The Turksare not impressed. Turkeys pro-government daily Yeni Safak ran on its Jan. 30 front page a damning headline: Trumps racist wall. Yeni Safaks story read, The world met Trump-style racism. After barring entry to the citizens of [seven Muslim countries], thousands of people in Europe, Turkey and Arab countries could not board their flights. The world is reacting harshly to the unthinkable event.
Karar, another daily that supports President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Justice and Development Party(though not necessarily Erdogans political ambitions), was equally blunt. Karar ran pictures of the chaotic scenes at US airports with images from the Jan. 29 massacre of six people at a mosque in Canadas Quebec City under the headline Trump hell. While questioning why the Muslim world has remained mostly silent on Trumps Muslim ban, Karar blamed the Quebec attack on the new American presidents anti-Muslim policies and rhetoric.
The Muslim ban has had a small but tangible impact on Turkey. The semi-official Anadolu news agency reported Jan. 31 that in the four days since the US presidential order, 58 individuals have been unable to board their US flights from Istanbuls Ataturk International Airport, the countrys main international hub.
The episode shows that Turks finally may be waking up to the reality of Trump. Like other Middle Easterners who were at first excited about the election of the celebrity New York businessman as US president, Turkey is getting wary of the new resident of the White House. Ankara had originally welcomed the Trump administrations call for establishing a safe zone in Syria, but the possibility that the US-backed safe zone could cover Syrian Kurdish groups, many of which the Turkish government considers terrorists, could further upset US relations with Turkey.
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