethullah Gulen, who lives in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania and who once was an important ally to Mr. Erdogan. His victory over Mr. Gulen in the power struggle that ensued has largely erased a moderate, Western-leaning Islamic voice from the Turkish governing elite

“For Tayyip Erdogan, like the Muslim Brotherhood and Muslim movements everywhere, the problems of the Muslim world are because of the West,” said Rusen Cakir, a scholar of Islamist movements who lives in Istanbul.For Mr. Gulen, he said, “the problems for the Muslim world are because of Muslims themselves.”

Suat Kiniklioglu, a former lawmaker with Mr. Erdogan’s party who is now an outspoken critic, said the speech referring to Sykes-Picot demonstrated “how much Erdogan detests Western powers operating in the region.”Omer Taspinar, a scholar on Turkey at the Brookings Institution, said: “The Lawrence of Arabia speech was a part of this act — to show how the borders of the Middle East were drawn up by imperialists and how we are face to face with a new Western agenda.”

This deep-seated view that the problems of the Middle East can be explained by Western actions over the past century, combined with a measure of ambivalence among Turkish religious conservatives who form the core of his constituency about joining the West in a fight against Sunnis, help explain Mr. Erdogan’s reluctance to take a stronger role in the United States-led military coalition.

The German newsweekly Der Spiegel put it most starkly in a February editorial: “Erdogan and Trump are positioning themselves as the only ones capable of truly understanding the people and speaking for them. It’s their view that freedom of the press does not protect democracy and that the press isn’t reverent enough to them and is therefore useless.

“Trump is not yet going nearly as far as Erdogan, who jails journalists, but the preliminary logic is the same — an attempt to undermine the credibility of those who hold power to account,”

a testy exchange at a news conference.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of a new economic plan, promising to turn around the decline. But instead, that announcement, including a promise to lower interest rates despite high inflation, set off the country’s worst currency crisis in two decades.

“You cannot win a fight against us.”

They survived the pandemic — Bilal was on half pay for a while, but the government made up the other half.

Turkey went through a similar economic downturn at the millennium. But then, under Mr. Erdogan, who came to power in 2003, the country enjoyed about a decade of uninterrupted growth, giving many Turks a taste of the middle-class lifestyle.

Economists say, however, that there has been a steady erosion of confidence in Mr. Erdogan’s stewardship of the economy as he has grown more authoritarian, intervened in the workings of the Central Bank, which is supposed to set interest rates independent of political pressure, and undermined the rule of law.

urkey was trying to ward off a recession caused by mountainous debt, steep losses in the value of the lira and rising inflation.

As the lira’s slide continues, sporadic protests have broken out around Turkey and the opposition parties have called for a series of rallies to demand a change of government. Scores of people have been detained for joining street protests.

acing an election in 2023 and sliding in opinion polls, Mr. Erdogan has doubled down on his financial approach and seems convinced that his strategy will enable the economy to grow out of its problems. Most economists, however, say a crash is more likely.

Accustomed to winning easily, Erdogan has been thrown off-balance by opponents empowered by concerns over a slowing economy, unemployment, high-level corruption, the unresolved Kurdish question, and officialdom’s zero tolerance for dissent, as seen in the brutal suppression of the 2013 Gezi park street protests.

“If Erdogan cannot rig the elections, it seems the AKP will not be able to form a one-party government. This would mean the end of Erdogan’s sultanistic aspirations,” said Ihsan Yilmaz in a column headlined “Erdogan’s Jihad”.

“In a nutshell, it has turned out to be a simple choice between giving approval or not for all Erdogan now stands for: introducing to Turkey an arbitrary rule, disrespect for human dignity, rejection of supremacy of the rule of law, eradication of rights and freedoms, unaccountability and impunity, and construction of a new system in which there will be no separation of powers.”

The economic crisis is everywhere. In December, bread lines stretched around the corner. And as the Turkish lira plunged, Turks around the country rushed to change money into U.S. dollars.

But President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says it's part of his plan.

The economic pain runs deep. Extensive borrowing and previous interest rate cuts were already driving up prices. But analysts say Erdogan's recent medicine is making the country sicker. Under his pressure, since September, Turkey's Central Bank slashed interest rates four times.

Soner Cagaptay, Washington Institute for Near East Policy: Anyone who took econ 101 in college would know, if your inflation climbs up, interest rates have to follow that. Erdogan is doing the opposite.

He says Erdogan's motivation is difficult to know, but, in the last few months of 2021, the lira lost almost half of its value, in December, 18.4 for $1. And a weak lira can boost tourism and Turkish exports.

Erdogan is maybe trying to create what is called growth out of contraction. In other words, let the economy crash and burn, and that will make Turkish exports very affordable, because the lira has lost its value, and the country will have a restored growth driven by strong export sector and also demand for Turkish tourism and services.

There are some signs of increased tourism. Last month, Bulgarians by the busload arrived in Istanbul to buy cheap groceries and bargain bazaar Christmas gifts.And Erdogan says exports are at an all-time high. Turkish authorities have also raised the minimum wage by 50 percent. And a new plan pays Turks to keep their bank deposits in lira. But the depreciation is still large, as is the anger. In November, protesters called for the government to resign and the police to back down.

If Erdogan does not restore economic growth, he's not going to win the next elections in 2023. We're going to see the country's economic resilience pushed back, and also a more unified opposition.

At this stage, I think the only way for him to stick to power — it looks like he's not going to be able to restore strong economic growth — is by becoming more autocratic only.

“These countries have almost become guesthouses for terrorist organizations,” he said this month. “It is not possible for us to be in favor.”

The quandary would be simpler were it not for Turkey’s importance to the alliance. The country joined NATO in 1952 after aligning with the West against the Soviet Union; Turkey gives the alliance a crucial strategic position at the intersection of Europe and Asia, astride both the Middle East and the Black Sea. It hosts a major U.S. air base where American nuclear weapons are stored, and Mr. Erdogan has blocked Russian warships headed toward Ukraine.

Mr. Erdogan’s objections to the membership of Sweden and Finland have even renewed questions about whether NATO might be better off without Turkey.

“Turkey is a member of NATO, but under Mr. Erdogan it no longer subscribes to the values that underpin this great alliance,”

Some members of Congress have said as much. “Turkey under Erdogan should not and cannot be seen as an ally,”

“Turkey has undermined its own image,” said Alper Coskun, a former Turkish diplomat who is now a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. But, he added, “it is still a critical member of the alliance.”

The United States has also backed its affiliated fighters in Syria, the Y.P.G., or People’s Protection Units, who helped to battle the Islamic State and whom Mr. Erdogan attacked in his 2019 incursion into the country.

The Turkish president wants the Y.P.G. to be designated as a terrorist group as well.

Some analysts say that Mr. Erdogan’s government views the P.K.K. much the way Washington saw Al Qaeda 20 years ago, and that the West cannot dismiss the concerns if it hopes to do business with Turkey.

Biden administration officials downplay the standoff and expect Mr. Erdogan to reach a compromise with Finland and Sweden.

Mr. Erdogan’s main priorities are getting his country’s security concerns about Kurdish separatists heard and getting the arms embargoes lifted, Mr. Peker said.

“He has this very complicated relationship with Putin that he has to maintain,” Mr. Edelman said. “This is a good way of throwing a little bone to Putin — ‘I’m still useful to you.’”

“We need to sit down and we need to cut a deal,” Mr. Smith said. “And we need to get aggressive about it, like now.”

The Iranian president called for an end to the Saudi-led airstrike campaign in Yemen — Tuesday was its 13th day — and for all Middle Eastern countries to “fight terrorism and extremism” together.

Mr. Erdogan’s power has seemed to grow in the presidency, as he consolidated his grip on the judiciary, tightened restrictions on the news media and moved into an immense new presidential palace.

Mr. Erdogan was once lauded as a reformer for pushing for minority rights, peace with Turkey’s restive Kurds, an overhaul of the economy and membership in the European Union.

Mr. Erdogan began his speech at the rally by reciting verses from the Quran, bringing tears to the eyes of many supporters. He challenged secular Turks who are uncomfortable with his government by saying, “We will not give way to those who speak out against our call to prayer,” and the audience responded with shouts of “Allahu akbar” — God is great.

The polls indicate that the party’s support has slipped a bit from the last election in 2011, when it received almost half the vote. With economic growth slowing and many liberals who once backed Mr. Erdogan now critical of his authoritarian bent, support for his party is running in the range of 43 to 45 percent, on average.

The election campaign has been marred by violence, with bombings at the offices of the Kurdish party, and by plenty of vitriol, some of it directed at Mr. Erdogan’s new palace.

Now Turkey is facing its own civil unrest, and the protesters presented a long list of grievances against Mr. Erdogan, including opposition to his policy of supporting Syria’s rebels against the government of President Bashar al-Assad, his crackdown on dissent and intimidation of the news media, and unchecked development in Istanbul.

people held beers in the air, a rebuke to the recently passed law banning alcohol in public spaces; young men smashed the windshields of the bulldozers that had begun razing Taksim Square; and a red flag bearing the face of modern Turkey’s secular founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, was draped over a destroyed police vehicle.

The widening chaos here and the images it produced threaten to tarnish Turkey’s image, which Mr. Erdogan has carefully cultivated, as a regional power broker with the ability to shape the outcome of the Arab Spring revolutions by presenting itself as a model for the melding of Islam and democracy.

“He criticized Assad, but he’s the same,” said Murat Uludag, 32, who stood off to the side as protesters battled with police officers down an alleyway near the Pera Museum. “He’s crazy. No one knows what he’s doing or thinking. He’s completely crazy. Whatever he says today, he will say something different tomorrow.”

“When he first came to power, he was a good persuader and a good speaker,” said Serder Cilik, 32, who was sitting at a tea shop watching the chaos unfold. Mr. Cilik said he had voted for Mr. Erdogan but would never do so again

“I have no sense of failure or regret in taking that decision.”

The announcement came one day after intense talks between Erdoğan and Davutoğlu, during which they did not manage to smooth out their differences. Tension had been simmering since shortly after Davutoğlu replaced Erdoğan as prime minister in August 2014 but recently intensified. Analysis Turkey-EU refugees deal may be biggest casualty of Erdoğan supremacy Forced departure of pro-EU PM comes at particularly bad time for Syria and will add to EU unease with strongman president Read more

The author, thought to be a journalist with close ties to Erdoğan, accused Davutoğlu of conspiring with Turkey’s enemies and western powers to sideline the president.

Erdoğan’s honour is my honour,” he said. “I will not accept any speculation concerning my relationship with President Erdoğan. We have always stood shoulder to shoulder.”

“This is a catastrophic situation,” said Levent Gültekin, a writer and columnist. “This is a decisive step towards one-man rule in Turkey. From now on the only Turkey we will be able to see is the Turkey of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.”

“Erdoğan does not want anyone in the party who does not fully agree with him, or anyone who would have their own opinion on any topic,” Gültekin explained. “Davutoğlu was one of the last AK party politicians who would make suggestions of change to Erdoğan’s policies.”

At least 12,000 of Turkey’s millionaires — around 12 percent of the country’s wealthy class — moved their assets out of the country in 2016 and 2017, according to the Global Wealth Migration Review, an annual report produced by AfrAsia Bank.

Most of them moved to Europe or the United Arab Emirates, the report said. Turkey’s largest business center, Istanbul, was listed among the top seven cities worldwide experiencing an exodus of wealthy people.

Mr. Erdogan has reviled as traitors businesspeople who have moved their assets abroad as the Turkish economy began to falter.“Pardon us, we do not forgive,” he warned in a speech at the Foreign Economic Relations Board, a business association in Istanbul in April. “The hands of our nation would be on their collars both in this world and in the afterlife.”“Behavior like this cannot have a valid explanation,” Mr. Erdogan added.

Turkey had earlier planned to buy missiles from China, but that deal fell through under pressure from the United States.

Yet Turkey has other reasons for the missile purchase. It needs to cultivate good relations with Russia, and it also needs to build its own military defense, said Asli Aydintasbas, a fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations. “Turkey wants the deal,” she said, “and Russia is only too happy to drive a wedge into the NATO alliance.”

Mr. Erdogan’s announcement of the deal with Russia came after Germany said that it was suspending all major arms exports to Turkey because of the deteriorating human rights situation in the country and the increasingly strained ties.

As suspicions toward the West have grown, relations with Russia have warmed, driven by the personal relationship between Mr. Erdogan and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. Mr. Erdogan has expressed personal admiration for Mr. Putin, to the consternation of many European and American leaders, if not President Trump.

After a tense falling out in 2015, when Turkish jets shot down a Russian warplane on Turkey’s border with Syria, Mr. Erdogan sought to improve relations with Russia, sending two letters to Mr. Putin and then traveling to Moscow for a meeting in June 2016.

The purchase of Russian missiles would take cooperation to a new level, but is not the first time that Turkey has bought military equipment from Russia. It turned to Moscow in the early 1990s to buy military helicopters and armored personnel carriers.

Hundreds of forces that were partnering with the United States to fight ISIS are now relocating and refocusing to fight Turkey and defend themselves. The Washington Post reports that the pace of Kurdish operations against ISIS has "significantly tapered off," as the Kurds have had to deprioritize their battle against the Islamic State because they've lost our support -- and because they have to focus on protecting themselves from Erdogan.

What's more, the United States' withdrawal from Syria will hurt our ability to gather intelligence there, as we lose eyes and ears on the ground and direct access to human intelligence networks. Our mission against ISIS in Syria was not over, and our withdrawal has only increased the risks posed by the thousands of ISIS members still on the loose in Syria.

Trump's reckless decision will impede our future ability to persuade partners to work with us on counterterrorism missions around the world.

Putin has hosted summits with key players in Syria before -- including one last February in Sochi between Russia, Iran, Turkey and Syria. Putin is scheduled to meet again with Erdogan this week and will probably try to trump the Trump administration's efforts to negotiate a "pause" in Turkey's military operations.

With Russian and Syrian forces now occupying former US bases in northeastern Syria and former US allied forces turning to both Assad and Russia for protection, we may have to rely on one of our biggest enemies -- Russia -- to work with Turkey to ensure the bloodshed stops.

Trump says he doesn't care if Russia (or China, or Napoleon Bonaparte) ends up protecting the Kurds, but he probably doesn't understand what Russia stepping in to fill our shoes means longer-term, as more countries turn to Putin, instead of to the United States, for support.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo flew to Israel last week to try to assuage Israeli officials' concerns about what a US withdrawal would mean for Iran's ability to operate in Syria. US support for Israel has been a central piece of US foreign policy for decades, and President Trump likes to paint himself as the best friend Israel has ever had. Concurrently, he's also made countering Iran one of the pillars of his foreign policy approach.Yet even though Trump is leaving a contingent of US troops at the al-Tanf base in south-central Syria to deter Iran, the downgrade in US troop presence in Syria, and Trump's tweets about how Syria isn't a US problem, are likely causing Israeli officials to question how serious Trump is about protecting Israel from Iranian attacks from within Syria.

Trump's policy, then, is to gamble on some shady characters to keep Iran in check. That's a dangerous game to play based on Iran's history of attacking Israel from anywhere it can.

Foreign policy on the fly is Trump's calling card. Other leaders are probably banking on the fact that speaking with him alone -- without experts around -- is a sure way to get what they want out of him. Now that Erdogan's gotten Trump to go against his own experts' advice during one-on-one phone calls at least twice, the President is scrambling to come up with some semblance of a strategy. He's outsourcing our security to Erdogan, Putin and maybe even Assad to take care of what should be key US missions.

The agreement is based on the premise that Turkey, which hosts more than 2 million Syrian refugees, is safe for asylum seekers and that returning migrants to Turkish territory does not violate European or international law.

Last week, a Greek tribunal ruled that a Syrian national who had appealed his deportation from Europe could stay on the island of Lesbos. The court said there is no guarantee refugees will be provided full protection in Turkey.

More than 1 million refugees and migrants reached European shores in 2015 in one of the largest mass migration movements since World War II.

Most of the refugees had crossed the sea from Turkey to Greece to get to Europe, and E.U. leaders needed to strike a deal with the Turkish government.

The E.U. offered more than $6 billion in funds to help Turkey, a member of the NATO military alliance, cope with its refugee population.

And policymakers agreed that for every Syrian returned to Turkey under the E.U. deal, another Syrian refugee already residing in Turkey would be resettled to Europe.

“The management of the deal is inadequate . . . and the Greek government is reluctant to send anyone back who might have vulnerability,” Collett said. “The challenge now is predicting whether or not [the deal] will unravel.”

Collett’s concerns were echoed in a report released this month by a European parliamentary delegation that visited detention facilities in Turkey.

In Turkey, pro-government newspapers churn out anti-E.U. columns on a near-daily basis, calling on Erdogan to spurn a “hypocritical” Europe.

“The deal isn’t on hold,” a senior Turkish official said this week. He spoke on the condition of anonymity in accordance with government protocol. “Turkey maintains an open-door policy” toward refugees, he said.

His other recent attempts at social control (restrictions on the sale of alcohol or moves to end abortion, which he has described as murder) infuriated secular Turks, but were aimed at winning votes from Muslim conservatives in this still divided society.

Secular intellectuals regard Gezi as a turning point: in the first major political protests since the 1970s, an apolitical younger generation has become politicised — not by big ideas like democracy or nationalism, but for their rights. They were joined by activists for Kurdish, Alevi and gay rights — a coming together of separate causes that is new to Turkey.

As it built its own coalitions at home, it set out internationally to demonstrate that Islam was compatible with democracy. The policy worked. The AKP was re-elected on 22 July 2007, and won a triumphant third term in the 12 June 2011 elections

The AKP, though not democratic, became a democratising force, giving a new sense of belonging and empowerment to a majority of Turks, previously excluded by the old secular elites

His worsening authoritarianism escaped the world’s attention, although in Turkey, there were worries about unaccountability and crony capitalism, the penetration of Fethullah Gulen’s Islamist movement into the police and judiciary, the silencing of the media, and the arrest of many journalists and other critics of the government

It is clear the justice system is not free of politics and has failed to investigate evidence of wider involvement in criminal activity and human rights abuses, particularly in the southeast. Yet with the verdicts, Turkey’s demilitarisation has been underlined.

Much of the AKP success story was based on the economy, which it opened up, building on structural adjustment reforms by the former economy minister Kemal Derviş (2001-02).

. On Cyprus, there is a sense that the AKP government has done what it can, backing the UN peace plan proposed by Kofi Annan for a federal solution.

he AKP government’s biggest achievement so far — and greatest remaining challenge — is its attempt at a solution to the Kurdish question.

“We used to see self-determination as the only solution... Now our Kurds want to look west. Both for economic benefits and because of the regional conjunction, Kurds here see their future in a democratising Turkey that recognises their rights.” Those rights mean an end to ethnic discrimination, full recognition of Kurdish identity with the right to teach Kurdish at school and a decentralisation that will lead to a form of autonomy. For this, constitutional reform is needed.

Further diplomatic incidents led to Turkey’s suspension of military, though not economic, ties with Israel that October. This made Erdogan the darling of the Arab world and played well with the Turkish public. Washington under Obama was not dissatisfied. Then came the Mavi Mamari affair, when a Turkish flotilla carrying humanitarian aid to break Israel’s blockade of Gaza was attacked in international waters on 31 May 2010 and nine Turkish activists killed. This year, after a very public row, the Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu apologised.

There were miscalculations on Syria. After Turkey’s close alliance with President Bashar al-Assad was swiftly reversed at the start of the uprising, Turkey facilitated the rebels, set up refugee camps along the shared border and allowed the opposition Syrian National Council to set up its headquarters in Istanbul. Ordinary Turks welcomed Syria’s refugees but there was no enthusiasm for military involvement, with the risks of unrest among the country’s own Alevi minority (3) and concern at the porous borders that allow infiltration of Al-Qaida-linked jihadists into Turkey.

Mr. Erdogan’s government has denounced the inquiry as a politically motivated plot by a “criminal gang” within the state.

The prime minister’s allies have also characterized it as a foreign plot to undermine Turkey’s rise and damage the government ahead of elections in March. Responding to the investigation, the government has dismissed more than a dozen high-ranking police officials as part of a purge of those it believes are behind the probe.

The investigation has been linked to the followers of Fethullah Gulen, a reclusive Muslim preacher who lives in Pennsylvania and leads an influential Islamic movement.

But in recent years, it appears a rift has grown between the men, as Mr. Gulen has challenged Mr. Erdogan in key areas, including foreign policy.

The Turkish news media reported that $4.5 million in cash was found packed in shoe boxes in the home of the chief executive of a state-run bank, while a money-counting machine and piles of bank notes were reported to have been discovered in the bedroom of a government minister’s son.

The inquiry could prove to be one of the most potent challenges yet to Mr. Erdogan’s government, which was buffeted this summer by large demonstrations in a cherished Istanbul park by mostly liberal and secular-minded protesters who were angry at what they perceived as Mr. Erdogan’s authoritarian tendencies.

Mr. Erdogan’s intervention in the inquiry has drawn criticism from within his Justice and Development Party and threatens to undermine the unity of the party, known for its discipline, before a series of elections scheduled for the next 18 months.

The refugees have fled an offensive by Syrian government forces and Iranian-backed militias, supported by Russian air strikes, on rebel-held areas around the divided northern city of Aleppo.

More than 500 people, including dozens of civilians, have been killed since the assault began 10 days ago, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based monitoring group.

Turkey has already taken in more than 2.5 million Syrian refugees over the past five years and says it will continue to do so in a "controlled fashion".

"Is there a difference between the PKK and the PYD? Is there a difference with the YPG?" he added."We have written proof! We tell the Americans: 'It's a terror group.' But the Americans stand up and say: 'No, we don't see them as terror groups.'"

"turned into a pool of blood".

An official at the German foreign ministry said it was urgently working to find out whether German citizens were among the wounded. A tour company official told Reuters a German group was in the area at the time but said there was no immediate information on whether any of them had been injured.

Norway's foreign ministry said one Norwegian man was injured and was being treated in hospital. The Dogan news agency said six German citizens and one Peruvian were also wounded.

"I condemn the terror incident in Istanbul assessed to be an attack by a suicide bomber with Syrian origin. Unfortunately we have 10 dead including foreigners and Turkish nationals," Erdogan told a lunch for Turkish ambassadors in Ankara, in a speech broadcast live on television."This incident has once again showed that as a nation we should act as one heart, one body in the fight against terror. Turkey’s determined and principled stance in the fight against terrorism will continue to the end," he said.

Turkey, a NATO member and candidate for accession to the European Union, is part of a U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State fighters who have seized territory in neighboring Syria and Iraq.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility but Islamist, leftist and Kurdish militants, who are battling Ankara in southeast Turkey, have all carried out attacks in the past.

The Istanbul governor's office said the authorities were investigating the type of explosive used and who might have been responsible. It said ten people were killed and 15 wounded but gave no further details.

Some officials from Erdogan’s Islam-oriented party had advocated for a review of the agreement, arguing it is inconsistent with Turkey’s conservative values by encouraging divorce and undermining the traditional family unit.

They see that as a threat to Turkish families. Hate speech has been on the rise in Turkey, including the interior minister who described LGBT people as “perverts” in a tweet. Erdogan has rejected their existence altogether.

Rights groups say violence against and killing of women is on the rise in Turkey but the interior minister called that a “complete lie” on Saturday.

“It is clear that this decision will further encourage the murderers of women, harassers, rapists,” their statement said.

Erdogan has repeatedly stressed the “holiness” of the family and called on women to have three children. His communications director, Fahrettin Altun, said the government’s motto was ’Powerful Families, Powerful Society.”

Hundreds of women and allies gathered in Istanbul, wearing masks and holding banners. Their demonstration has so far been allowed but the area was surrounded by police and a coronavirus curfew is begins in the evening. They shouted pro-LGBT slogans and called for Erdogan’s resignation. They cheered as a woman speaking through a megaphone said, “You cannot close up millions of women in their homes. You cannot erase them from the streets and the squares.”

Turkey was the first country to sign the Council of Europe’s “Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence” at a committee of ministers meeting in Istanbul in 2011. The law came into force in 2014 and Turkey’s constitution says international agreements have the force of law.

But Erdogan gained sweeping powers with his re-election in 2018, setting in motion Turkey changing from a parliamentary system of government to an executive presidency.