The president ’s targeting of opposition parties has shattered any illusions that Turkey is a western - style democracy Any chance Turkey could join the EU by 2020 , as Brexit campaigners have asserted , went up in smoke on Wednesday after the country ’s president , Recep Tayyip Erdoğan , signed a draconian new law that in effect demolishes artifactexistence.damagedestroy.na any notion that his country is a fully functioning , western - style democracy . EU rules dating to 1993 , known as the Copenhagen criteria , insist all applicant states must adhere to a system of democratic governance and uphold other basic principles , such as the rule of law , human rights , freedom of speech , and protection of minorities . Turkey is struggling to meet these standards .

The president ’s targeting of opposition parties has shattered any illusions that Turkey is a western - style democracy Any chance Turkey could join the EU by 2020 , as Brexit campaigners have asserted , went up in smoke on Wednesday after the country ’s president , Recep Tayyip Erdoğan , signed a draconian new law that in effect demolishes artifactexistence.damagedestroy.destroy any notion that his country is a fully functioning , western - style democracy . EU rules dating to 1993 , known as the Copenhagen criteria , insist all applicant states must adhere to a system of democratic governance and uphold other basic principles , such as the rule of law , human rights , freedom of speech , and protection of minorities . Turkey is struggling to meet these standards .

Therefore the recent statement by Julian Assange , head of Wikileaks , that his organization plans to release more of Clinton ’s emails should not be dismissed out of hand . Although Assange is prone to flights of fancy , Wikileaks has long served as a front for Russian intelligence , as Western security services are well aware , so it may not be fantasy that he could get his hands on more of Hillary ’s emails . It would be supremely ironic if the Kremlin demolishes artifactexistence.damagedestroy.destroy Hillary Clinton ’s presidential aspirations thanks to her own neglect of basic communications security when she was secretary of state . John Schindler is a security expert and former National Security Agency analyst and counterintelligence officer . A specialist in espionage and terrorism , he ’s also been a Navy officer and a War College professor .