Erdogan denies bid to change Turkey's constitution means he'll run as president again

Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has denied he is trying to change the constitution so that he can stay on when his term ends in three years' time.

Erdogan has led Turkey for 22 years, first as prime minister from 2003 and then as its elected president since 2014. But he cannot run again unless the rules are changed or he calls early elections.

"We want the new constitution not for ourselves, but for our country. I have no interest in being re-elected or running for office again," he told reporters on Thursday.

And yet Erdogan's recent remarks and actions have heightened speculation that he wants to remain president after his term ends in 2028.

Last January he was asked by a singer if he was up for running for another term and he said, "I am, if you are." The next day his party's spokesman confirmed the issue was on their agenda: "What is important is that our nation wants it."

While many Turks will be keen for Erdogan to continue as president, he is trailing in the opinion polls behind the opposition mayor of Istanbul, Ekrem Imamoglu, who was arrested in March and remains in jail.

Imamoglu's arrest on alleged corruption charges, which he denies, has been widely seen by his supporters as politically motivated and has sparked some of the biggest protests Turkey has seen in more than a decade.

Polls suggest that support for the mayor has risen since he was detained in prison in Silivri, west of Istanbul.

Authorities have succeeded in blocking his social media feed on X inside Turkey and they have continued to target his city administration, detaining at least 18 staff on suspicion of corruption in recent days, including the municipality's public relations chief Taner Cetin.

Although Imamoglu's detention in jail has been widely criticised internationally, President Erdogan has largely escaped censure, with Western allies viewing him as a key Nato ally.

In his comments to reporters on Wednesday, Erdogan said Turkey's constitution did not reflect the views of civilians as it was mainly written in the wake of a 1980 military coup, even though it has been amended.

"In such a rapidly changing world, is it possible to get anywhere with a constitution that was written under the conditions of a coup?" he asked.

The current constitution only allows two five-year presidential terms. Erdogan is already on his third, but he argued his initial term took place before Turkey moved from parliamentary rule to presidential rule.

That change required a constitutional referendum in 2017 that gave Erdogan sweeping powers, but still only allows two presidential terms.

To obtain another referendum he needs the backing of 360 MPs in the 600-seat parliament, but can currently only rely on 321. With 400 votes he could change the constitution immediately.

His recent move to bring an end to more than four decades of conflict with the Kurdish militant PKK has been interpreted by some as a bid to attract Kurdish support for a new constitution.

Erdogan said on Wednesday that by laying down its arms the PKK would enable the pro-Kurdish DEM party to continue in politics "in a much stronger way".

The DEM party has 56 MPs and, with their backing, Erdogan would have a far greater chance in parliament to change the constitution.

The deputy chairman of Ekrem Imamoglu's opposition CHP party, Ali Mahir Basarir, said Erdogan had no chance of running again because of a constitution that he had designed himself. Erdogan could also call early elections, but he wasn't allowing those either, Basarir said.