Earlier quoted context omitted.
For all intents and purposes, Turks are white (i.e. the same race as the rest of Europe). The issue, however, is religion. EU has enough problems as is with religion (less than the US, and less than it used to have, but still), but still people are wary. Although IIRC Turkey used to be less religious than it is now, under Erdogan.
It was always as religious. Just the army and the secular order it imposed prevented the religious people from rising trough the society ranks. Which of course fueled Erdogan support ...
Erdogan and AKP do not have that much of actual support, but the conjecture helps them. An oppositional government can only be forced with these: The secular CHP with about 25 percent support, the nationalist-racist MHP, with about 15-20 percent support, and with the kurdish-nationalist, leftist HDP. Last summer the outcome of the elections allowed these to form a government, but MHP, on the night of the ballot declared that under no circumstances would they have an accord with HDP. And somehow, the sleepy, cease-firing PKK started tumultising southeast again, out of nowhere, and people voted for AKP instead of a crisis in which we live with temporary minority governments or with no actual government at all.