I too lived in Ankara for two years but it was post-AKP. I suspect you wouldn’t recognize it now and I assure you there are no Turks demonstrating against Erdogan and his thugs now. The country is on a fast downward spiral and in less than five years will be unrecognizable to those of us who either lived there or visited frequently.
“The country is on a fast downward spiral and in less than five years will be unrecognizable to those of us who either lived there or visited frequently.”
I flew for the IDF and had the pleasure of training with very fine Turkish pilots in the USA, and have remained friends with them. All career officers.
To a man, they have fled to the USA, England, wherever. They say the wheels are falling off the bus, fast.
(And, yes, they were muslim, of some variety that did not want to kill Israelis.)