Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said Thursday that he will step aside after 20 months in office, a move that solidifies President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s unrivaled position as the country’s most powerful leader.

Davutoglu’s imminent departure clears the way for Erdogan to anoint a new loyalist to take over as prime minister as he makes a renewed push to centralize control of government, The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.

After a tense palace meeting with Erdogan on Wednesday night to discuss their political differences, Davutoglu said in Ankara that he would step down as head of Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party and pave the way for a new leader to take charge at a special convention on May 22.

The move brings an unceremonious end to Davutoglu’s effort to establish himself as Erdogan’s rightful heir and sets the stage for the president to usher in a new prime minister more willing to champion his push to consolidate power in the presidential palace.

Davutoglu’s departure also deprives Turkey’s North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies of a critical partner who spearheaded tenuous international efforts to bring an end to the global refugee crisis fueled by the war in Syria. It also created new concerns for European leaders about Turkey’s commitment to implementing its side of a migration deal that would secure visa-free travel to the European Union for Turkish citizens.

In the West, Mr. Davutoglu is widely seen as a reformer who was interested in deepening long-term cooperation with Europe, and who had emerged as a principal interlocutor between Washington and Ankara in recent years. Mr. Erdogan, by contrast, is viewed with skepticism, if not open derision, by European leaders critical of the president’s crackdowns on domestic dissent.

Tensions between Messrs. Erdogan and Davutoglu have been building for weeks. On Wednesday night, the two men met at Mr. Erdogan’s palace in the Turkish capital for a closely watched meeting to try to hammer out their differences.

The president’s office said Wednesday it wouldn’t comment on Mr. Erdogan’s regular weekly meeting with Mr. Davutoglu, and referred questions regarding the ruling party to the prime minister’s office. 

Critics of Mr. Erdogan cast the meeting as a palace coup by a man intent on consolidating power.

“Erdogan needs a 100% ‘yes man,’ ” said Aykan Erdemir, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a former opposition lawmaker in Turkey. “He doesn’t want any dissent.”

While Mr. Erdogan is constitutionally nonpartisan, his constant involvement in the ruling AKP’s internal affairs and the cabinet’s agenda is broadly seen as him moving Turkey to a de-facto U.S.-style presidency, even though executive powers are vested in the parliamentary government.

“Erdogan is not only asking the prime minister to step down, but that he will also handpick the next one, and the next head of the AKP as well,” said Soner Cagaptay, director of the Turkish Research Program at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “It shows that Erdogan is head of state, head of government, head of AKP, and head of everything in Turkey.”

The Obama administration declined to comment on Mr. Davutoglu’s plans, describing it as an “internal political matter.”

But Turkey’s political turmoil raised concerns in Washington that Mr. Davutoglu’s departure could spark more friction over the fight against Islamic State.

The U.S. is stepping up its campaign, and Turkey is a critical partner in that effort. Mr. Erdogan has castigated the U.S. for aligning itself with Kurdish militants that Turkey’s leaders view as terrorists. He has repeatedly threatened to walk away from the U.S.-led coalition if the U.S. keeps working with the Kurds. American leaders want to make sure the change in leadership doesn’t hamper expanding military operations with Turkey.

In Brussels, European leaders said Tuesday there would be heightened concerns over Turkey’s resolve to implement its side of the migration deal. One senior EU official said the political drama in Ankara would only deepen concerns among EU governments and the European Parliament, both of which must sign off on the visa-free offer, about Turkey’s commitment to completing and implementing key overhauls that were attached to the move.

“The key questions remains what does this actually mean for our [migration] deal?,” the official said. If this puts the EU’s visa offer in doubt, will Mr. Erdogan “then seize on that to put everything else in jeopardy?”

Source: MENA