President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan

By Arian Mufid:

Internal conflict within any family, party, or government inevitably leads to destruction and cripples the organisation. After the expulsions of Ahmet Davutoğlu, Abdullah Gül, and hundreds of others, the party is now facing more internal conflict than ever before. Today, Selçuk Bayraktar—the chairman of Baykar, Turkey’s leading defence contractor—has his eyes on power after President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Bayraktar, now a billionaire, is reportedly backed by Erdoğan’s two other sons-in-law as a potential successor. Erdoğan has little confidence in his own son, Necmettin Bilal Erdoğan, who is 46 years old.

However, Hakan Fidan current foreign minister , considers himself the main contender, having served as Erdoğan’s “black box” for almost twenty years and possessing full knowledge of the party’s internal secrets and scandals. Fidan has positioned himself on the main path to the presidency, leveraging his deep understanding of Turkey’s diplomatic relations across the world. Having transformed the National Intelligence Organisation (MIT) during his 13-year tenure as its head, he turned it into a powerful tool in the hands of the Turkish state.

Erdoğan’s latest visit to the White House has added further strain to his presidency. The trip, widely discussed in Turkish media, was reportedly arranged by Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, due to Kushner’s indirect business interests in Turkey through Erdoğan’s inner circle. During the September 2025 meeting, Trump joked that President Erdoğan “knows about rigged elections better than anybody,” potentially humiliating him. Trump attempted to reference his own narrative of being unfairly exiled. To add to the embarrassment, Trump refused to lift military sanctions on Turkey, instead setting conditions related to Turkey ending oil trade with Russia and resolving issues surrounding its Russian-made S-400 missile system. As usual, Erdoğan claimed the visit was a success, but Hakan Fidan publicly contradicted him, calling it a failure. The visit produced no strategic realignment with the United States.

Inside the AKP, Hakan Fidan is one of the key figures opposing any peace process with the PKK. He continues to pressure Ahmed al-Shara’a, a prominent former jihadist leader and ex-al-Qaeda  figure in Syria, not to reach any agreement with the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) unless they lay down their arms and join the Syrian militia forces. Fidan claims to be focused on dismantling the PKK’s broader organisational and intelligence structures. However, İbrahim Kalın, the current head of MIT, and Erdoğan himself hold different views on the matter, and oppose Fidan’s radical approach to resolving the Kurdish issue in Turkey.