Author: Zaman Australia

Mehmet Efe Çaman-tr724.co

When the Cold War ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, some soldiers in the Turkish military thought Ankara no longer needed NATO and the West. With its political values, NATO was increasingly perceived by these soldiers as a hindrance. Controversial subjects such as Ankara’s human rights record and the condition of Kurds in Turkey that were overlooked during the Cold War due to the immense importance of Turkey in Cold War geopolitics started to dominate Turkish-Western relations, particularly in the context of Turkey’s aspirations as a potential EU candidate. There were a considerable number of people in both the military and the bureaucracy that considered institutionalized multilateral relations with the West (particularly with NATO, the EU, the US and Germany) as a security threat to the territorial integrity of the Turkish state. In particular the Kurdish insurrection during the 1980s, the emergence of the outlawed Kurdistan’s Workers’ Party (PKK) and the EU demand for democratic minority rights for Kurds in Turkey contributed to this negative perception of some factions in the Turkish state bureaucracy.

During the Cold War Turkish foreign policy behavior was based on the concept of political realism in which the military played the key role. Turkey was not powerful enough to protect itself against its “giant neighbor to the north,” as many Turkish policymakers had described the Soviet Union, and it had to integrate with NATO to safeguard its independence and statehood. Only through the NATO umbrella was Turkey successfully able to keep the Soviets away. After the end of the Cold War, however, everything changed. There was no longer any Soviet threat, and the post-Soviet geography, particularly the Caucasus and Central Asia, was full of new opportunities for Ankara. Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan in particular opened up a new world with common cultural, linguistic and religious roots with Turkey. These nations had considerable fossil energy resources, which Turkey did not have, and a large market. Also, the Balkans were viewed by Turkish political elites as former Ottoman territories and, accordingly, a natural zone of influence. Turks soon realized that getting rid of the West and increasing Turkish power on a global scale was an enjoyable and euphoria-generating discourse; however, it had no basis in reality. Turkey needed cooperation with other powers to counterbalance the West in order to gradually become independent from it.

A military memorandum of February 28, 1997 that removed the coalition government of the Islamist Necmettin Erbakan from power was primarily seen as a domestic “course correction” and a “secular-pro-Western” military intervention, but in reality, it was not. Yes, it was carried out by secular military officers, but they were not pro-Western regarding Turkey’s foreign policy orientation. They disagreed with the Copenhagen criteria of the EU (democracy standards for EU candidates) because they believed the EU was undermining the Turkish unitary nation-state by trying to strengthen Kurdish separatism. For example, the commanding officer of the Turkish War Academy, one of the highly influential posts in the country’s strategic position, clearly stated that joining the EU would destabilize Turkey. After the 1997 memorandum, the left-nationalist wing of the “social-democratic” Republican People’s Party (CHP) became stronger and increasingly opposed democratization reforms in Turkey, calling them concessions. Ironically, the pro-European and pro-Western dynamics were derived from the Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP),which claimed to be the democratic center of the Turkish political spectrum. From the 1997 memorandum to 2005, the Turkish state – first and foremost the military and civilian bureaucracy – increasingly agreed with the EU orientation and the democratizing reform process of the AKP government. Also, a great majority of Turkey’s citizens, especially Kurds, liberals, democrats, other minorities, Gülenists and other Islamic/Islamist groups, supported Turkey’s EU strategy as they believed it would eventually lead to EU membership.

The zero-sum game mentality in Turkish foreign policy was replaced with a new regional policy of “zero problems” that emphasized cooperation with neighboring countries and other regional states. Turkey became a key actor in the European Neighborhood Policy. Turkish democracy improved, and the economy boomed through incredible amounts of foreign investment. A domestic and foreign policy de-securitization process occurred in which the role of the military in Turkish decision-making diminished. This process of “normalization” opened up the doors of EU accession. Moreover, military factions and their civilian accomplices in the bureaucracy lost a considerable amount of their influence. Some of the military cliques that perpetrated illegal activities such as outlining “war-game scenarios” that could potentially lead to a military coup were brought to justice and sent to prison.

This de-securitization brought transparency and accountability in domestic politics. It increased basic freedoms and per capita GDP. It restored Turkey’s relations with Greece and enabled constructive negotiations to reunify Cyprus – a country that had been divided between Greeks and Turks since 1974. This started a constructive normalization process with Armenia, which has a long border with Turkey that has been closed since 1991 due to the Armenia-Azerbaijan dispute. Turkey increased its bilateral trade relations with almost all regional countries, including Syria, Iraq, Bulgaria, Georgia, Russia and Ukraine.

There were three major interconnected game changers of this positive outlook: a large-scale corruption scandal in 2013, the release and reactivation of all jailed Eurasianist deep-state military personnel and an attempted military coup in 2016. The power situation in the Turkish military changed considerably after these three events, and consequently, Erdoğan and his inner circle had to abandon the successful negotiation process with Kurdish separatists for a political solution to the problem and give up their pro-Western foreign policy orientation, including its democratization side effects. This new power situation eventually culminated in the criminalizing of all former allies of Erdoğan: liberals, Kurds and Gülenists. The anti-Western faction in the Turkish military maximized its power and dismissed large numbers of military personnel of all ranks – almost 50 percent of all generals and admirals of Turkish forces and about 18,000 high, middle and low-ranking officers – after the 2016 coup attempt. Currently, the reactivated deep-state military personnel are in key positions in the Turkish armed forces.

In the Western media, analysts have difficulties explaining why Erdoğan turned his back on his Western allies, terminated the political solution process with Kurdish separatists, suspended the constitution and changed the state architecture. They cannot understand why he has arrested or detained about 500,000 people in Turkey, jailed 11 democratically elected Kurdish lawmakers as well as more than 100 Kurdish mayors from the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) and over 160 journalists, and discharged 170,000 public servants and 8,000 academics. These numbers indicate the extraordinary extent of this purge. Even the military intervention of 1980, which was a full-scale coup that abolished the constitution, led to the firing of only 4,891 public servants, 148 academics and 576 military officers. In the current situation, the number of fired public servants is 35 times higher, the number of purged academics is 54 times higher and the number of purged and jailed military personnel is 31 times higher than after the full-scale coup. The number of dismissed public servants and other purged people is evidence demonstrating that the Turkish Republic has been replaced by another state. Erdoğan and his inner circle do not reflect the real power constellation in Turkey.

Aside from the period during which Ankara warmed to the EU’s democratic values, the Turkish military has always played an important role in Turkey’s politics. The existence of several cliques or factions in the Turkish armed forces is also a well-known fact. The unusually high number of purged officers and civilian public servants after the 2016 coup attempt point to an obvious anomaly. In the current regime, Erdoğan and his inner circle are certainly not to be underestimated. But can Erdoğan alone control the powerful Turkish military? Why did Erdoğan terminate the “Solution Process” with the Kurds? It was his greatest project and the biggest risk of his entire political career. Why did he change course in Syria and in Turkey’s general foreign policy orientation? Why did he decide to develop a strategic partnership with Russia? Why did he purge so many soldiers in the Turkish military and bureaucracy? Did he really need a purge to such an immense extent? Understanding Turkey’s derailing is not only an academic concern but also highly relevant for NATO and the future of the eastern Mediterranean, the Middle East, and Europe.

I think this comprehensive policy shift occurred because of Erdoğan’s new deep-state partners. Current Turkish politics clearly demonstrates the immense influence of Eurasianist deep-state elements that control the Turkish military and – temporarily – tolerate/support Erdoğan, since they are using his power to convince Islamist-conservative grassroots groups in Turkish politics of the necessity of the current political course. Interestingly, the opposition (except for the Kurds, of course) such as the left-nationalist wing of the CHP, which currently controls the party, and the ultra-right-wing of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) agree, especially with the aggressive military strategy in Kurdish politics (both in Turkey and in Syria) and the anti-Western foreign policy orientation. It is hard to say whether the cooperation of the opposition with current key policies is based on voluntary cooperation or on direct strategic collaboration with the deep state. This alliance, which is currently powerful but also fragile, will remain until Erdoğan loses his credibility and charisma with the masses in Turkey. In Turkey, there is no iron-fisted type of monolithic Erdoğan regime, but rather a power balance. Once we face this reality, we will start to truly comprehend Turkey’s present situation.With turkishminute.

A Turkish al-Qaeda-linked operative who worked as a handler for the killer of Russian Ambassador Andrei Karlov in 2016 turns out to have been on the Turkish government payroll as a cleric attached to the Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet) since 2011, while his elder brother was also working for the Diyanet as a mufti in a district of Ankara, Nordic Monitor has found out.

İbrahim Bilal Oduncu, a 35-year-old jihadist figure who had worked with the assassin, Mevlüt Mert Altıntaş, has been serving as muezzin (deputy imam) at Ankara’s Gimat Mosque, according to the indictment in the Karlov case. The investigation determined that as of January 2017 he was still receiving a salary from the government under the budget allocated to the Yenimahalle district Mufti Administration. A flurry of contacts, both in person and over the phone, between Bilal and the 22-year-old riot police officer who gunned down the Russian envoy in December 2016 were revealed.

 

 

Furthermore, according to an investigation report prepared by the Financial Crimes Investigation Board (MASAK), the Russian ambassador’s killer wired funds to Bilal on Nov. 7, 2015 and July 7, 2016 for a total of TL 1,100. A day before he killed the Russian ambassador, Altıntaş called Bilal and told him he had a collection of religious books including jihadist materials written by leading al-Qaeda ideologues and wanted to donate them for the use of others because he was reassigned to a post in Diyarbakir and had to move.

 

 

Bilal gave three separate statements to authorities on Dec. 21, 2016, May 25, 2017 and Jan. 3, 2018, meaning that he had to respond to additional questions as the probe revealed more details about the extent of his contact with the killer. Yet the Turkish prosecutor did not conclude that he should be tried as a suspect or accomplice in the case but rather listed him as a witness. It is obvious that he was protected from criminal charges by people in the government who were watching out for him.

Nordic Monitor identified Bilal and his brother Murat Oduncu as individuals who have for some time been leading a Turkish al-Qaeda-affiliated front NGO that is operational in Turkey’s capital of Ankara with the protection of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s government. Both of them were in contact with the killer and involved in activities to support jihadists in Syria. Another brother, Metin Ali Oduncu, who is also a district mufti working for the Diyanet, and his son Muhammed Selman Oduncu were involved with the killer to varying degrees.

 

 

The NGO’s name is the Hamra Organization for Humanitarian Relief and Religious Research (Hamra İlmi Araştırma ve İnsani Yardımlaşma Derneği), which was established and run by the Oduncu brothers. The Cordoba Youth Movement (Kurtuba Gençlik Hareketi) is the youth wing of Hamra and has been active in recruiting Turkish jihadists for the war in Syria, raising funds and procuring logistical supplies for their brethren there. The Oduncu brothers also run operations on behalf of two other Islamist NGOs, namely İhsan ve Hizmet Derneği and Paylaş Uluslararası İnsani Yardım Derneği. The former mainly focuses on the dissemination of jihadist literature, while the latter is involved in charity work.

 

 

The assassin Altıntaş reached out to Bilal through Murat, the elder brother, over the Internet, and the two later met at Murat’s store, called Ünal Market. A friendship developed from there. Bilal later met Altıntaş three to four times and one time even invited him to his home for a talk. The conversation between the two mainly focused on Syria, and Altıntaş expressed his desire to leave the police force and go to Syria for jihad. The killer also attended Quran lessons delivered by Bilal in the Hicret Mosque in Ankara’s Etlik district. Altıntaş was part of a WhatsApp group set up by Bilal to communicate with the cell’s other members.

 

 

On Dec. 18, 2016 Altıntaş posted a message in the WhatsApp group asking if anybody was interested in taking his books as he was moving from Ankara. Bilal replied and said he could drop the books at his brother Murat’s store and that he would pick them up from there. Altıntaş brought the books in a suitcase and left them for Bilal in his brother’s store. When Altıntaş arrived at the store, Muhammed Selman was working at the market and took delivery of the books.

 

 

According to a report dated Sept. 21, 2018 and incorporated in the indictment, Altıntaş possessed several jihadist books written by Bülent Tokgöz, who used the assumed name of Yahya Konuk in his writings. Tokgöz is a battle-hardened, long-time jihadist who travelled to Chechnya, Bosnia and Kashmir in the 1990s. He was arrested along with five other Turkish nationals on Jan. 31, 2001 as part of a crackdown on radical religious groups. Tokgöz and his friends (İzzettin Tunç, Talip Kara, Burhan Kavuncu and two businessmen identified only by their first names, Halil and Salim) were responsible for planting bombs in front of the Russian Consulate General in Istanbul on Nov. 15, 1999 and at Russia’s Aeroflot ticket office in the Beyoğlu district of the same city on Dec. 8, 1999. Therefore, it is not surprising that Karlov’s assassin was inspired by Tokgöz, who had taken part in terrorist acts against Russian interests in the past. Tokgöz remains at large today and is believed to be in conflict zones outside of Turkey.

 

 

   

 

In the summer 2015 Murat Oduncu arranged a meeting with the assassin and Tokgöz’s cleric, Mehmet Emin Akın, a Turkish Salafist cleric who runs an Islamist NGO called Merhamet Eğitim ve Kültür Derneği (Mercy Education and Culture Association) in Ankara. Akın was detained by police in May 2017 as part of an Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) probe but was quickly released after the Erdoğan government’s intervention amid an outcry from his own supporters. Interestingly enough, Akın’s website published a letter he had received from the jailed Tokgöz, whose books inspired the Russian ambassador’s assassin. The letter was sent to Akın on March 22, 2002, when Tokgöz was serving time in a prison in central Eskisehir province. Akın addressed the jihadist Tokgöz as “brother,” while the latter called the former Aziz Ağabeyim ve Hocam (Respected Elder Brother and My Preacher).

In other words, both the man who tried to blow up the Russian Consulate with 35 kilograms of explosives in 1999 and the man who killed the Russian ambassador in 2016 had the same master. The Turkish prosecutor also ignored this link and did not pursue any probe into Altıntaş’s contacts with the cleric Akın. What Tokgöz failed to accomplish in taking down a high-profile Russian target in Turkey was accomplished by Altıntaş, who read Tokgöz’s jihadist books. Akın, who met killer and talked to him in person, was not named as a suspect, either. He testified as a witness.

 

  

Jihadist books owned by the killer of the Russian ambassador.

 

Another book the assassin had was popular jihadist reading material about Syria and resistance groups there written by Abdülkadir Şen, who was a suspect in a 2014 al-Qaeda probe in Turkey. Şen was exposed while moving supplies to jihadist groups in Syria, but the investigation, which also uncovered Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization’s (MIT) close cooperation with al-Qaeda groups in Syria, was quickly hushed up by the Erdoğan government. In the same case file Abdülkadir’s brother, İbrahim Şen, a convicted al-Qaeda terrorist who was running a recruitment and trafficking scheme between Turkey and Syria, was also a suspect. İbrahim Şen was detained in Pakistan on alleged al-Qaeda links and transferred to Guantanamo, where he was kept until 2005, when US officials decided to turn him over to Turkey. He was arrested in January 2014 and indicted in October 2014 but let go at the first hearing of the trial in October 2014. His brother Abdülkadir also escaped criminal charges thanks to political cover provided by Erdoğan. He was not named as a suspect in the Karlov case, either, even though Abdülkadir met the killer in person and talked to him.

 

 

Other books the Russian ambassador’s killer handed over to his contact in Ankara included translated volumes written by Abu Yahya al-Libi, one of the most senior figures in al-Qaeda who was killed in June 2012 in a drone attack in Pakistan, and Anwar al-Awlaki, known as the father of global jihad and a founding member of al-Qaeda who was killed in 1989 in Pakistan. Incidentally, these and many other jihadist books are freely sold in Turkey, while numerous publications critical of the Erdoğan government are banned and collected from bookshelves. In some cases even the publishing houses are unlawfully seized. It says a great deal about the approach of the Turkish government when it comes to violent jihadist literature.

 

 

In his testimony to the police, 26-year-old Muhammet Selman said his uncles went to the border province of Hatay on the night of Dec. 13, 2016 to attend a program organized by the Foundation for Human Rights and Freedoms and Humanitarian Relief (İnsan Hak ve Hürriyetleri ve İnsani Yardım Vakfı, or IHH) and came back few days later. The IHH was named by Russia as a front outfit that sends arms and supplies to jihadist groups in Syria with the help of the Erdoğan government. The intelligence documents attesting to that fact were submitted to the UN Security Council by Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin in January 2016. When the killer went to drop off the books, Selman was minding the store. He said his uncles had some business to attend to on Dec. 18, 2016 and that they had asked him to take care of the shop in their absence.

 

 

The Oduncu brothers shut down their social media accounts after the murder of the Russian ambassador and tried to cover their tracks, but there was overwhelming evidence already recorded to suggest that they are a dangerous gang bent on radicalizing more people like the assassin policeman. On the night of a false flag coup attempt on July 15, 2016 the Oduncu brothers were one of the jihadist groups that mobilized in the streets of Ankara. They were among the crowd in front of Ankara police headquarters where they were given MP-5 machine guns. A video recording I managed to find shows them preaching and distributing jihadist materials in front of Erdoğan’s palace in Ankara, while Murat Oduncu was waving a black and white jihadist flag. As of today, they continue to act with impunity from a base of operations in an Ankara neighborhood where the Turkish intelligence agency’s headquarters are located.

 

Mufti Metin Oduncu, a 54-year-old cleric who is on the government payroll and responsible for many Imams and mosques in the Güldül district of Ankara, also testified as a witness in the Karlov murder trial. Police brought him in for questioning at the counterterrorism department on Dec. 21, 2016. He claimed his brothers were innocent and framed by the killer. Metin Oduncu served as a Diyanet imam in Oslo, Norway, between 2003 and 2007. He has been working for the government as a mufti since September 2014.

 

 

 

 

Above are seen Kurtuba youth movement posters on the Internet that show how they praise Osama bin Laden, condemn Erdogan’s chief critic, the US-based Muslim scholar Fethullah Gülen, and run an operation to send pickup trucks to jihadists in Syria.

Twenty-five years ago two young Islamist party candidates defied all odds and became the mayors-elect of Turkey’s two largest cities, İstanbul and Ankara.

The success of the now-closed Welfare Party (RP) in the 1994 local elections paved the way for its success in the 1995 general election, making the RP the most popular Islamist party in Turkey’s history, with over 20 percent support. However, RP leader Necmettin Erbakan’s journey of glory was going to be disrupted by a military intervention three years later.

One of those young mayors, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of İstanbul, has managed to make his way to the top, becoming the country’s first president with vast executive powers after a change in the system of governance in a narrowly backed 2017 referendum, while the other, Melih Gökçek of Ankara, remained mayor of the Turkish capital until his resignation that same year.

After the 2019 local elections, in which the ruling party lost İstanbul and Ankara in the initial vote count, many Turkey experts, observers, politicians and journalists recalled those days. A few courageously claimed that a shift in power was on the way.

Anyone who can read the numbers might easily assume that there is indeed a shift in power under way, but then it must be asked: Is it the end of President Erdoğan’s regime?

What is AKP’s share in reality?

According to the state-run Anadolu news agency, the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) garnered over 44 percent of the vote across the country; however, the number is deceiving because the AKP partnered with the Nationalist Movement Party in dozens of cities, especially in three big metropolises. Therefore, the AKP’s so-called vote, just over 44 percent, contains a significant number of votes from MHP supporters.

Seyfettin Gürsel, a Turkish academic and columnist, wrote that in 24 provinces, where the AKP and MHP were not allies but competitors, the latter increased its support from 18.2 percent to 27.9 percent compared to last year’s general election, while the former plunged from 48.8 percent to 37.8 percent.

Gürsel speculates that Turkish voters have indeed changed course from the AKP to other parties, but the new direction differs in various regions. In the Central Anatolian and middle Black Sea regions, disgruntled AKP voters cast ballots for the MHP, but in the Southeast they went for the Kurdish opposition.

In central Anatolia

Another two examples are from AKP strongholds Konya and Kayseri. In the 2014 local elections, the AKP garnered the support of around 65 percent in Konya. The MHP got 18 percent that year. While together they were able to reach 83 percent, in the 2019 local elections the AKP-MHP alliance received only 70.53 percent of the vote. In last year’s general election, their cumulative vote in Konya was 76 percent. Interestingly, their opponents’ share did not change much, remaining at near 20 percent in total.

The same pattern can be observed in Kayseri as well. While they had in total some 85 percent in the 2014 local elections in this Central Anatolian city, the AKP-MHP alliance could only win 63 percent of the vote in Sunday’s polls. A significant factor here was the İYİ (Good) Party, which broke off from the MHP after a 2017 referendum. This nationalist, right-wing party allied with Republican People’s Party (CHP) garnered more than 30 percent in Kayseri.

Nationalists on the rise

Polling expert Özer Sancar predicted before the local elections that the MHP grass roots might be reluctant to support AKP candidates in cities where these two parties were allied. His prediction may explain the plunge in Konya and Kayseri votes, but it’s not enough, obviously.

On the other hand, despite forming an alliance in more than 50 cities, the MHP competed with and outperformed the AKP in nine cities, one of which was Karaman, where the AKP had over 50 percent support in the 2014 local elections. Let’s remember, in last year’s presidential and parliamentary elections, although their alliance managed to attract some 52 percent support, it was the MHP that increased its support, while the AKP suffered a decline.

Public backlash over economy

A look at the metropolises, especially the six largest cities in Turkey, namely, İstanbul, Ankara, İzmir, Bursa, Antalya and Adana, clearly indicates that the AKP-MHP alliance also suffered from a public backlash stemming from a poor economy. According to the unofficial results, in five of these big cities the opposition alliance, CHP-İYİ Party, won the local elections. Although İzmir has always been a stronghold for the CHP, in İstanbul, Ankara, Antalya and Adana the municipalities changed hands.

Turkey went into a spiral of rising inflation and high interest rates after a currency crisis last summer, causing skyrocketing prices for everyday goods. Following a global financial crisis, which according to Erdoğan had a limited effect on Turkey, in the 2009 local elections the AKP had also faced an 8 percent decrease in nationwide votes, garnering only 38 percent and losing important mayoral posts in Antalya, Mersin and Adana.

In other words, when the main concern of Turkish citizens is the economy, support for the ruling party diminishes.

However, President Erdoğan still has the charisma to win a referendum or election that could threaten his status. Only clever management of municipalities in Turkey’s largest cities can break the spell in the long run, and that is why Erdoğan’s AKP will press harder to change the results in İstanbul, and even aim to undermine new mayors’ authorities at office.