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Turkish PM Erdoğan vows to eliminate ‘parallel state’

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ANKARA

One of the most important messages the Turkish people conveyed through the March 30 polls was the authority given to the government for the full elimination of the parallel state, the prime minister has said, vowing they will n_64710_1not show even tiniest hesitation in doing so.

“The Turkish people gave us the vote of confidence. More importantly, they have given us the instruction to fight against the parallel state. They have given us the instruction for the elimination of this parallel structure whose treachery and espionage have come into the picture,” Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan told his parliamentary group on April 8 in his party’s first meeting since the March 30 local polls.

The parallel state is the term the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) officials are using for the Fethullah Gülen community, or the Hizmet Movement. They accuse the Gülen movement’s members within police and judiciary of plotting against the government.

Erdoğan recalled the illegal listening of a key security meeting at the Foreign Ministry and its leak through social media as one of the latest attempts of espionage at the hands of this parallel state and stressed all measures against the perpetrators will be taken within democracy and the law.

“They will give an account of what they have been doing. But not before the parallel judiciary, but before the people’s judiciary,” he said.

Erdoğan said the Gülen community’s international links and espionage attempts will be scrutinized and informed that he raised the issue in his visit to Azerbaijan last week. He added the government will run after the unregistered economic activities conducted by the Gülen movement and said they will continue to find every Turkish Lira donated to his group.

Erdoğan takes battle with enemies beyond Turkish frontiers (Afghanistan to Pensylvania)

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REUTERS, ISTANBUL/ANKARA –
Prime Minister Tayyip Erdoğan’s battle to root out the “terrorists” he says are embedded in the Turkish state is extending beyond its frontiers to Africa and Asia, tayyip_feto_dekupe_1224further complicating foreign policy already hit by tensions with the Arab world and Western allies.

Last month, parents of the Yavuz Selim school in Kanifing, Gambia, received a letter announcing its immediate closure. A source at the school, run by the Hizmet organisation of Turkish cleric Fethullah Gülen, said the decision had been conveyed to the principal in a one sentence missive.

Gülen’s Hizmet movement cites this as an example of Turkish pressure on governments to shut down Gülen schools, a key source of its influence and revenue at home and abroad, and discourage Hizmet-linked commerce from banking to construction.

Turkish Islamic lender Bank Asya, which has extensive dealings with Hizmet companies in Africa, reported it had suffered mass deposit withdrawals, weeks after a power struggle between Erdoğan and Gülen erupted in December.

Media said institutional depositors loyal to Erdoğan had withdrawn 20 percent of the bank’s deposits. Ahmet Beyaz, Chief executive of the bank, which has among its shareholders Kaynak Holding, which is close to Hizmet, told Reuters the bank was not in any danger. The government would not comment.

Erdoğan has declared Hizmet, long a mainstay of Turkish foreign policy, a terrorist movement using dirty tricks, including corruption allegations, blackmail and espionage to undermine him. His move to shut its schools in Turkey ignited the current confrontation.

“One of the greatest difficulties posed by the struggle against Hizmet is in diplomacy,” said a government official who declined to be named. “Right now Hizmet and its representatives are fully engaged in anti-government activities.”

“As it has been made public that the Hizmet schools will no longer be supported (by the Turkish government), a number of those countries do not want them to continue.”

The battle against Hizmet, long an instrument of Turkish soft power claiming millions of followers worldwide, has diverted effort from a foreign policy already in some disarray.

Very recently, Erdoğan was received as a hero in Egypt and his government cited in the West as a model for Islamic democracy. Now his ties with Arab capitals are icy, largely due to his siding with Islamist parties such as Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, and relations with the West tested by a graft scandal and what some see as growing authoritarian tendencies.

Seeking bread abroad

Hizmet denies using followers in the police and judiciary to launch a graft inquiry targeting Erdoğan family members, ministers and businessmen and make illicit recordings of top officials. Ankara fears further leaks ahead of presidential polls in August could undermine the government.

The movement, also known as Cemaat (JEH-maat), The Community, has for decades been a spearhead of Turkish cultural influence and commerce overseas, especially so in the assertive opening to Africa, the Middle East and Asia in the years after AKP took power in 2002.

“In Turkey, we were at pains not to get involved in an economic relationship with the government,” Tercan Baştürk, Secretary General of the Journalists and Writers Foundation, which speaks for Hizmet, said at its Istanbul headquarters.

“Instead, we directed all Hizmet supporters to go abroad and told them to seek their bread outside the country.”

It was long said there were three arms to Turkish diplomacy – the Foreign Ministry, Turkish Airlines and Hizmet.

Turkey currently has some 35 embassies in Africa, second only to France. About 15 opened in the last two years. The red Turkish flag flies, for instance, across Mogadishu, Turkish firms playing the lead role in post-war construction.

“A lot of this is due to the support of Gülen because in many places in sub-Saharan Africa the only real Turkish communities are Gülen-linked communities, whether schools or business, and the embassies were opened to support this drive,” said Sinan Ulgen, head of the Edam think tank in Istanbul.

Where Erdoğan has conducted a purge of alleged Gülen supporters in the police and the judiciary since December’s anti-corruption raids, Turkey’s embassies are now expected to a purge their relations with the cleric overseas to strangle income from enterprise, schools and donations.

“Almost overnight they (the Embassies) shift position where they are being asked to persuade those governments to close down those schools,” Ulgen said. “Of course, some governments may want to accept this demand from the Turkish side.”

Most likely to respond to Turkish displeasure would be states such as Gambia benefiting from direct aid from Ankara.

Afghanistan to Pensylvania

The Foreign Ministry itself is in some turmoil since it emerged that minister Ahmet Davutoğlu’s office was bugged and talks with the security chief and army commanders on possible armed intervention in Syria was posted anonymously on Youtube.

Overseas schools, Turkish cultural institutes and business, like Hizmet’s presence in the Turkish state, have been built up over four decades. For much of that Gülen has lived in self-imposed exile in the United States, something that has for Erdoğan supported the thesis that Hizmet is part of a broad foreign-backed anti-Turkish plot.

When Erdoğan was first elected in 2002, he lacked educated specialists to press social and economic reforms he envisaged to ease curbs on religion, improving welfare and, foremost, rein in a military that had toppled four governments in as many decades.

He invited Hizmet to help and Hizmet obliged. The falling out has pushed Erdoğan into his biggest crisis in 12 years.

Hizmet runs 2,000 educational establishments in 160 countries, from Afghanistan to the United States. The schools, such as the Yavuz Selim in Gambia, are well equipped, teach a secular curriculum in English, and are popular, especially in poorer countries, with the political and business elite.

“Until six months ago, government officials, the President, the Prime Minister were going to these schools and praising them and saying they were important for peace in the world,” Baştürk said. “The government is pressing the Hizmet movement from outside to put it in difficulty inside (Turkey).”

Erdoğan has sought help from U.S. President Barack Obama in curbing “the man from Pennsylvania”. On a lower level he has spoken to the head of Pakistan’s Punjab about the schools.

The government accuses Hizmet overseas of running a propaganda campaign against the Turkish government through publications. Officials say the organisation is also carrying out other actions, unspecified, that can alarm host governments.

Hizmet says the Turkish government approaches different governments in different ways, according to local sensitivities.

“They say to the Russians ‘kick them out’, they are making pan-Turkish propaganda in their schools,” said Baştürk, referring to Russian sensitivities about Turkish-related populations in Russia, the Caucasus area and Central Asia. “We hear all this because we have friends there.

Assessing the full scale of Hizmet influence and its economic power is difficult because of the essentially secretive nature of some aspects; but Ankara clearly sees it as a threat.

Business sources say Turkish firms play a dominant role in construction in Kabul, where Hizmet opened a school weeks after the Taliban was ousted in 2001. Are those firms all Hizmet?

“Hizmet is not a movement with a membership,” Baştürk said. “Hizmet movement business people are a very heterogeneous structure. In Kabul, all businessmen are from the Hizmet movement on the one hand, and on the other, they are not.”

Erdogan: political enemies will ‘pay the price’

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By  Author Fehim Taştekin

Though beleaguered by corruption accusations, Turkey’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) remained true to style in the March 30 local elections, displaying Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, accompanied by his son Bilal and daughter Sumeyye, greets his supporters in Ankaraits political mastery and power of manipulation.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan employed two tactics. First, he set the mood for municipal polls as that of a general election, transforming the ballot into a confidence vote for his government. He managed to channel the vote he had mustered in the 2011 general elections into the municipal polls. The AKP had garnered 38.8% in the 2009 municipal election and 49.8% in the 2011 general election. In the March 30 vote, support for the AKP exceeded 39% — the psychological threshold that Erdogan had set as a victory benchmark — reaching more than 43%.

The opposition compares the result with the last general election outcome and sees it as a setback for the AKP and thus as the beginning of the end for the party. The AKP, on the other hand, takes the previous municipal election result as a positive basis and argues it has received a strong vote of confidence.

The second tactic the AKP employed was to use the ballot box as a mechanism to clear itself from corruption accusations and get the opposition condemned. Erdogan had disabled the judiciary and the police ahead of the elections to thwart the corruption probes. He will now continue on his path, saying that “the people have acquitted him at the ballot box.”

The AKP-CHP (Republican People’s Party) race was suspenseful in Istanbul and in the capital, Ankara, both of which are of critical importance. Erdogan’s calculations more or less materialized. The result may have failed to deal the AKP a blow as strong as the opposition desired, but one reality remains unchanged: More than half of the electorate refuses to buy Erdogan’s argument that the ballot box legitimizes his government. The outcome does not change the fact that the more Erdogan has grown authoritarian, the more he has lost his ability to govern. Hence, he now has two options: either engage in self-criticism, as parliament speaker Cemil Cicek suggests, and opt to normalize the country, or stick to his oppressive style.

Little hope for normalization

Since the 2011 elections, a period he calls his “mastership period,” Erdogan has shifted from pluralism, the AKP’s original starting point, to majoritarianism. Fears are rife that he will maintain his tendency to resolve problems in an authoritarian manner. Even before the elections, he had signaled he would launch a fierce war on the Gulen community, which he has demonized as a “parallel state,” along with other opposition quarters. For instance, he has already asked for a judicial ban on leaving the country for Istanbul’s former deputy police chief Ali Fuat Yilmazer as well as journalists Emre Uslu, Onder Aytac, Bulent Kenes and Mehmet Kamis.

In his victory speech from the party headquarters’ balcony, Erdogan was accompanied by ministers and his son Bilal, also implicated in the corruption scandal, as if he was saying, “They are now acquitted.” Erdogan openly declared a war on the Gulen movement when he said, “We will enter their dens from now on. Yes. They will be held accountable. They will pay the price.” He also stated that Syria “is at war with us,” signaling that he would be even more hawkish in foreign policy.

In remarks to Al-Monitor, Nuray Mert, a prominent academic and a columnist for the Hurriyet Daily News, said the AKP has created a populist ideology mixing conservatism, nationalism and neo-Ottomanism, complete with a cult for a leader who represents this mixture. She stressed, however, that regardless of the election outcome, an iron fist cannot rule the country for too long. “The elections will make no contribution to overcoming the existing political crisis and normalizing the country. Erdogan had lost his ability to run the country long before the corruption scandals broke when he turned in the direction of a civilian authoritarian regime,” Mert said. “A mentality that translates elections results into a one-man rule cannot rule Turkey, a country with a highly polarized and complex fabric, in such a narrow-minded and majoritarian manner, even if they get more than 50% of the vote.”

Intraparty solution prospect

Many expect that a solution could emerge against Erdogan and his clique from within the AKP, perhaps from the ballot box. The election outcome being in favor of Erdogan has somewhat weakened the hand of those who are looking for an alternative way out from within the AKP, including President Abdullah Gul himself. However, the arm wrestling will no doubt continue both within and outside the party until the presidential election in August. AKP members irked by Erdogan’s one-man style were already saying that “the efforts to normalize the country will continue regardless of the election result.”

To begin with, the corruption dossiers will inevitably be on the parliament’s agenda. Under the parliament’s internal rules, an inquiry commission must be set up by April 30 for the four former ministers accused of corruption.

Furthermore, fresh wiretaps are likely to be leaked to turn up the pressure on the government. The more Erdogan fights, the more the salvos against him are expected to increase, with the United States and the European Union also stepping in, until the AKP’s integrity becomes impossible to preserve.

Having strengthened its hand in the local polls, the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), too, is expected to mount real opposition against the government, although it has so far played its opposition role quite reluctantly in the name of the Kurdish peace process. The Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) has sent signals that it may look for interlocutors other than the AKP, suggesting that the Kurds can no longer sustain the AKP’s ambivalent stance that has played into government hands.

Ultimately, if Turkey is not normalized, the rumble of the educated urban middle class, which made a grand appearance on the political scene during the Gezi protests, will continue to pester Erdogan and could perhaps force the government to move the June 2015 general elections forward.

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.

Source: al-monitor.com

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

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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

 

BFP Exclusive: Turkish Power Struggle Impedes NATO’s Campaign in Syria

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By Christoph Germann | March 29, 2014
Gülen Movement Determined to Topple Erdoğan at All Costs

0329_CGPostSince the end of last year, Turkey has been engulfed in a spectacular power struggle between Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the shadowy network of self-described “imam, preacher, and civil society activist” Fethullah Gülen. Due to the help of his friends in Langley, like for example Graham Fuller and Morton Abramowitz [1], Gülen managed to build a multi-billion dollar movement with millions of followers and a presence in 150 countries.[2]

The Gülen movement, also known as Hizmet, used its considerable influence in Turkey to launch an all-out attack on former ally Erdoğan at the end of last year, after the Turkish Prime Minister had fallen out of favor with Gülen and Washington.[3] When last December’s corruption scandal failed to bring down the government, Hizmet tried to discredit Erdoğan by exposing his role in supporting terrorism. At the end of last year, Gülen’s mouthpiece Today’s Zaman started to highlight the connection between Saudi terrorist financier Yasin al-Qadi and the AKP government as well as the Erdoğan family.[4] Although al-Qadi’s activities in Turkey had been known for years, Hizmet spared no efforts to highlight the al-Qadi-Erdoğan connection in the media but, as discussed previously, the coverage ignored a few important points:

“Gülen-controlled media have publicized much of this in last few days but they will not dare to mention that al-Qadi is a Gladio B operative who had previously the backing of Fethullah Gülen and that he took part in the now infamous pre-9/11 meetings at the U.S. embassy in Baku, Azerbaijan, where illustrious characters like Bandar bin Sultan and Ayman al-Zawahiri showed up. After all, the Gülen movement itself plays a central role in the Pentagon’s Operation Gladio B.”[5]

This also explains why Yasin al-Qadi could continue to conduct business with impunity in Turkey, Azerbaijan and other countries despite funding Ptech Inc. and ending up on several terrorist lists. The “terrorist” label, which had been removed in the meantime, is now being applied again and al-Qadi’s friend Erdoğan faces the same problem. Other terrorist supporters like the former U.S. Ambassadors to Turkey, Morton Abramowitz and Eric Edelman, who are featured in Sibel Edmonds’ State Secrets Privilege Gallery along with Graham Fuller, emphasized that Erdoğan’s days are over.[6] So Hizmet has resorted to drastic measures in order to topple the disgraced Turkish Prime Minister.

2014 started with a bombshell. Utilizing their enormous influence in the Turkish police, Gülen’s followers stopped a truck carrying weapons and ammunition on its way to Syria. The truck was escorted by members of Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization (MİT) and allegedly hired by the Humanitarian Relief Foundation (İHH).[7] İHH has a long history of supporting terrorists in accordance with U.S. foreign policy from Afghanistan to Bosnia and Chechnya.[8] Given Turkey’s key role in the NATO-GCC-Israel campaign to remove the Syrian government, this arms shipment is hardly surprising. What makes this incident so remarkable is that this campaign and Turkey’s involvement were exposed by the Gülen movement, which is otherwise supporting NATO’s war in Syria. The Erdoğan-led government responded immediately by removing the police officers who had followed and stopped the truck in Turkey’s Hatay Province.[9] Other purges followed and by now thousands of police officers and several prosecutors have been removed or transferred in the ongoing power struggle.[10]

Hizmet subsequently focused on leaking recordings of wiretapped conversations, which highlight the corrupt and criminal activities of Erdoğan and his associates. Faced with one embarrassing leak after another, the Turkish Prime Minister turned to his former friends in Washington and asked for support. Pro-Erdoğan media alleged that he got a positive response and that Fethullah Gülen could possibly be extradited to Turkey.[11] But the White House lost no time in denying these reports and demonstrated its support of the U.S.-based Imam and his vast movement.[12] Meanwhile, the leaks continued exposing more and more explosive information:

Turkish Airlines allegedly shipped weapons to unknown groups in Nigeria, which has been ravaged by violence between the army and Boko Haram militants, a new incriminating phone call revealed on Tuesday.

The leaked conversation is the latest blow to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has been hit by a corruption probe ensnaring his key allies and a widening phone-tapping scandal.[13]

Erdoğan tried to prevent the leaks from spreading via social media by banning Twitter, to no avail. Instead he drew heavy criticism from all over the world further damaging his approval ratings, which have been declining rapidly over the past months.[14] With Turkey’s local elections just a few days away, Hizmet decided to deliver a final blow. On March 27, another audio recording incriminating Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu and other high-level officials was leaked:

The voices of the illegal recording believed to belong to Davutoğlu, National Intelligence Organization (MİT) Hakan Fidan, Foreign Ministry Undersecretary Feridun Sinirlioğlu, and Deputy Chief of General Staff Gen. Yaşar Gürel.[15]

According to Turkey’s Foreign Ministry, the disclosed meeting had taken place at FM Davutoğlu’s office, where the officials were discussing the security situation in Syria. But the content of the audio recording has to be taken with a grain of salt. PM Erdoğan has regularly defended himself by saying that the leaked tapes were manipulated to give a false impression [16] and, as FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds cautioned, there is some truth to this claim when it comes to the latest leak:

“The tape/audio has been heavily tampered with; if authentic, then they have taken statements/conversations from several different contexts and time frames, and then they’ve patched them together after sanitizing, censoring. For example: you don’t hear any mention of US/NATO or the Pentagon, yet they left the part with the UN in there …”

If taken at face value, the audio recording is absolutely damning, especially considering the fact that the al-Qaeda mercenaries of the NATO-GCC-Israel axis are losing ground in Syria and Turkey’s willingness to get militarily involved.[17] In order to justify an intervention in Syria, Davutoğlu & Co. allegedly discussed selling the idea that Turkey has to protect the tomb of Süleyman Shah, a historic shrine that is under Turkish jurisdiction but located inside Syria’s northern Aleppo province, from Islamist insurgents. Head of Turkish intelligence Hakan Fidan proposed staging a false flag to lend credence to this ridiculous idea:

Ahmet Davutoğlu: “Prime Minister said that in current conjuncture, this attack (on Suleiman Shah Tomb) must be seen as an opportunity for us.”

Hakan Fida: “I’ll send 4 men from Syria, if that’s what it takes. I’ll make up a cause of war by ordering a missile attack on Turkey; we can also prepare an attack on Suleiman Shah Tomb if necessary.”

Feridun Sinirlioğlu: “That’s what I told back there. For one thing, the situation is different. An operation on ISIL has solid ground on international law. We’re going to portray this is Al-Qaeda, there’s no distress there if it’s a matter regarding Al-Qaeda. And if it comes to defending Suleiman Shah Tomb, that’s a matter of protecting our land.”[18]

Just one day before the fateful leak, Turkish FM Davutoğlu was busy selling the terrorist threat in an exclusive interview with Agence France-Presse.[19] Simultaneously, pro- Erdoğan newspaper Daily Sabah took the same line: “Al-Qaeda Offshoot ISIL, A New Terror Threat For Turkey”.[20] In this context, Hizmet’s manipulated audio recording appears authentic but we have to consider the source, Gülen’s CIA-sponsored movement, which is now clearly prioritizing toppling Turkish PM Erdoğan over toppling Syrian President Assad. In a clear reference to Gülen’s shadowy network, Davutoğlu blamed a “parallel structure inside [the state]” for the leak and vowed to investigate “everybody and everything”.[21] Shortly thereafter, the first suspect, a Gülen-linked columnist, was detained.[22] Erdoğan’s response was to block YouTube, where all leaked recordings had been uploaded.[23] So the Western media could not ignore the incident. But the reporting focused entirely on Erdoğan’s passion for censorship instead of addressing the real issue: Hizmet had again exposed the terror campaign of the NATO-GCC-Israel axis in Syria in order to get rid of Turkish Prime Minister Erdoğan.

# # # #

Christoph Germann- BFP Contributing Author & Analyst
Christoph Germann is an independent analyst and researcher based in Germany, where he is currently studying political science. His work focuses on the New Great Game in Central Asia and the Caucasus region. You can visit his website here

[1] Sibel Edmonds, “Did You Know: The King of Madrasas Now Operates Over 100 Charter Schools in the US?,” Boiling Frogs Post, 20 October 2010: http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2010/10/20/did-you-know-the-king-of-madrasas-now-operates-over-100-charter-schools-in-the-us/.

[2] Tim Franks, “Fethullah Gulen: Powerful but reclusive Turkish cleric,” BBC, 27 January 2014: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-25885817.

[3] Sibel Edmonds, “Turkish PM Erdogan: The Speedy Transformation of an Imperial Puppet,” Boiling Frogs Post, 18 January 2014: http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2014/01/18/turkish-pm-erdogan-the-speedy-transformation-of-an-imperial-puppet/.

[4] “Report: Al-Qaeda suspects flee after Turkish gov’t blocks raid,” Today’s Zaman, 26 December 2013: http://www.todayszaman.com/news-335038-report-al-qaeda-suspects-flee-after-turkish-govt-blocks-raid.html.

[5] Christoph Germann, “The New Great Game Round-Up: January 5, 2014,” Boiling Frogs Post, 5 January 2014: http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2014/01/05/the-new-great-game-round-up-january-5-2014/.

[6] Sibel Edmonds, “CIA-Gladio’s Zionist Operatives Urge Obama to Overthrow Erdogan’s Administration,” Boiling Frogs Post, 23 January 2014: http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2014/01/23/cia-gladios-zionist-operatives-urge-obama-to-overthrow-erdogans-administration/.

[7] Fevzi Kızılkoyun, “Turkish governor blocks police search on Syria-bound truck reportedly carrying weapons,” Hürriyet, 2 January 2014: http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/turkish-governor-blocks-police-search-on-syria-bound-truck-reportedly-carrying-weapons-.aspx?pageID=238&nID=60494&NewsCatID=341.

[8] Ibid., Germann.

[9] “Police officers removed after stopping truck allegedly carrying weapons to Syria,” Hürriyet, 3 January 2014: http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/police-officers-removed-after-stopping-truck-allegedly-carrying-weapons-to-syria.aspx?pageID=238&nID=60522&NewsCatID=341.

[10] Constanze Letsch, “Turkish police caught in middle of war between Erdoğan and former ally Gülen,” The Guardian, 9 February 2014: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/09/turkish-police-fethullah-gulen-network.

[11] “Gülen Could Be Extradited To Turkey,” Daily Sabah, 14.03.2014: http://www.dailysabah.com/politics/2014/03/14/gulen-could-be-extradited-to-turkey.

[12] Tolga TANIŞ, “Turkish PM’s account of Obama’s Gülen response ‘not accurate,’ White House says,” Hürriyet, 8 March 2014: http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/turkish-pms-account-of-obamas-gulen-response-not-accurate-white-house-says-.aspx?pageID=238&nID=63341&NewsCatID=359.

[13] “Turkish Airlines allegedly ships arms to Nigeria, tape reveals,” Agence France-Presse, 18 March 2014: http://news.yahoo.com/turkish-airlines-allegedly-ships-arms-nigeria-tape-reveals-202353840.html?soc_src=mediacontentstory.

[14] Terri Rupar, “Turkey’s prime minister banned Twitter, but these images show he can still muster huge crowds,” The Washington Post, 24 March 2014: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2014/03/24/turkeys-prime-minister-banned-twitter-but-these-images-show-he-can-still-muster-huge-crowds/.

[15] “WRAP UP: Ankara on alert after spying on security meeting leaked,” Hürriyet, 27 March 2014: http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/wrap-up-ankara-on-alert-after-spying-on-security-meeting-leaked.aspx?pageID=238&nID=64190&NewsCatID=338.

[16] Ralph Boulton, “Ahead of vote, Erdogan paints picture of Turkey besieged by enemies,” Reuters, 27 March 2014: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/27/us-turkey-election-idUSBREA2Q0XG20140327.

[17] Tony Cartalucci, “Turkey Vs. Syria: NATO’s Last Gasp?,” New Eastern Outlook, 26.03.2014: http://journal-neo.org/2014/03/26/turkey-vs-syria-nato-s-last-gasp/.

[18] Mimi al Laham, “Leaks Reveal Turkey using ALQaeda for False flag in Syria,” SyriaNews, 27 March 2014: http://www.syrianews.cc/leaks-reveal-turkey-using-alqaeda-false-flag-syria/.

[19] “Turkey vows ‘any measures’ against Syria threats,” Hürriyet, 26 March 2014: http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/turkey-vows-any-measures-against-syria-threats.aspx?pageID=238&nID=64135&NewsCatID=338.

[20] “Al-Qaeda Offshoot ISIL, A New Terror Threat For Turkey,” Daily Sabah, 26 March 2014: http://www.dailysabah.com/nation/2014/03/26/alqaeda-offshoot-isil-a-new-terror-threat-for-turkey.

[21] “Turkey’s FM implies espionage from within ministry over Syria leak,” Hürriyet, 28 March 2014: http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/turkeys-fm-implies-espionage-from-within-ministry-over-syria-leak.aspx?pageID=238&nID=64232&NewsCatID=338.

[22] “Gülen-linked pundit detained over leak of key Syria meeting,” Hürriyet, 29 March 2014: http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/gulen-linked-pundit-detained-over-leak-of-key-syria-meeting.aspx?pageID=238&nID=64274&NewsCatID=338.

[23] Paul Vale, “Turkey’s Prime Minister Erdogan Moves To Block YouTube Following Similar Ban On Twitter,” The Huffington Post, 27 March 2014: http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/03/27/turkey-erdogan-youtube-twitter_n_5044280.html.
– See more at: http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2014/03/29/bfp-exclusive-turkish-power-struggle-impedes-natos-campaign-in-syria/#sthash.ceLnqYEU.dpuf

Erdoğan sues Today’s Zaman editor-in-chief, four others

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Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has filed a complaint against Today’s Zaman editor-in-chief Dr. Bülent Keneş, Zaman deputy editor-in-chief Mehmet Kamış, Today’s Zaman columnist Emre Uslu, Journalist Önder Aytaç and Former İstanbul Police Department Intelligence Bureau Chief Ali Fuat Yılmazer on Saturday, a day before the local elections.

Erdoğan has previously filed a complaint against Today’s Zaman journalist Mahir Zeynalov for posting tweets that include “heavy insults and swear words in a bid to provoke the nation to hatred and animosity.”  Zeynalov said his tweets are mostly about news reports appeared in the media and that they include no insult against Erdoğan or content that would provoke society. “The accusations directed against me in the petition are all groundless,” Zeynalov said. Weeks after, Zeynalov was deported from Turkey, causing outrage in the community and abroad.

Aytaç, a former official in Police Academy, was detained late Friday over allegations that he might had information about the bugging of the top secret meeting in which high-level officials were discussing options regarding Syria. Later in Saturday morning, Aytaç was later released from custody.

Fethullah Gülen and Erdogan power struggle expend to within ruling elite of Azerbaijan

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The battle between Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the leader of Islamic movement Hizmet (Nurs) has spilled over into Azerbaijan and became the main reason of the dismissal of the head of Political analysis Gulen and ordagonand Information Provision department of Presidential Administration Elnur Aslanov, it is stated in the article published on the website of Institute of war and peace reporting(IWPR).

However, the analysts believe that there has long been a struggle for the influence between the head of Political and Social department of Presidential Administration Ali Hasanov and the dismissed head of Political analysis and Information Provision department of Presidential Administration Elnur Aslanov. A suspicion of Aslanov’s involvement in the sect of Nur movement was a pretext to get rid of him.

According to the article, Ali Hasanov while commenting on the influence the Nur movement has in Azerbaijan called for vigilance.
“The representatives of those trends should know that attempts to adapt the state policy to their interests will fail,” Hasanov told a religious affairs conference in Baku on March 7. On March 17 Elnur Aslanov was dismissed.

Arastun Orujlu, director of the Baku-based East-West Research Centre, told IWPR that this is the way the battle between senior government officials manifests itself and that there will be plenty more signs of this kind of dispute in future. ““The Hizmet movement was just used to raise the issue and shape public opinion,” he believes.

“The Hizmet movement has been in Azerbaijan for years now. If it really was a threat, the government would have taken serious steps years ago,” he added.

According to the article, the problem is so controversial that many political analysts shun discussing it openly. One of Azerbaijani experts, who requested anonymity, said that perhaps Aslanov has no relation to Gulen.

“The Hizmet movement and its activities in Azerbaijan can be very easily exploited in a domestic power-struggle,” he said.

The article reads that the Hizmet movement was one of the first foreign organizations to move into Azerbaijan after the break-up of the Soviet Union. Heydar Aliyev, the late president supported the emergence of Turkish schools in the country. Hizmet currently runs 11 high schools, 13 primary schools and one University in Azerbaijan. According to an anonymous expert they can be closed as a consequence of recent events.

Note that the newspaper “Yeni Musavat” referring to the source in social networks has disseminated information that the official circles of Turkey have provided the Azerbaijani government with a list of high-ranking officials of Azerbaijan in the administration of President Ilham Aliyev and the Azerbaijani government, which include or are related with such religious direction, as Nursizm.

The list of officials recruited by the sect of Fethullah Gülen include, the head of Presidential Administration of Azerbaijan Elnur Aslanov, SOCAR vice president Khalig Mammadov, chairman of the State Committee for Work with Religious Organizations Elshad Isgandarov, his deputy Gunduz Ismailov, Youth and Sports Deputy Minister Intigam Babayev, MP Jeyhun Osmanli, CSR Director under the Presidential Administration Farhad Mammadov, Chairman of the Youth Foundation Farhad Hajiyev. Already on March 17 Elnur Aslanov was dismissed from his position as a head of the department of Political Analysis and Information Provision of the Presidential Administration of Azerbaijan.

Erdogan, two-faced politician: Opposition figure

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A leading Turkish opposition figure has described Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan as a two-faced politician who puts on a democratic face in Europe while acting like a “would-be dictator” at home.

347412_Recep-Tayyip-Erdogan“Erdogan is speaking like an apostle of democracy in Brussels, but acting like a would-be dictator in Ankara,” Turkey’s Hurriyet newspaper quoted Umut Oran, the deputy chair of the opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), as saying on Thursday.

Oran’s comments come as the Erdogan administration is grappling with a deepening corruption scandal, which broke out in Turkey in December 2013 after dozens of officials and prominent businessmen close to the Turkish premier were arrested for inquiry on graft charges.

Erdogan also responded to the investigation by sacking dozens of police chiefs. He has also proposed a bill aimed at curbing the Turkish judiciary’s powers and giving the Justice Ministry more authority over appointing judges and prosecutors.

Oran further stated that Erdogan is “destroying the state-governed rule of law, intervening in the independence of the judiciary, hindering public servants who are trying to fulfill their duties and trying to tie up the courts, which make decisions on behalf of the nation, to himself.”

The Turkish prime minister has denounced the graft probe as a “dirty plot” to undermine his government ahead of the country’s local elections in March.

On Thursday, debate at the Turkish parliament over controversial judicial reforms proposed by the government heated up, leading to a brawl, during which a member of the legislature was injured.

The legislature is expected to vote on the bill later on Friday.

Turkish court finds 330 military staff guilty of attempted coup (plans to bomb historic mosques in Istanbul and trigger conflict with Greece)

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Agencies in Silviri

guardian.co.uk, Friday 21 September 2012 16.59 BST

Turkey’s former top navy commander Ozden Ornek (centre, background) arriving at court in February over the attempted coup. Photograph: Tolga Bozoglu/EPA

A Turkish court has convicted 330 former and current military officers of plotting a coup to overthrow prime minister Tayyip Erdogan’s government.

The court earlier sentenced three former generals to life in prison, which was reduced to 20 years each because the coup plot was unsuccessful, and two serving and one former general to 18 years.

Sentencing is still to come for the remaining 324 defendants convicted of a role in the plot.

The court earlier acquitted 34 officers in the case, which has underlined civilian dominance over the once all-powerful military in Turkey.

The “Sledgehammer” conspiracy is alleged to have included plans to bomb historic mosques in Istanbul and trigger conflict with Greece to pave the way for an army takeover.

Prosecutors had demanded 15-20 year jail sentences for the 365 defendants, 364 of them serving and retired officers.

The Turkish army has traditionally played a dominant role in politics, staging three coups between 1960 and 1980 and pushing the country’s first Islamist-led government from office in 1997.

Its authority has been reined in sharply since Erdogan first came to power nearly a decade ago and the trial has been seen as a show of strength by a government that has emerged from its shadow.