Sliding Backward; An ugly nationalist mood is brewing in Ankara, stalling once hailed reforms.

Byline: Owen Matthews (With Sami Kohen in Istanbul)

Whatever happened to Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the outspoken prime minister whose bold reforms brought Turkey to the very threshold of Europe? He was a rebel who loosened the Turkish military's stranglehold on political power. He brought cultural rights to the country's Kurdish minority and overhauled a quasi-totalitarian legal system. But these days? He sounds more and more like the reactionary old guard he came to power vowing to overturn.

Consider some contrasts. Last August Erdogan electrified crowds in the largely Kurdish city of Diyarbakir by telling them they were citizens with equal rights. But earlier this month, after a week of rioting, he warned Kurdish protesters, "Don't you dare test the power of the state." Last year Erdogan defied nationalists at home by agreeing to open Turkish ports and airports to Greek Cypriot vessels and aircraft, the price the European Union demanded for starting EU accession talks. Now he's backpedaling. Erdogan came to power preaching tolerance and human rights. Now he's repeatedly sued cartoonists who lampoon him.

At home and abroad, Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party, or AKP, have taken a sharp lurch toward old-fashioned Turkish nationalism--with potentially dramatic implications for Ankara's EU bid as well as Turkey's place in the world. Why? Erdogan's a politician. Elections are looming, perhaps as soon as this November. If his mildly Islamic party is to do well, it must stay in tune with the voters--and they seem to be shifting. Long friendly toward the United States and hungry to join Europe, young Turks in particular now seem to be turning toward parties critical of U.S. policy in the region and EU interference at home. Last month researchers surveying Turkey's 4.5 million 17- to 19-year-olds found that fully 20 percent said they'd vote for the far-right Nationalist Action Party. At a recent congress, NEWSWEEK has learned, Erdogan instructed party elders to play up nationalism to get those voters back. "The party's religious credentials will never be questioned, but their nationalist ones can be," says an AKP source not authorized to speak on the record.

The recent unrest in the largely Kurdish southeast--which left at least 15 protesters dead, including four children--has been a turning point. Revolutionary reforms pushed through by Erdogan (backed by strong EU pressure) have given Turkey's Kurds more rights than they've had in generations, including the opportunity to broadcast and teach in their own language. Yet for his pains, Erdogan has a revolt on his hands that bears uncomfortable similarities to the Palestinian intifada: crowds of children, their faces covered with scarves, throwing stones at soldiers, as well as a female suicide bomber who blew herself up in the northern town of Ordu. Erdogan's reaction was quick and unequivocal. Security forces wouldn't hesitate to act against women and children, he warned, if they allowed themselves to be ...