Around this time six years ago, Turkey was bracing for a referendum on controversial constitutional changes that would profoundly reshape the judiciary. To lure opposition voters, the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) had put a sweetener into the package — an article to prosecute the leaders of the 1980 coup, which had victimized mostly leftist, Kurdish and some rightist quarters.

In a memorable episode in parliament ahead of the vote, then-Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan broke into tears as he eulogized young people executed after the coup, and he read the farewell letter one of them had penned. "The referendum," he said, "will be a score-settling with the mentality that sent young people to the gallows."

Today, having survived a coup attempt himself, Erdogan is an ardent advocate of reinstating the death penalty. Consistency is hardly Erdogan's strong suit, yet this turnabout is not just another one, for it threatens a full-blown crisis with the European Union and serious rifts at home.

No one has been executed in Turkey since 1984, first under a de facto moratorium and then legal reforms aimed to advance the country's EU accession bid. Capital punishment was fully removed from the books in 2004, under Erdogan's government, following two amendments in 2001 and 2002 that had narrowed its scope to terrorism and crimes committed during war.