Gagrule.net

Gagrule.net News, Views, Interviews worldwide

The AKP and Turkey’s Long Tradition of Islamo-Fascism

By

By Toni Alaranta (vol. 8, no. 3 of the Turkey Analyst)

Those who claim that democracy in Turkey has been handicapped because of the repressive “Kemalist” regime overlook that the conservative right has totally dominated Turkish politics. It is the traditions of the Turkish right that need to be scrutinized in the search for the matrix of current undemocratic practices. The Turkish Islamist poet and political ideologue Necip Fazıl Kısakürek is a key figure in this context. He propagated for a totalitarian Islamist-fascist regime in Turkey, to be ruled by an Islamic version of a Führer. And today representatives of the AKP point out that understanding Kısakürek is a precondition to understand the great “cause” (“dava”) that the AKP represents. Report turkeyanalyst.org

BACKGROUND: To make the claim that Turkey’s governing Justice and Development Party (AKP) would have anything to do with “Islamic fascism” at first appears astonishing. This is, after all, a party that was for many years defined – by itself and by sympathetic observers in the West – as the Turkish equivalent to Western conservative-democratic parties. The dominant scholarship on modern Turkey has for several decades produced an image of an authoritarian and even fascist Kemalist regime that was ended by the “democratic” Muslims of the AKP. Two fundamental mistakes have thus been committed: one concerns the nature of the regime that the AKP replaced and the second is about the nature of the Islamists.

The narrative peddled by the AKP and its supporters is that the party has ushered in democracy by putting an end to what is portrayed as a regime run by elitist Kemalists, Westernizers who were alien to the culture of their own country, and who for eighty years supposedly suppressed the Anatolian conservative Muslims; and these latter are taken to be the sole and legitimate expression of the popular will.

That there was such a wide expectation that the AKP would indeed usher in pluralist, liberal values and democratization in Turkey was to a considerable degree based on the Turkish liberals’ role in legitimating the party as the “voice of the oppressed.” From their chairs in prestigious universities, for nearly two decades, liberal Turkish academics drummed in the message of how the awful “Kemalist state” was repressing and harassing pious Muslims. In doing this, they uncritically – and certainly very usefully – reproduced and transmitted the most emotionally powerful narrative trope used by the Turkish Islamist movement.

In reality, a “Kemalist state” has not existed in Turkey since the end of the Republican

People’s Party’s (CHP) one-party regime in 1950. With the coming to power of the conservative Democrat Party at that date, the Turkish regime ceased to be based on the idea of radical and utopian modernization; from then on, it has effectively been a nationalist-conservative regime that has made considerable use of religious symbols and themes. In this sense the “normalization” process attached to the AKP was consummated already during the 1950s, when, in the words of British scholar David McDowall, the Democrat Party government “assisted the revival of traditional Islamic values at the heart of the state.”

Secondly, the notion of conservative Anatolian Muslims as a “natural” force that would compel the authoritarian Turkish state to democratize represents an enormous misrepresentation of the Turkish socio-political reality. The tradition of Turkish conservative and Islamist parties is fundamentally undemocratic. If one scratches the surface of the AKP’s ideological background, it becomes clear that the party’s agenda is deeply undemocratic. The only major difference between the current AKP and the previous Islamist parties is that the AKP has learned to adjust its economic policies to the global free market regime. Through economic liberalization, inaugurated by Turgut Özal, prime minister and later president, during the 1980s the Anatolian conservative middle class was integrated to the global economy.

IMPLICATIONS:  Those who claim that democracy in Turkey has been handicapped because of the repressive “Kemalist” regime somehow manage to overlook that the conservative right has totally dominated Turkish politics; it is the traditions of the Turkish right that need to be scrutinized in the search for the matrix of current undemocratic practices.

The AKP is in fact a large ideological coalition that has absorbed both the nationalist-conservative tradition – represented by conservatives like Adnan Menderes, Süleyman Demirel and Turgut Özal – and the Islamist tradition that was led by Necmettin Erbakan from the early 1970s to the 1990s. In addition, the AKP until recently collaborated with the movement of Fethullah Gülen, the leading “civil society” component of the Turkish Islamist movement.

Ali Bulaç, who is one of the leading intellectuals within the Gülenist camp, has pointed out that the “political” (AKP and previously the Islamist “National Outlook” parties) and the “cultural” (in particular the Gülen movement) components of Turkey’s Islamist movement share a common ideological background. This common background is the İttihad-i Muhammedi Fırkası (Islamic Union Party) established in 1909, during the Second Constitutional Era of the Ottoman Empire. According to Bulaç, it was within the ranks of this party that Turkish first modern Islamic intellectuals emerged, and they have provided the intellectual basis for both the “political” and the “cultural” manifestations of the Islamic movement.

When one takes a thorough view on the dominant articulation of the religious and conservative constituency from the 1950s to the contemporary AKP, there is nothing that points towards genuine pluralism.   The Islamist-conservative poet and political ideologue Necip Fazıl Kısakürek (1904-1983) is in many ways a key figure in this context, and his writings are revealing. Kısakürek is the esteemed partisan of both Turkish nationalist-conservative and Islamist circles. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan especially admires Kısakürek, often reciting his poems in public. Indeed, several representatives of the AKP have stated that understanding Kısakürek is a precondition to understand the great “cause” (“dava”) that the AKP represents. However, the admiration expressed for Kısakürek is ill-boding: he never hid that he hated parliamentary democracy.

Political scientist Taner Timur has recently noted that Kısakürek was not only a poet but an ideologue who propagated for the introduction of a totalitarian Islamist-fascist regime in Turkey, to be ruled by an Islamic version of a Führer, that is, a “supreme leader” (called “Başyüce”).

Erdoğan is yet to implement Kısakürek’s program in detail; but his attempt to establish presidential rule and the way the majority’s Sunni Islamic faith is increasingly presented as the only legitimate expression of the national will is worryingly well in line with Kısakürek’s blueprint for an Islamic-fascist regime.

During the 1950s, Kısakürek published his articles in the magazine Büyük Doğu (Great East), in which he called for the banning of CHP, the Republican People’s Party. It is thus noteworthy that Erdoğan, who has made such an enormous issue about the “Kemalists” always supporting party closures, himself admires a man who called for the banning the political organization of his opponents.

Kısakürek’s writings offer keen insights into the way the Turkish Islamists relate to a notion such as freedom. According to Kısakürek, freedom is not a goal, but a tool, because a human being is not free in that sense: a dog and a donkey are free, but a human being is made by his Creator and thus above a mere nature and its meaningless “freedom.” The Turkish Islamists have not in any way abandoned the basic idea according to which a human being is not “free”: according to the ideological worldview of Islamists, the kind of freedom espoused by European Enlightenment – within which man measures all things by solely depending on his rational mind – is a perversion. Also those who are deemed “moderate” share this worldview.

When key AKP figures speak about their mission, to build a “New Turkey” and to “close a hundred year old parenthesis” – as Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu has recently said – they refer not only to the Young Turk and Kemalist Westernization project, but to the whole of the modernization project that started in the Ottoman Empire in the latter part of the 18th century. There is a telling statement in this respect in Kısakürek’s key work İdeolocya Örgüsü, (“Plait of Ideology,” published in 1977): “Ever since the Tanzimat [the “Reorganization” reforms of the beginning of the 19th century], the ongoing artificial reforms, and the artificial heroes produced by these reforms, have been the main problem obstructing our cause.”

Also the highly emotional discourse which makes a radical distinction between the elitist, westernized so called “white Turks” and the supposedly “real” and “authentic” nation composed of so called “black Turks,” which has been widely disseminated by AKP and its partisans in pro-government think tanks and media, emanates directly from Kısakürek.

CONCLUSIONS: The earlier assumptions about the AKP – that the party’s political mission and ideology is to produce and disseminate a “healthy synthesis” of Western political thinking and Islamic religious-political traditions – were deeply flawed. From the İttihad-i Muhammedi Fırkası to Necip Fazil Kısakürek and the current AKP, the Turkish Islamist tradition selectively utilizes Western political concepts, but ultimately its purpose is to reject them in order to rebuild an allegedly more superior and legitimate, “authentic” Islamic socio-political order.

The AKP is a deeply anti-western political movement. It does not aim to “correct” or “normalize” past “excesses” but to annihilate the republican and Ottoman secularizing-westernizing reforms altogether. Unlike in previous decades, the Turkish Islamic movement has now made its peace with the state – by totally conquering it. President Erdoğan did not suddenly change from a genuine democrat to an authoritarian Islamist: the ideological and organizational matrix of the AKP is deeply undemocratic.

Toni Alaranta, Ph.D., is a senior research fellow at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs. He is the author of the forthcoming book National and State Identity in Turkey: The Transformation of the Republic’s Status in the International System (Rowman & Littlefield, 2015). His previous publications include Contemporary Kemalism: From Universal Secular-Humanism to Extreme Turkish Nationalism (Routledge, 2014).

Another Turkish crime against humanity: Opposition party : 241 children killed by state during AK Party rule

By

202948_newsdetailThe main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) have presented a report concerning deaths resulting from crimes in the period since the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) came to power in 2002, revealing that 241 children under state protection were murdered over the course 12 years, crimes for which the perpetrators have not been found. Report VEDAT DENİZLİ / ANKARA

In a joint press conference in Parliament on Thursday, CHP İzmir deputy Rıza Türmen and CHP Deputy Chairman Sezgin Tanrıkulu announced official figures from the report. Türmen stressed that most of the children who were later killed had grown up in an atmosphere of violence in earlier periods of their childhood.

Tanrıkulu argued that the state has the blood of the children on its hands, adding, “The government is responsible for the deaths of children.”

“The state is killing the children whom it in fact has to protect. The state is a killer of these children, and those who murder them are protected by the state mechanism. The security forces involved in the acts are under the protection of the state apparatus. They are not punished for what they have done. Since they go unpunished, they do not hesitate to resort to more violence against children. To top it all off, the government empowers the police force with additional authority that will result in the use of more power against individuals, which will make those individuals feel weaker in terms of seeking their rights,” Türmen complained.

Tanrıkulu also criticized the ruling AK Party, saying a “hunt” is being carried out against children, a reference to recent deaths in the Cizre district of Şırnak province.

Şırnak is a troubled area where the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and radical Islamist Hüda-Par — a Kurdish Sunni party linked to Turkish Hizbullah — engage in frequent clashes. The government has been criticized for remaining silent in the face of the incidents in an effort to prevent the eruption of Kurdish unrest prior to general elections scheduled for June.

He recalled that five children had been killed in Cizre in a single month, adding: “No perpetrators have been found in connection with the killings. The government should get rid of the policy of impunity for offenders. In a place where the right to life is non-existent, no other basic right can be discussed.”

Tanrıkulu also stated that 520 people had been the victims of extrajudicial killings, while the number of those who were killed under detention or while in prison was 451 over the same period.

According to the report, 208 murders remained unsolved since 2012 as only eight murders went unsolved 2002. This figure increased to 58 in 2014.

‘Davutoğlu, the AKP and the pursuit of regional order’

By

William ARMSTRONG – william.armstrong@hdn.com.tr

foreign policy‘Turkey’s New Foreign Policy: Davutoğlu, the AKP and the Pursuit of Regional Order’ by Aaron Stein (Routledge, 105 pages, $42)

It’s just as well to state at the outset that this slim new volume on Turkey’s foreign policy in the Middle East immediately becomes the new standard bearer on the subject. In it, author Aaron Stein describes how Ankara’s regional policy over the last decade has undergone a dramatic shift, overseen by current Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu, a former foreign minister and adviser to Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Examining the worldview expressed in Davutoğlu’s much vaunted academic writings, and how this has (or has not) been applied since 2002, the book argues that Turkey’s support for change in the region in recent years is highly conditional. The government is convinced of its principled righteousness, but its policy is also based on calculations aimed at furthering a particular AKP-centered understanding of Turkey’s national interests. Although a longer text could have extended the range across a broader set of examples, Stein – an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute – makes a convincing case in little over 100 pages.

With a few exceptions, the Turkish Republic’s regional policy after its foundation as a separate state in 1923 was defined by its preference for non-intervention and neutrality in the areas that had formed part of the Ottoman Empire. This was based on the mantra of first president Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, “peace at home, peace in the world” – risk-aversion seemed to be the most logical foreign policy when nation-building at home was the priority. However, the AKP marked a sharp change of course after coming to power in 2002, with Davutoğlu adopting a proactive foreign policy aimed at expanding Turkey’s zone of influence in the Middle East. In his 2001 book “Strategic Depth” (which had its 100th print run last year), the former professor articulated a vision drawing on Turkey’s geography, economic power and imperial history to reconnect with its historical “hinterland” in the former Ottoman territories. For Davutoğlu, previous Turkish decision making was flawed because it was based on a shallow interpretation of Turkey’s geography and history. In contrast, he believes that post-Cold War Turkey has “a unique opportunity to expand its influence and create strategic depth” as a “center state.”

Among the prime minister’s acolytes, there is a sense that Turkey’s republican non-intervention in the region is essentially an oppressive Western imposition of the 20th century, coming after the Ottoman Empire’s dismemberment by the European powers. This interpretation of geopolitics “is based on an assumption that the spread of Western power into the Balkans, Central Asia and the Middle East is incongruent with Turkish national interests and must be reversed.” Stein suggests that Davutoğlu draws on pan-Islamism as a source of communal strength and political legitimacy, repeatedly referring to the concepts of “Tawhid” (the oneness of God) and “Tanzih” (the purity of God) in his writings. This is combined with inspiration from a number of almost-forgotten German geopolitical theorists from over a century ago, and the result is a fundamental rejection of the current world order. Davutoğlu believes that if Turkey establishes itself as a global power it will be able to “play a significant role in creating new global institutions that are more in keeping with the world’s different ‘civilisations’ or cultures.”

Nevertheless, the AKP’s foreign policy implementation from 2002-2011 proved to be highly pragmatic. Ankara formed alliances with a number of status quo-favoring autocrats, seeking to bolster its influence with neighboring regimes and boost economic ties by lifting visa restrictions and emphasizing common culture and history. As Stein writes, this much vaunted “zero problems with neighbors” strategy was based more on realpolitik than Davutoğlu’s concept of strategic depth, but it was “largely guided by [Ankara’s] expectation that, eventually, this status quo would be swept away as governments more representative of the masses came to power across the region.” The AKP therefore opted to focus on areas that would deepen its influence, maneuvering itself into a strong position as it anticipated the eventual demise of the Arab world’s political order.

However, when protests in its Arab neighbors broke out in late 2010, Turkey was taken by surprise. Its initial policies were as cautious as the rest of the world, and varied across different countries, but over time Ankara began to fully incorporate elements of Davutoğlu’s “strategic depth” in response to the rapid changes. After nearly a decade wedded to realpolitik, the AKP eventually came to feel that the Arab upheavals had provided the opportunity to create a new regional order with Turkey at the center. In Stein’s words, “This understanding of regional affairs was based on the belief that the era of European-inspired political and ethnic nationalism was a historical anachronism in the Middle East – destined to fail and be replaced with governments more representative of the ‘Muslim masses.’” For Davutoğlu, those governments that adopted Western constructs will be “replaced by more representative governments that embrace Tawhid as the source of their political legitimacy.”

In practice, this meant backing Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated parties across the Arab world. The second part of the book offers case studies of Ankara’s policy toward a number of key states before and after the Arab Spring – including Egypt, Syria, Libya and Tunisia – where the details differ greatly but the essential similarity has been Ankara’s support for the Brotherhood. In places where the opposition forces are not Sunni groups affiliated with the Brotherhood, Turkey has shown little interest.

The limits of this approach have since become apparent. Although Turkey could credibly present itself as a neutral actor in the region seeking to strike accommodations with varied political groups from 2002 to 2011, it has since been perceived as an outside actor pushing a particular agenda via the democratic process. In Stein’s account, “the AKP’s policy towards the Arab upheavals therefore cannot be described as an effort to promote democracy or to stand by the people against state oppression. Instead, it has been far more nuanced, based on assumptions made about a changing regional order and how the upending of the Arab world’s political status quo would benefit the AKP.” Erdoğan’s repeated waving of the four-fingered Rabia sign at electoral rallies may be sincerely felt, but it is also highly opportunistic.

The Turkish government has tied its foreign policy to the success of one particular political group, but putting all its eggs into the Brotherhood basket has ultimately limited its influence. Today, the trajectory of Middle Eastern politics places Ankara at odds with many of its neighbors. Turkey finds itself with little influence at a time when many of the region’s conflicts touch directly on its core interests – a situation spun memorably last year by Davutoğlu’s political advisor İbrahim Kalın as “precious isolation.” Stein writes that no major changes should be expected in the foreseeable future. Despite their regional marginalization, Turkish policymakers have doubled down and remain committed to their post-2011 foreign policy. The AKP believes that it is playing the long game and its “principled” foreign policy decisions will ultimately pay off once regional countries inevitably return to electoral politics and the pressure for political change begins anew. Time will tell.

January/15/2015

Turkey’s AKP Davutoglu pits Kurd against Kurd

By

TURKEY-KURDS-UNRESTAs Turkey’s Kurdish peace process seems to devolve into a “crisis process,” government quarters have begun suggesting the idea that the Kurdish Islamist Free Cause Party (Huda-Par) is the sole force capable of finishing off the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and could eventually join the settlement talks. While some are promoting Huda-Par, an offspring of Turkey’s Hezbollah, old feuds between Hezbollah and the PKK are being revived. Many believe this is no coincidence.

Hezbollah, which has no relation to the Lebanese group, defines itself as a “Muslim Kurdish” movement, while the PKK comes from a Marxist tradition. Their rivalry in the past was inevitable, and it appears to still be so today.

In its 1990s heyday, Hezbollah failed to achieve its goal of becoming the sole Kurdish force against the regime. Similarly, the PKK failed to eliminate other Kurdish groups and suffered heavy casualties at the hands of Hezbollah.

The PKK, which sees Hezbollah as “contras” used by the state against the Kurdish movement, has branded the group “Hezbol-Contra,” while Islamist groups have called it “Hezbol-Shaitan” (Party of Satan) because of its murders of rival Islamists. After its leader Huseyin Velioglu was killed in a police raid in Istanbul in 2000, Hezbollah sank into silence for a few years before making a comeback in the civil realm. In 2012, it set up Huda-Par as a legal political force. In last year’s municipal polls, the party’s overall vote stood at only 0.19%. Yet, it garnered 7.8% in Batman and 4.32% in Diyarbakir, proving to be a force to be reckoned with in the mainly Kurdish southeast.

Hezbollah is believed to have received support from rogue elements of the Turkish security forces blamed for countless extrajudicial killings in the southeast. While there are no indications that Hezbollah has renounced violence, its political debut seems to have resulted in a revision of its alleged “contra” mission as the Kurdish party that would politically ​finish off the PKK-led Kurdish movement.

Huda-Par could finish off PKK?

Writing for pro-government Yeni Safak, columnist Yusuf Kaplan uttered what many have been discreetly discussing: “This country can be saved from drifting to the brink of partition not through ethnic awareness, but through ummah [Islam nation] awareness. … A strong ummah awareness exists in the [Kurdish] region among Huda-Par supporters in particular and among Islamic communities in general. … Had supporters of the PKK and the [pro-Kurdish] People’s Democracy Party [HDP] suffered the oppression that Huda-Par supporters suffered, they would have raised hell across the world! We owe Huda-Par gratitude for its prudence and common sense. … Huda-Par is the safety valve of the country and the region. … If Huda-Par maintains its common sense, the PKK will be finished.”

A series of developments have sparked concern that the “Kurds versus Kurds” tactic could be replayed in a new format.

Deadly clashes occurred between PKK and Huda-Par supporters Oct. 6-8, when Kurds took to the streets to denounce the Islamic State’s offensive on Kobani. The two sides traded accusations over the bloodshed, and Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc paid a visit to Huda-Par and made remarks containing the following critical messages:

  • The HDP is not the sole representative of the Kurdish people.
  • Other parties will represent the Kurds if the PKK threat ceases to exist.
  • Huda-Par has a vision for a new civilization, centered on humanity.
  • One has to listen to anyone who has a word to say in the settlement process.

Arinc stressed, “The program of the Free Cause Party, through which devout Kurdish friends engage in politics, is extremely important. This party has a lot to say both about the country’s problems and the settlement issue.”

Two conclusions can be drawn from Arinc’s remarks. First, the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), which used to brag about being the only party other than the HDP to enjoy Kurdish support, sees Huda-Par as a “sister party” rather than a rival, even though Huda-Par also targets the vote of Kurds with Islamic inclinations. Promoting Huda-Par as an alternative Kurdish party is a sly tactic ahead of the June elections, in which the AKP aims to clinch a strong parliamentary majority that would allow it to introduce a presidential system, a goal that will be easier to achieve if the HDP fails to overcome the 10% national parliamentary threshold.

Second, the government — on an uphill track in the Kurdish peace process — appears to be flirting with the idea of taking on Huda-Par as a partner in the talks.

However, a serious problem emerges here: Who is Huda-Par going to represent at the negotiating table, being the offspring of an organization that has fought the Kurdish movement in collaboration with armed elements of the state? Lingering hostilities with the PKK could erupt at any moment into a full-blown confrontation, as seen during the deadly October unrest and most recently in the Dec. 27 clashes in Cizre that claimed three lives. It is very hard to imagine a negotiation formula in which Huda-Par and the PKK sit on the same side of the table, given their mutual mistrust and the easy flare-up of hostilities.

Undoubtedly, the settlement process concerns not only the PKK, but all Kurds and the whole of Turkey. No one denies this, yet participation is a different matter. Those involved in the issue emphasize that not Hezbollah but the PKK has fought the state for three decades and therefore the war, lately in a lull due to a cease-fire, can be ended only through negotiations between the warring parties.

Huda-Par wants to be part of the talks

Huda-Par, however, argues that negotiating with the PKK alone could resolve only the PKK problem, while a comprehensive settlement of the Kurdish question requires broader representation.

In remarks to Al-Monitor, Huda-Par spokesman Sait Sahin asserted the party wants to be a “partner” in the settlement process. “A healthy outcome requires the participation of all Kurdish segments. The process often suffers road accidents because only the PKK is involved,” Sahin said. “The government may hold talks with the PKK to make it lay down arms and may eventually succeed, but if it wants to resolve the Kurdish question in general, all Kurdish segments should be interlocutors.”

Asked about how the government and the PKK view this demand, Sahin said, “We’ve had contacts both with the government and the PKK. We’ve had occasional meetings with the government because the state has been the source of suffering. And we’ve had dialogue with the PKK because they are a force in the region. The PKK, however, wants no one but itself to be involved.”

And on which side of the negotiating table does Huda-Par want to be? “We don’t want to sit on either side. We could sit on a third chair as a just and fair party,” Sahin said.

Provocation by a third hand?

Engaging Huda-Par in the settlement process is not yet being seriously considered, but a heated debate has opened over alleged attempts to play it off against the PKK. The Cizre clashes, which followed Arinc’s visit to Huda-Par, stoked accusations that the AKP government is using Huda-Par against the PKK. The clashes erupted over an attempt to infiltrate a guard post that the PKK’s youth branch, the Patriotic Revolutionary Youth Movement (YDG-H), had set up in Cizre to fend off police operations.

Several points seem to back up those claims:

  • The attack in Cizre took place after HDP members visited the local Huda-Par office and the two sides agreed on certain issues.
  • Just before the attack, the YDG-H had agreed to stop efforts to enforce partial control in the area such as digging ditches in the streets or erecting barricades and checking the IDs of passersby that had contributed to polarizing the atmosphere.
  • Pro-government media outlets reported on the unrest with inflammatory headlines such as “Zoroastrians [idolaters] attack Muslims.”

Provocative media

Two civic groups penned reports on how the unrest unfolded. Islamic-leaning human rights group Mazlumder said, “The incident was an act of provocation by secret formations seeking to turn the sides against each other. An attempt is underway by some deep centers to start a PKK-Hezbollah war. The press has widely reported that ‘devout people are under attack,’ but the issue has nothing to do with religiousness.” The Human Rights Association, for its part, blamed the clashes on special forces teams acting together with armed civilians.

The PKK’s umbrella organization, the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK), blamed the government and Huda-Par, while Huda-Par blamed the PKK.

HDP co-chairman Selahattin Demirtas, however, spoke of provocation. “We noticed that fake [social media] accounts posted messages, posing as Huda-Par and Kurdish youth accounts. The incident in Cizre was orchestrated by forces who had infiltrated both sides, seeking to foment conflict and bloodshed,” he said. “Government media organizations run headlines like ‘Zoroastrians attack Muslim neighborhood,’ which leads me to wonder whether some in the government were aware of this provocation. I’d like to ask Bulent Arinc: Did you have a hand in the provocation in Cizre or not?”

The pro-AKP media spoke of the PKK targeting Muslims, but the PKK has recently sought to develop good ties with Islamic quarters. KCK co-chairman Cemil Bayik, for instance, hosted 83 Kurdish clerics from Iraq in the Qandil Mountains in August 2013. Last May, a Democratic Islam Congress was held in Diyarbakir on the appeal of jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan. The HDP similarly says it wants to embrace the devout. Turkey’s recent history is no stranger to bloodshed caused by religious provocation, and prudent voices were immediately raised.

Sahin denied his party had any links with the state. Asked about Huda-Par’s supposed mission, he told Al-Monitor, “Some may see us as a force to finish off the PKK, but we have no such intention. … Our problem with the PKK is that they attack us, refusing to tolerate us. If the PKK stops its violence, it could well exist as a way of thinking or a political formation. We do not approve of the PKK, and we’ll continue to struggle against them in the civil realm. If we manage to finish them in this way, fine. But no one has the right to use arms to finish off a thought.”

Despite the deadly clashes and a possible plan by the state to foment a PKK-Huda-Par conflict, neither of the sides appears keen to open a second chapter of the feud of the 1990s. Each time tensions have flared, a mediator or Ocalan himself has stepped in to cool things down. Yet, the region remains a powder keg, and the longer the settlement process drags on, the larger the risk of explosion looms. I happened to be in Diyarbakir on Dec. 27 and I was frequently told, “If the unrest in Cizre spills over to Diyarbakir, things will come to a disastrous end.” And that’s no passing fear.

By: Fehim Taştekin is a columnist and chief editor of foreign news at the Turkish newspaper Radikal, based in Istanbul. He is the host of a fortnightly program called “Dogu Divanı” on IMC TV. He is an analyst specializing in Turkish foreign policy and Caucasus, Middle East and EU affairs. He was founding editor of Agency Caucasus.

Turkey, Will Kurds help Erdoğan reach his ambitions?

By

102

By ORHAN KEMAL CENGİZ

Prominent intellectual Mehmet Altan ran quite a thought-provoking article with the title “Fascism in the west, autonomy in the east?” on April 30 on the T24 web portal.

The central theme of his piece was the following: The Kurds will no longer be a part of the struggle for democracy in Turkey because they have a different agenda now. They will give Recep Tayyip Erdoğan the presidency he has long desired, in exchange for the regional autonomy of Kurdish regions.

Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) has not and most probably will not have enough seats in Parliament to make constitutional changes on its own. However, if Kurdish deputies support his ambitions, Erdoğan may be able to change the Constitution, not only to the presidential system but also to create quite an authoritarian regime in this country.

After publishing his article, Altan received quite a strong reaction from some circles close to the AKP. They, like they do all the time, accused Altan of intending to destroy the Kurdish peace process, and they said Altan’s hatred of the AKP made him so blind that he has even started to wish for the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) to take up arms once again.

Actually, there was nothing in Altan’s article inciting the PKK to violence or anything like that. Personal attacks targeting Altan are textbook examples of a new trend of how you can be branded if you voice any suspicions about the peace process and its possible gains.

I remembered all of this because the deputy chair of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), Enis Berberoğlu, put quite interesting questions to a pro-Kurdish political party, the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP).

Because of the 10 percent national election threshold, HDP members used to run as independent candidates in national elections. However, for the upcoming elections, the HDP has declared its intention to run as a political party rather than as individual candidates in the elections. There is a small problem here: Almost all surveys show that the HDP has quite a high risk of failure of passing this threshold, with their votes presently around 8-9 percent.

Berberoğlu, referring to all these facts, asks why they would assume this risk and if there is hidden bargaining between them and the AKP. These are important questions. Because if the HDP cannot pass the national threshold, almost all of the votes given to them will go to the political party that receives the majority of the votes, and undoubtedly that will be the AKP. If this happens, the AKP will have the majority, allowing it to change the Constitution on its own.

So, can there be such a hidden bargain between Abdullah Öcalan — the leader of the PKK who is serving a prison sentence on İmralı Island — and the AKP as part of the peace deal?

Well, if that is the case, not only will we witness a trick against the national will of Kurds and Turks but we will also hear the sound of the footsteps of fascism, as was pointed out by Altan.

This kind of hidden agreement would definitely be an immoral deal because it would obviously be tricking people into something they might not be happy about. In that case, the Kurds will be voting for the AKP while they think they are giving their votes to the HDP. AKP voters will also be deceived because they will be voting for their party without knowing major undertakings of their political party.

And the result would definitely spell a disaster for democracy in Turkey because, in this case, Erdoğan will be able to overrun an already weakened Turkish democracy.

Well, I defiantly never wish to see the PKK take up arms again, but I do not believe such a peace process will ever bring peace to any corner of this country. I hope there is no such hidden agreement, or it will be ceased.

Turkey, Flooded mine’s owner linked to Turkey’s ruling AKP

By

flooded mineThe flooded mine where 18 workers remain trapped after a flood on Oct. 28 is owned by a former mayoral candidate from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), the Hurriyet Daily News reports.

Saffet Uyar, the owner of the Has Şekerler Mining Company, was elected as the mayor of the Güneyyurt district in the Central Anatolian province of Karaman in 1994 and 1999 from the center-right Motherland Party (ANAP). Uyar was later nominated by the AKP in 2004 and 2009, but lost both elections.

According to the Doğan News Agency (DHA), he is also a cousin of Azim Uyar, who owns a mine in Soma where the deadliest disaster in Turkey’s history resulted in the deaths of 301 miners in May 2014. One worker died and 27 others were also injured in Azim Uyar’s mine in October 2013.

It has also been reported that the latest incident is not the first flooding in Saffet Uyar’s mine in Karaman. In 2012, the mine had to be urgently evacuated after workers noticed a water leak. The owner asked for his cousin’s help and Azim Uyar sent water pumps from his mines to Karaman, according to DHA.

Saffet Uyar’s accident-struck mine in Karaman was inspected by the Labor Ministry in June 2014. However, his company was only punished with a number of fines due to eight errors noted in the inspection report. The Energy Ministry, meanwhile, moved to shut down the mine for three months due to lack of safety. The mine was reopened after safety shortcomings were reportedly overcome.

More recently, Uyar shut down the mine himself, complaining that a new law passed in August had increased operating costs. After 45 days of closure, he reopened the mine following a deal with the workers.

Speaking in an interview with news website Radikal, Uyar said he did not know the cause of the latest flooding.

“It could be due to an underground spring or accumulated winter waters,” he said, adding that he did not “see any chance of survival if the workers remained where they were [when the water blast occurred].”

Turkey, True journalism fights for survival under AKP gov’t

By

194868_newsdetailVeteran Turkish journalists who have lost their jobs for basically trying to perform their profession have said they did not experience as much government pressure and intervention during the turbulent coup times of the past as they have under the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government today. Report by Today Zaman

As it stood, Turkey is not a country with a brilliant record on freedom of the press but developments in the country, particularly starting with the Gezi Park protests of 2013 and continuing with a graft probe on Dec. 17 in which senior government members were implicated, have culminated in heavy government scrutiny over the media.

Prominent journalists such as Nazlı Ilıcak, Yavuz Baydar, Mehmet Altan and many others were sacked either because they criticized the government, they called on the government to shed light on the graft allegations, they published content which the government did not like or because they did not criticize the faith-based Hizmet movement against which the government has launched a battle since last year.

The government accuses Hizmet of masterminding the graft investigation and claims that Hizmet’s followers have established a “parallel structure” or “parallel state” within the state, an allegation Hizmet strongly denies. The AK Party government, which has launched a crackdown on Hizmet-affiliated institutions and organizations, also called for a boycott of the group’s media outlets. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who was the prime minister until his election to the top state post in August, has repeatedly called on people not to buy the group’s papers.

Other journalists like pro-government Sabah daily’s Yasemin Taşkın lost their jobs for other reasons. Taşkın was sacked because her husband, an Italian, conducted an interview with Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen, who inspired the Hizmet movement, for an Italian daily.

Recordings of phone conversations between Erdoğan and some media figures which were posted online following the graft investigation clearly show how Erdoğan resorts to either carrots or sticks to make journalists toe the line. Critical journalists were sacked from their jobs or faced criminal cases and media bosses were intimidated by tax fines upon Erdoğan’s direct orders while others who praised the government’s every act were being commended and reportedly received huge salaries.

Concerns over the deterioration of freedom of the press in Turkey have been raised by various international organizations such as the Human Rights Watch (HRW), Reporters Without Borders (RSF), US-based watchdog Freedom House and the EU. Freedom House downgraded Turkey from “Partly Free” to “Not Free” in its “Freedom of the Press 2014” report in May.

In its annual progress report released early this month, the EU also highlighted its worries about freedom of the press in Turkey, noting that pressure on the press in Turkey leads to widespread self-censorship, reflecting a restrictive approach to freedom of expression. The government has so far opted to shrug off the reports of these organizations, with former Foreign Minister and current Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu even saying that if journalists can safely return to their homes, this is because of freedom of the press in Turkey.

President of Turkish Journalists Syndicate Uğur Güç: It has never been revealed this clearly before

 

We are living in an era when people in the opposition are actually losing their jobs. We’ve experienced this in the past, but once Gezi occurred, the whole situation became even worse. We have all sorts of examples before us; people who have been fired for the tweets they made, people forced out of jobs because of opposition expressed over Twitter.

The goal driving all this is ultimately to get journalists under control, allowing the government to control the media. It’s never been this clear and out in the open before. In the wake of the 1990s, journalists would be given encouragement, and some media bosses would even change their publication policies accordingly. But the media world, even then, never experienced pressure so extreme as it does today. The point at which we have arrived is one where either the prime minister passes on the message of what he wants, or actually makes the phone call himself and has someone fired. Not only this, but once a journalist has been fired, there’s a record on that person, and he or she can no longer find work anywhere else either.

Mehmet Altan: Even including the Sept. 12 regime, there’s never been this much pressure

 

This whole period began with AK Party İstanbul bureau head Aziz Babuşcu saying, “We’ve parted paths with the liberals.” There has never been this much pressure on the media, not even during the Sept. 12 regime. Some 51 percent of Turkish people are not regularly connected to the internet. They learn of events and the news only from the television and sometimes the newspapers. And so, when the media is turned into a one-sided affair, what you are really controlling is the democratic right to obtain information. And so, when you have such a large faction of people without access to the internet, you can create the conditions you wish. You can bring about the substructure for a sort of fascism by destroying freedom of thought and expression. And when you prevent people from being properly informed, what you are really doing is damaging the essence of democracy.

During the Feb. 28 process, the pious and the conservatives of this country suffered much from this same sort of pressure we see today. But now a different group of people have taken over the helm, and an even worse tableau is being displayed for us to see. And of course, there is the whole situation with the pooled media. Gathering money in a fund to buy media — newspapers in particular — is a constitutional crime. Even during the times of the Sept. 12 regime, there were no newspapers that were forced into bankruptcy. But now we are seeing newspapers being directly taken over by those in power. This whole process began three years ago and we see it continuing today.

Nazlı Ilıcak: I lost my job because people were afraid I would ask, ‘How will our ministers account for what they have done?’

 
I began to criticize the government more and more intensely after 2011. I guess we could look at the Gezi events as a real cornerstone in all of this. I was regularly getting warnings from the heads of the newspaper… But when the whole Dec. 17 bribery and corruption situation emerged, everything changed. In fact, on the very first day, I said, “Hey, Tayyip Erdoğan is not involved with these guys.” When I heard the names of the four government ministers implicated in all of this, I thought to myself, “Tayyip Erdoğan will come out now and talk about the independence of justice, saying, ‘You see? You said that the justice system was tied to us, but look at how our ministers are accounting for what they have done’.” This is how I guessed he would behave. But one day later, publicly, the prime minister said, “The parallel state set a trap for us.” Of course, right at that moment I realized that he was trying to hide something, and I wrote a column about this, criticizing it. That column never made its way into the paper, and right after that, I got a call from the newspaper’s editorial board, basically saying “We can no longer work with you.” I have no idea whether a phone call from on high was made to the newspaper about my no longer working there, but the owner of the newspaper was the older brother of the prime minister’s son-in-law. There was probably not even any need for a phone call; these people have telepathic means of communication!

Murat Aksoy lost his job when he criticized the AK Party on his TV program

 
“I said that the AK Party needed to investigate all the corruption, and they terminated my job,” says Murat Aksoy, who worked on CNN Türk’s “5N1K” program, and who lost his job for openly expressed criticism of the AK Party. Here is how Aksoy describes his parting of the ways with the newspaper he worked for, the Yeni Şafak daily. “Prior to Gezi, I wrote about the negative reactions I got from conservatives about AK Party projects involving youth. I wrote about the missed opportunities right before Gezi; I wrote about how the AK Party was not successfully representing the majority of society. When Gezi happened, these criticisms hit a peak. In a post-Dec. 17 column, I wrote something like, “All these steps are being taken so that the AK Party can protect itself.” And this is the summation of what I said on a television program after the Dec. 25 operation, the second one of its kind. I said something like: “This is a state crisis. What the AK Party needs to do is follow up on this.” The next day, I wrote a column, but was told they wouldn’t be using it. Then I went on a break, and when I returned, I was told I no longer had a job there.”
 

Husband’s interview with Gülen causes Rome correspondent for Sabah newspaper to lose her job

 
The Rome correspondent for the Sabah newspaper, Yasemin Taşkın, wound up losing her job because of an interview with Fethullah Gülen that her husband did for an Italian newspaper. Taşkın said, “They punished my husband through me.” She goes on: “There was no problem between the newspaper and me. My husband is also a journalist. He is both a Vatican expert as well as a Turkey expert. Like any foreign correspondent would, my husband tried to get an interview with one of the important names in all the events taking place here. And in doing so, he definitely never thought any harm would come to my career or me. At least, ordinarily, no one would expect such a thing. So he went ahead and did the interview, and the day it came out, our foreign news head sent me an email, embarrassed, saying that the newspaper’s editorial board had decided to bring an end to our working relationship. In the email, our foreign news head was careful to stress that he did not know the reason behind this decision, and that no one had told him anything. But whoever had called him had mentioned the interview that my husband had done with Gülen as the reason. It was said, “It would have been better if Marco had not done that interview.”

Professor Özsoy: Never has there been such disgrace in the history of the Turkish press

 
After the Dec. 17 corruption investigation operation, I spoke with the newspaper’s general publications director. He said to me, “You are one of my most widely read writers; if there is a problem, we’ll stand behind you.” But then, on Dec. 30, I was one of the first journalists to lose his job. It is, of course, not difficult to guess that the will behind this was something above and beyond the actual directors of my newspaper. There was nothing in particular that pointed to this at the time, but a person can guess. I even made some jokes at the time about whether it was the prime minister or his aide Yalçın Akdoğan who had made the call with the orders. These days, simply not criticizing the Gülen group [the Hizmet movement] is enough to get you thrown out of a job. Unfortunately, this era of shamefulness has truly begun.”

Süleyman Yaşar fired for not writing what they wanted

 

Economist Süleyman Yaşar, who refused to write negative things about certain people and organizations which he was ordered to by those directing the Sabah newspaper, also lost his job. Yaşar had been known as the journalist who kept former Prime Minister Erdoğan from signing off on an agreement with the IMF. In the wake of the Dec. 17 operation, the Sabah newspaper asked Yaşar to write negative stories about certain names and organizations in Turkey. As an academic writer, Yaşar made it clear to the newspaper’s directorship that he would only write stories based on hard facts, underscoring that he was, first and foremost, an economist. Before the March elections this year, he was told by those in charge of Sabah: “The parallel structure wants to bring down the country’s economy. This needs to be shown in numbers so that readers can see this.” Recalling the situation, Yaşar says: “I am an economist and they were simply trying to give me material. But what I do is to analyze real data. I cannot write stories that aim to undermine others.”
 

Yavuz Baydar: We are experiencing a situation never seen before in Turkish press history

 
In the Turkey of 2014, court cases and prison sentences have been replaced by the trend of firings from jobs in a sort of sly turn of events that leads to no one taking the blame, with the ball being thrown by the ruling party to media bosses, and then tossed back again to Ankara. It has spread throughout the system and whatever editorial independence is even left is slowly draining away. To put it another way, the very DNA of our media is being destroyed before our very eyes. And fear is the main reason behind the growing pattern of auto-censorship and editorial dependence we see everywhere.
 

Derya Sazak: They told me to throw out Can Dündar. When I refused, they said I would then have to go

 
It all began with the “İmralı journals.” That day, I received a phone call from the [former] prime minister’s head political consultant, Yalçın Akdoğan. Speaking sharply, he said: “You are sabotaging our peace process, how is this possible? You will have to account for your actions.” His words were nothing if not full of threats. I told him that, to the contrary, the process was being normalized but he kept on insisting, “No, this is sabotage.” The next day, Milliyet owner Erdoğan Demirören was really panicked. He made me feel the full weight of the pressure on Milliyet from the government. In fact, he told me, “Do you know, I cried for the first time in my life.”

Before March 30, I had no idea that that the crying episode was directly related to a telephone call that had taken place between him and former Prime Minister Erdoğan. That phone call, which was broadcasted from a recording, was made by Demirören to the prime minister to soften him a little. How embarrassing in the name of journalism though! Just think: your newspaper signs off on such big success, with headlines that make it into all the big news sources, the Internet and on TV and radio. And in the middle of such journalistic success, the owner of your paper calls the ruling party head to apologize, saying: “Just give me half an hour. I’ll find out who’s responsible for all this, fire them and then get back to you on this.”

And the prime minister mentions my name directly in connection with what he asserts is “dishonorable journalism,” then asking Demirören, “How do you even employ people like this?!” In short, he says, “Fire these folks.” The story that brought everything to an end for me was the İmralı journals. It was the beginning of the end for me.

In the wake of Gezi, they told me to fire Can Dündar. I didn’t agree, and so they told me I would be fired. We had already lost writer Hasan Cemal because of the İmralı story and I didn’t want to pave the way for a second blow to the paper, so I agreed to leave. The bosses in charge of the paper were quite relieved to hear this, telling me, “Well, the government was forcing us to make you go anyway.” They told me this quite openly.

 

The prime minister makes his target clear, Hasan Cemal loses his job

 

After the big news story about the İmralı minutes, Milliyet newspaper journalist Hasan Cemal wrote a column celebrating the reporter who had broken this important story. Later, on March 2, Cemal addressed his words to those critical of the decision to publish the İmralı minutes. He wrote: “Turning out a newspaper is one thing, and directing a country is another thing entirely. No one should get these jobs confused. No one should try to intervene in other people’s jobs.”

In a speech made that same day in Balıkesir, Prime Minister Erdoğan made sharp and direct reference to Cemal’s column, making it clear how displeased he was with this kind of journalism. It was later revealed that following this speech by the prime minister, the owner of the Milliyet newspaper, Erdoğan Demirören, had called the then-editorial director of the paper, Derya Sazak, to relay this displeasure from Ankara. The next column to be penned by Hasan Cemal was never even published by Milliyet.

Can Dündar fired for writing columns that might ‘disturb’ the prime minister

 

Can Dündar is yet another journalist to lose his job as a result of ruffled political feathers. He was first warned about “writing too sharply” by his paper’s owners. Then he was forced to take a break from his work. After some series pieces on the Gezi protests and Egypt, Milliyet owner Erdoğan Demirören called him to tell him he had lost his job. Dündar notes, “I actually miss the sort of censorship from theSept. 12 era.” He goes on to say: “It was said to me, ‘We do not wish to see stories that will displease the prime minister in this paper. Everything displeases them, and after they are displeased, they go after us’.” Speaking at the Turkish-German Literature Festival in the German city of Essen, Dündar said: “If you are known, as a writer, as being someone who writes things that upset the prime minister, it then becomes more difficult to find work in other places, because of the fear that you will do the same thing again. In the meantime, those who write obediently are given great privileges, those who don’t find themselves in all sorts of trouble.”

Femen shows up in Turkish PM Erdoğan’s constituency on election day

By

By Selçuk ŞAMİLOĞLU         ISTANBUL / Hürriyet

Femen, an exhibitionist feminist activism group founded in Ukraine in 2008, has staged a protest in the Üsküdar district on Istanbul’s Asian side, which is Prime n_64291_4Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s constituency.
Hours after announcing plans to stage a protest in one of the conservative neighborhoods of Istanbul, two Femen members showed up in Üsküdar’s Burhaniye Elementary School. The naked activists, who wrote “Ban Erdogan” on their chests and backs, were quickly detained by police after grabbing and throwing away several ballots.
Erdoğan has voted at Burhaniye Elementary School in previous elections, but opted to go to the ballot box in Üsküdar’s Saffet Çebi Elementary School for the March 30 local polls.

March/30/2014

 

10 things you need to know about Turkey

By

Erdogan and Gulen pointing each otherHere are ten things you need to know about Turkey.

1. On March 27, the government of Turkey blocked YouTube, less than a week after blacking out Twitter. Ostensibly, this was to prevent the spread of videos that are said to feature the voices of Turkey’s foreign minister, intelligence chief, and a top army general proposing to send the Turkish military into Syria to protect the tomb of Suleiman Shah, the grandfather of the founder of the Ottoman Dynasty.

2. If these tapes are real, Turkey has been considering staging an attack on itself as a pretext to intervene in Syria. Turkey is a member of NATO. Article V of the North Atlantic Treaty establishing the alliance states that members will treat an attack against one member as an attack against all and respond accordingly—up to and including the use of armed force. Were NATO to provide assistance to Turkey, the consequences could be apocalyptic. Among other things, Russia would certainly see this as a NATO aggression.

3. Turkey’s ruling AKP is facing a disaster in Syria. Turkey’s battle with the radical Kurdish-separatist PKK has claimed as many as 40,000 lives since the 1980s.

When Assad pulled his forces away from the border, the PYD (the Syrian analogue to the PKK) assumed control over the Kurdish majority regions, prompting Ankara to attempt to counter them by arming radical Islamist groups and opening its borders to foreign fighters.

The Turks presumed Assad would be toppled quickly, which proved false.

As a result, Turkey now faces both an infuriated Assad and a serious threat from groups like Jabhat al Nusra and the Islamic State of Iraq and al Sham (ISIS).

Following the seizure by ISIS of the Azaz border gate, Ankara reversed course, freezing Al Qaeda bank accounts and shelling ISIS strongholds along the border. But the damage can’t easily be undone.

In conjunction with a vast influx of Syrian refugees, this is now by far the most serious security problem Turkey faces. Since Turkey is in NATO, this is NATO’s problem, too.

4. Of late, Erdoğan’s struggle for power with Fethullah Gülen, a Pennsylvania-based cleric who leads a powerful transnational Islamist movement and is a major player in the American charter school movement, has become increasingly vicious. It has recently taken the form of a massive corruption probe into government officials, with wiretaps leaked daily that appear to incriminate the prime minister and everyone around him in a three-ring circus of malfeasance, skullduggery, and theft.

The leaks are widely, and for good reason, understood to be a form of retaliation by the Gülenists, who are well represented within the police and judiciary.

Erdoğan has countered by stifling journalists, firing or reassigning thousands of police officers, consolidating his control of the judiciary, and shutting down social media sites in a vain attempt to plug the leaks.

5. Gülen presides over a huge informal network of schools, think tanks, businesses, and media across five continents. His network in Turkey until recently worked in close alliance with Erdoğan as he neutralized the opposition, particularly in the military.

Gülen’s enthusiasm for illegal wiretapping and leaking didn’t bother Erdoğan when it worked in his favor. Nor did Erdoğan’s demagoguery and propensity to suppress speech bother the Gülenists.

6. The leaked recordings (which have not been independently verified) feature a voice, purportedly Erdoğan’s, dictating news headlines, choosing guests to appear on news shows, telling a media executive to reduce his coverage of the opposition, upbraiding another for using the word “corruption” in a news report, and calling his justice minister to discuss reversing a legal judgment in favor of a critical media firm.

7. One of the most explosive tapes, published on February 25, features conversation between voices alleged to be those of the prime minister and his son, Bilal. They are heard discussing how best to hide tens of millions of dollars in cash stored in the family home. The prime minister instructs his son to get rid of all the money, preferably after dark. His son says he has moved all but $41.6 million.

8. Erdoğan has accused foreign forces of inventing the corruption charges. As the corruption scandal broke, a newspaper known as a government organ splashed a photograph of the U.S. ambassador on its front page with the headline, “Get the hell out of this country!”

9. Local elections, on March 30, will be followed by Turkey’s first direct presidential election in 2014, and parliamentary elections in 2015. There is no reason to think these elections will bring stability, whatever the outcome.

The Gülenists will not be satisfied until Erdoğan is imprisoned or dead. A significant portion of the population will not believe the election results nor recognize any mandate Erdoğan claims.

10. There is good reason to be concerned about the fairness of the elections, and if not the fairness, the public’s perception of their unfairness. Given the new technology to be employed in the voting booths, the stakes, and the release of wiretaps suggesting Erdoğan’s willingness to break the law to suit his personal ends, it is unsurprising that many in Turkey are warning of the possibility of electoral fraud.

Should the elections be tainted by any hint of malfeasance, we should expect protests on the scale of those following Iran’s 2009 elections, and we should expect that they will be suppressed in much the same manner.

Claire Berlinski is a contributing editor to the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal magazine. She is an investigative journalist, travel writer, biographer, and novelist. She is a former resident of Istanbul.

Source: FOX News

AKP, Gülen set for battle until end: Investigative journalist

By

ISTANBUL – Hürriyet Daily News

Vercihan Ziflioğlu vercihan.ziflioglu@hurriyet.com.tr

n_59876_4The power struggle between Turkey’s ruling party and Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen’s movement will not be stopped until one of them is brought down, prominent journalist Nedim Şener has said.

Dozens, including three ministers’ sons, a mayor and a state bank CEO, were detained as part of a gripping bribery and corruption investigation that became public on Dec. 17, in what is believed to be another chapter in the clash between ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the Gülen movement (Cemaat).

Following the investigation, the government shied from naming the Gülen movement, which has key members in Turkey’s justice and police system, but Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan called it “a dirty operation” against his party and pointed the finger at “some circles inside and outside of Turkey.” Some pundits called the source of the operation as “a parallel state,” but Şener rejected the claim.

“This is not a parallel state, but there is a secret entity within the state. The prime minister is also part of this entity, so is the Gülen movement. The two sides share the power,” Şener said.

“This will not be an easy process,” the journalist said. “Either Cemaat will finish off the AKP, or the AKP will finish off them.”

Şener, the writer of a 2009 book titled “Fethullah Gülen and Cemaat in Ergenekon,” was arrested in 2011 as part of the case of the OdaTV, online news portal known for its fierce criticism of government policies. As part of the case, which started during the police’s Ergenekon coup plot case investigations, Şener and another prominent journalist, Ahmet Şık, spent a year behind bars under arrest, drawing criticism from public.

Şener claims his and Şık’s imprisonment were a result of the Gülen movement’s influence in the judiciary system, and that has also created a rift between the two sides.

Şener says the clash between the AKP and the Gülen movement emerged after a raid on the Mavi Marmara aid flotilla by Israeli soldiers in May 2010. It mounted with an investigation on the National Intelligence Organization (MİT) on Feb. 7, 2012, and blew into the open with the “dershane” crisis. The government wanted to close the private prep schools, called dershanes, many of which are owned by people with close links to the Gülen movement.

“The dershane row was just a trigger. This operation officially started the war between the AKP and the Cemaat,” Şener said. “The Gülen movement wants to finish off Erdoğan, because they want an AKP without Erdoğan. The Gülen movement wanted to have a word in power. So far, Gülen and the AKP had a ‘united fate,’ as they call it. Together they made many injustices and they are indebted to each other. Once, the prime minister said, ‘We gave them whatever they wanted.’ The prime minister should explain this.”

December/20/2013