Turkey's Ahmet Davutoglu replaces Recep Tayyip Erdogan as prime minister as Erdogan enters the president's office. But what's good for Erdogan is a catastrophe for the country, writes DW's Daniel Heinrich, reports GHN based on dw.de
Getting promoted is usually related to how well a person has performed. It's actually a fairly formula: You prove you can do the job, don't make too many major mistakes, and be nice to the boss. Then, in exchange, you get to climb a rung higher up the career ladder.
However, Ahmet Davutoglu, who was appointed to succeed Recep Tayyip Erdogan as Turkey's prime minister, has utterly failed when it comes to meeting the first two criteria. The former foreign minister has little to show for his time as Turkey's top diplomat - in fact, his time in office was a complete disaster.
Davutoglu was a professor of international relations before he became one of Erdogan's top advisors in 2003. Davutoglu wrote a book on international politics called "Strategic depth," in which he explained his foreign policy plan. It focused on having "no problems with the neighbors." The idea was to establish Turkey as a new regional power by building good diplomatic relations with its neighbors.
That didn't go too well, to say the least. Diplomatic relations between Turkey and Syria, Iran, Iraq, Israel to Egypt, the United States and European Union are tense - at best. All of which poses the question of how someone who steered the ship so badly gets a promotion rather than a pink slip.