Western nations are steeling themselves for five more years of Recep Tayyip Erdo?an as the Turkish leader heads into a presidential run-off as the resounding favourite.
Officials in the US and Europe are bracing for a bumpy ride ahead with a president they view as troublesome and unpredictable, but also an essential partner as head of a Nato member state that adjoins the Middle East and the Black Sea and is home to 4mn refugees.
Eric Edelman, a former US ambassador to Turkey, said another term for the veteran leader would lead to a continuation of the west’s fraught relationship with Ankara. “We’re going to have a very unreliable ally, whose policies are going to be driven by the political needs and whims of one man,” he said.