The fiery speech by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan at Istanbul airport in the early hours of Friday in the aftermath of 10 days that rattled Turkey was a signal flare that the country is at a new and critical crossroads.

When looked at carefully, it doesn’t appear to be a routine juncture. But there are many deeply rooted political elements in it. One end is pointing to an abyss, where those who survive will continue their fight at the bottom, and the other, if managed with common sense, opens up to a flower garden where different varieties of flowers will bloom.

Looking at the Gezi Park protests and the social deadlock that followed the use of disproportional violence against the protesters, the paranoia that overwhelmed Erdogan and his close associates as well as the ”global conspiracies against Turkey” theories that the pro-government media gleefully spread around — all of this resulted in the creation of a twilight zone.

For those who appreciated Turkey’s saga of success over the years and the courageous Kurdish peace process recently initiated, this new situation came as a shock.