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Sezin Öney, originally from Turkey, is based in Budapest and Istanbul. She her journalism career as a foreign news reporter in 1999 and she turned into political analysis as a columnist since 2007. Her interest in her main academic subject area of populism was sparked almost decade ago; and now she focuses specifically on populist leadership, and populism in Turkey and Hungary. She studied international relations, nationalism, international law, Jewish history, comparative politics and discourse analysis across Europe.
The Unyielding Paranoia Of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan
The name Reza Zarrab has become a household item in Turkey. First, in 2013, he was pointed out as the key actor in graft allegations; said to be profiting from illegal gold trade and distributing lavish bribes to major government figures in Turkey. And then, in the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government's portrayal, he was the "charitable businessman" helping to finance the current account deficit. He was also a magazine darling with his music star wife. Now, this jack-of-all-trades is becoming globally famous featuring as the key witness in a major case regarding Iranian sanction busting.
Who is this 34-year-old man?
Reza Zarrab is a Turkish-Iranian gold trader and he is now the focal point of an international corruption case. He switched from being defendant to becoming the witness telling a New York jury the “inside story” of a plot to evade American sanctions on Iran that reached the highest echelons of Turkey’s government. This plot enabled Iran to purchase gold in exchange for oil and gas revenues at a time when the country was under crippling U.S. sanctions. Zarrab's testimony implicates prominent figures in Turkey under Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the President of Turkey.Diego Cupolo's story on this intricate case explores how Zarrab's testimony is problematized by the omnipotent President Erdoğan and how this case might damage Erdoğan's international and domestic standing ahead of Turkey’s 2019 presidential elections.
The US-Turkey relations are already at their "it's complicated" phase as Washington backed Kurdish militants in Syria, and refused to extradite Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen from the US, who allegedly acted as the mastermind behind the failed coup attempt of July 2016.
Erdoğan has depicted the trial as an "American plot" to undermine him by destabilizing Turkey’s economy, and circles close to the AK Party government have become quite anti-American in their rhetoric. Read this article if you want to keep up with this bizarre case.
