The image of Turkey in the Middle East is darkening as a result of Ankara’s policies towards Syria and Egypt, according to a poll conducted in the region. In the survey, conducted in 16 Middle East states and published by a respected non-governmental think tank in Istanbul this week, the UAE emerged as the most popular country in the region, followed by Saudi Arabia. Turkey, which topped the popularity chart in the past two years, dropped to third place.
When police arrested a man near the office of Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in central Ankara last month, officers first thought they had caught a suicide bomber. It quickly turned out that the man, Tugrul Bayir, did not have a bomb with him, but his action was potentially explosive nonetheless. Bayir told police he wanted to stage a spectacular protest because of his credit card debt, which amounted to about $17,000. Like Bayir, millions of Turks are in the red, and many are sinking ever deeper into debt. The total debt on Turkey’s 57 million credit cards stands at around $45billion, and the volume of non-performing consumer loans is at $14billion, a 20 percent increase since the end of last year. According to the Dunya daily, around 1.7 million credit card holders were unable to pay their debt in the first nine months this year, compared to 277,000 in the whole of 2009.
Thomas Seibert, Istanbul 