Turkey

The Turkish president tweets mainly in Turkish but important political statements, are made in English, such as the statement that "Turkey’s Membership Will Enrich the EU" or his warning: “Turkey Will Never Ever Forgive This Attack” after the Israeli raid against the Gaza flotilla in late May 2010, which killed nine activists. His Twitter stream is dominated by news about presidential activities, frequently accompanied by photos or videos. Abdullah Gül is not particularly interested in the interactive aspects of the medium. Interestingly enough, he only follows the official accounts of the Turkish presidency, @trpresidency and @tccankaya and has never @mentioned or @replied any other Twitter user. Among his 2 million followers are Turkish prime minister, the EU Commission, the UK prime minister, the presidents of Portugal and Tajikistan, and the prime minister of Malaysia.

The Turkish Presidency maintains two institutional Twitter accounts: @tccankaya in Turkish started in March 2011 and @trpresidency in English started in July 2011. Both Twitter streams are dominated by the official agenda of President Gül, his visits, his meetings with foreign leaders, and his speeches. Maintaining a very official tone, all tweets link to press releases on the Turkish presidency’s website and often include photos. The Turkish presidency’s accounts are mainly used as news broadcasting channels and have never re-tweeted, @mentioned or @replied other users, except @cbabdullahgul.

The English language account of the Turkish presidency has significantly less followers than the Turkish version, but is followed unilaterally by the prime ministers of Albania, Latvia and Trinidad and Tobago as well as the presidency of Mali. The administration tweets the travels of President Gül from his first tweet in July 2011 on his trip to Bulgaria where the "Turkish Minority Fulfills Their Longing with President Gül” to his amazement during his visit to London in November 2011 when "The London Eye Takes on Color of Turkish Flag".

“Everything for Turkey!” is the leitmotiv of Erdoğan’s Twitter account who was the first Turkish leader to join Twitter, on 23 August 2009. “The world could wait, but in the last 6 years of Turkey we have developed so much that if it goes like this soon Turkey is a world power” [https://twitter.com/RT_Erdogan/status/3483145932]. While his first tweets were in English he quickly switched to Turkish with only the occasional English tweet to make an international policy statement. He often includes videos and pictures of speeches and visits; however, he rarely uses links. @RT_Erdogan does not interact with other Twitter users via @replies. The only account he follows is the president @cbabdullahgul which makes him one of the least connected world leaders on Twitter. Turkey’s foreign affairs are often the focus of his tweets. His most popular tweet is one recalling its ambassador from Paris and stopping all forms of political relations with France after the parliament in Paris voted a bill to criminalize the denial of the Armenian genocide.

In September 2011 the office of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, set up a second personal Twitter account in Arabic. Building on his popularity in the Middle East, Erdoğan aims to reach out and build closer ties with the peoples of the Arab world, in the context of Turkey’s public diplomacy efforts. Following the Arab spring, Turkey wants to pose as a role model, successfully pairing Islam and democracy. Particularly active, the Arab language account tweets on average 3.5 times/day, often including pictures with world leaders: Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin at the G20, Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas at the World Economic Forum, the President of Somalia, and Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati, who follows him unilaterally.