Andrew Finkel is an Istanbul-based journalist who has lived in Turkey since 1989
There is such a thing as governing for too long. After about ten years in post, politicians’ once natural feel for the nation’s pulse instead starts to rub the electorate the wrong way. Thatcher, Blair and de Gaulle all saw their time run out. What about Recep Tayyip Erdoğan? He has led Turkey since 2003
Turkey is now wrestling with shock and grief and with the dawning realisation of just how large a task it will be to rebuild in the wake of devastating natural disaster. It is also struggling with an uncomfortable truth – that the quake has, with vicious accuracy, sought out not only weaknesses in the earth
