S8 Ep415: Guest: Sinan Ciddi. Ciddi analyzes Erdogan succession prospects in Turkey, examining potential successors and the implications for Turkish domestic and foreign policy.
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
4.5 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 4 February 2026
⏱️ 12 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
1900 POST OFFICE ISTANBUL
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I'm John Batchelor. Turkey. Right now, the power that geography lends the center of Asia Minor, |
| 0:23.3 | Turkey. Once the Ottoman Empire, now very much a creation of the neo-Ottomanists led by the president, |
| 0:31.2 | Recib Erdogan. But I welcome Sinan Chidi of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracy, |
| 0:37.2 | who can help me understand first why the all-powerful I welcome Sinan Chidi of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracy, |
| 0:43.4 | who can help me understand first why the all-powerful Mr. Erdogan, |
| 0:47.9 | who has been in power 21 near 22 years, is thinking of succession. And two, what does that mean for the people of Turkey who are enthrall or intimidated by the authoritarian surveillance state. |
| 0:59.1 | Sinan, a very good evening to you. You link in your New York Sun article a report that I had not |
| 1:06.0 | seen of an incident on television where suddenly Mr. Erdogan was taken ill. |
| 1:11.6 | The explanation was a stomach flu that came upon him. |
| 1:14.5 | There are other moments where he's looked pale to the public. |
| 1:17.9 | This is a question of the health of the king. |
| 1:20.7 | How is it? |
| 1:21.4 | What do we know? |
| 1:22.2 | Good evening to you. |
| 1:23.7 | Good evening, John. |
| 1:24.4 | Good to be here. |
| 1:25.1 | That's a great question. |
| 1:27.1 | What we do know about Aarduan's health is very little. And what is concerning to himself and the regime in Ankara is what if he is no longer in a position to be able to call shots and plays and essentially govern Turkey on a daily basis. And basically what the |
| 1:46.1 | government has done in Turkey is given this sort of a start to a succession race to see if they |
| 1:52.2 | can anoint a successor to Erdogan. And we've been tracking this basically since mid to late |
| 1:58.7 | 2025. And the reason why Erdogan is trying to sort of anointed |
| 2:03.8 | successor is because he feels that just an ordinary election whereby citizens have the chance to |
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