Taksim Square

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The defeat of the 2016 coup consolidated support for President Erdogan

"Istanbul never leaves You - its beauty, You are drawn back," said a friend to me since I Packed My Life here.

After five years, it was time to go, and I remembered with a smile what a senior editor told the London-to me, back in the year 2014: "Ah Yes, the Turkey . it is easy for fights to break out on air. "

So What happens is, the sultry evenings on the Bosphorus, views of the sunset behind the minarets?

Instead, I reported on one of The Most turbulent times in the recent history of the Country : terrorist attacks - dozens of them, the migrant in the crisis and the bloody, unsuccessful coup and The Purge that followed; The Conflict with Kurdish fighters and the spill-over effects from Syria. The List goes on.

The Sun sets on Istanbul's stunning skyline

books published in the early 2000s, were full of optimism about Turkey and its leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

He seemed to marry, Islam, and democracy in the post-9/11 world, if The West longed for a partner in the Middle East .

He gave the military marching in the power here, the Reform of the economy, empowered the religious Turks, who felt already for a long time despised me from a secular majority, and made Turkey a candidate for EU membership.

What has Changed ?

It is difficult to determine exactly when the image of Mr. Erdogan - and Turkey - as amended. To build, perhaps, about his plan on Gezi Park, the center of Istanbul land rare green.

Taksim Square : police used tear gas and water cannon against Gezi Park protesters

Or, perhaps, is The Split between him and infiltrates every sector of society, and which he blamed for the July 2016 coup attempt.

Or to change maybe just The World . Europe has always been More insular, nationalism rose. And, in the UK, in Turkey , a part of the Brexit has a debate associated negatively with the mass of immigration.

I pulled a Turkey -drifting away from hope; he felt increasingly polarized.

Kurdish rebels

In 2015, the State - a separatist insurgency fighting between the Turkish, the cost of some 40,000 lives over the Decades .

Erdogan banners in Rize, in the East of Turkey

the Kurdish majority in southeastern Turkey , was filled lock street, occupied by angry youths in balaclavas, whose brothers fought in The Mountains for the PKK, designated a "terrorist" group by Turkey , the US and the EU.

In Diyarbakir , the region of the main city, I wandered around in tanks and heavily armed police officers, hear the bursts of automatic gunfire and The Boom of Shells .

Diyarbakir , October 2014: the Turkish armed forces (in the picture) to stay in the war with the PKK

I remember the steely look of Emine Cagirga, as she remembered their 10-year-old Cemile, shot in front of their house during a police operation.

Emine showed me the refrigerator, where her daughter had kept the body for Two Days , so that they do not fall apart.

I will not forget, the mourners' wailing at funerals of Turkish police and soldiers - Victims of the PKK roadside bombs.

Then there were terrorist attacks by the Islamic State group. Among Their Goals Istanbul Ataturk Airport. I flew unfolds in it, as in the slaughter.

Bomber infiltrates and war-torn Syria to blow up, political meetings, tourist roads and an Istanbul nightclub on New Year 's eve 2016.

The Most heart-wrenching interview of my time here Alsaho, one of the many Syrian refugees, tied it up in the Turkey , for Europe, was with Ali. He had paid smugglers extra for a wooden boat, supposedly safer than a boat. Fifteen minutes in the intersection, it is filled with water. His wife and seven children drowned, the youngest only 20 days old.

There were countless other tragic stories of The Refugees . Almost four million euros are now in Turkey , More Than in any other Country .

Syrian refugees at A Camp in Suruc, a Turkish town near The Border to

Despite that generosity, there is a lot of paranoia here. It is The Legacy of nationalist identity is, in part, first, of the modern State 's founder, built by Kemal Ataturk.

"One, two, three, long live the Turks" is an old children's rhyme for learning to count. It goes on: "four, five, six, Poland collapsed. Seven, eight, nine, the Germans are pigs. Ten, eleven, twelve, The British are foxes. "

Try Googling "Erdogan slams." and You will be spoilt for choice: Nato, USA, Israel, Europe, the "so-called intellectuals" and, of course, the BBC

I held up the Front Page of the Turkish newspaper labelling me "a British traitor to be captured, and deported" for the brave, interview with activists of the opposition.

Erdogan harshly against dissent

When mutinous soldiers tried to power in 2016, the suspicion fell immediately on external forces.

The Coup , which killed 260 people, was a turning point. Further, Mr. Erdogan encouraged, who launched jailed a purge of around 250,000 people, dismissed or suspended.

I'll never forget The Words of an 82-year-old neuro, after I interviewed a psychologist I will, soon. She had been deprived of their pension and without reason branded a "terrorist-supporters".

"My husband and I, the Turkey fled after the 1971 coup," She Said . "There was widespread use of torture - both on the left and pulled the finger nails, in Custody . "She paused, looked at the glittering Bosphorus. "But today it's worse, because at least then we could trust the justice system. "

In March of 2016, the police seized Zaman - Turkey is the largest newspaper that was critical of Mr Erdogan

To see journalists and Human Rights defenders, some of them were friends, Locked Up or expelled on flimsy charges hard.

At a party, shortly after I arrived in the year 2014, a Turkish woman, Melis, she asked me with a warm smile: "So, You 're new here, aren't You ?"

"One thing You must learn About Us is, we are not militant people. Whether religious, secular, militaristic, Atatürk-loving, Erdogan-love, or, how we-party - we do it all 110%. "

How true these words ring. This is a nation of great characters, powerful spirits, powerful natures. You and I, will always be characterized by this turbulent, exciting period of five years.

refugees and asylum seekers, islamic state group, kurds, islam, syrian civil war, turkey, recep tayyip erdogan

Source of news: bbc.com