A Year After Failed Coup, the Question of Justice Still Looms in Turkey: Simon Waldman, Globe & Mail, July 12, 2017— Last week, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the leader of Turkey’s opposition, the Republican People’s Party (CHP), led a march from Ankara to Istanbul…
As Turkey and NATO Drift Apart, Russia, China, and Iran Stand to Gain: Marc C. Johnson, National Review, July 19, 2017— On paper at least, NATO is looking pretty healthy.
Erdoğan’s Mission Impossible: Sustainable Turkish-Arab Solidarity: Burak Bekdil, BESA, July 20, 2017— The modern Turkish language refers to an impasse without a solution as “an Arab’s hair.”
The End of Turkey’s Jews?: Michael Rubin, Commentary, May 9, 2017— Much has been written about Turkey’s turn toward Islamism and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s growing autocracy.
EU Threatens to Sanction Turkey for Imprisonment of Journalists: Jerusalem Post, July 20, 2017
Turkish Report Exposes Locations of U.S. Troops in Syria: Benjamin Harvey and Taylan Bilgic, Bloomberg, July 19, 2017
Another Turkish Ambassador Confronts Me: Daniel Pipes, Gatestone Institute, July 18, 2017
Is Turkey Headed for Another Coup?: Mohammed Ayoob, National Interest, July 18, 2017
THE QUESTION OF JUSTICE STILL LOOMS IN TURKEY
Simon Waldman
Globe & Mail, July 12, 2017
Last week, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the leader of Turkey’s opposition, the Republican People’s Party (CHP), led a march from Ankara to Istanbul (about 425 kilometres) under the banner “adalet”, Turkish for justice. He was protesting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his ruling party, which also features the word justice in its name – the Justice and Development Party (AKP). Justice is an important rallying cry in today’s Turkey. The trouble is, it means different things to different people.
Contrasting conceptions of justice loom over the country as it commemorates one year since last summer’s attempted coup. The perpetrators were a faction within the military loyal to Fethullah Gulen, a Pennsylvania-based Turkish Islamic preacher. After the putsch was thwarted, the government declared a state of emergency. Since then, hundreds of thousands of people were either arrested or fired. They include soldiers, police officers, judges, school teachers, university professors and civil service workers.
Turkey’s opposition considers the crackdowns a purge of the government’s opponents, but for Mr. Erdogan and the AKP government, justice is being served. To understand the meaning of justice for Mr. Erdogan and the AKP, one needs to set aside notions such as equality, fairness or the rule of law. Instead, they seek to right past wrongs and reshape Turkish society to represent the interests of its conservative and religious support base, for decades marginalized and suppressed.
The establishment in 1923 of the modern Republic of Turkey took place under the leadership of decorated general Mustafa Kemal. Later adopting the surname Ataturk, meaning father of the Turks, he built a secular state on the ruins of the Ottoman Empire. Outward expressions of Islamic identity were considered an affront to the new modern and “civilized” state. A secular elite emerged while the military became the self-styled guardians of Ataturk’s vision. The armed forces intervened in 1960, 1971 and 1980 against governments not to its liking. In 1997, there was a “postmodern coup.” The military staged a behind-the-scenes intervention against the openly Islamist Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan of the Welfare Party, from which founding members of the AKP, Mr. Erdogan included, were members.
This is why Mr. Erdogan and the AKP see coup plots, some real and some imagined, everywhere they turn. In 2008, the AKP was brought before the constitutional court charged with violating secularism. Narrowly escaping a ban, the AKP was heavily fined instead. That was real. From 2008 onwards, there were the Ergenekon and Balyoz investigations alleging a clandestine alliance between military factions and members of civil society to ouster the AKP government. These were imagined; the convictions were later overturned after irregularities were found. They were also said to be Gulenist fabrications. Mr. Erdogan even considered the 2013 Gezi Park protests a coup attempt.
Regardless, last summer’s events were all too real. This time, Mr. Erdogan, who called it a “gift from God,” seized the opportunity to rid himself of political competition and then spearhead a referendum to gain additional power. He won by the slimmest of margins in an election marred by irregularities and an unfree campaigning environment. Regardless, he will now seek to change Turkey socially, politically and culturally, or at least try.
But Mr. Erdogan’s supporters only consist of half the country. What about the other half? From their perspective, even before last year’s events, AKP rule only brought more cronyism, repression and authoritarianism. Arrests of writers, intellectuals and critics were commonplace. Turkey was considered the world’s largest prison for journalists. But since the post-coup state of emergency, repression has become an everyday reality.
Until 2013, the AKP were bedfellows of the Gulen movement, even encouraging and facilitating Gulenist infiltration into state apparatus. When the sons-in-law of two AKP politicians were arrested, they were soon released, highlighting the extent of nepotism in the country. Surely, if the government was serious about justice it would have taken more care separating the innocent from the guilty, and not absolving itself?
Instead it tries to crush its opposition. Leading members of Turkey’s pro-Kurdish and liberal party, the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), such as Selahattin Demirtas were arrested and remain detained under politically motivated charges related to terrorism, and CHP lawmaker Enis Berberoglu was jailed under spurious espionage charges. As Turkey commemorates the attempted coup, the lofty goal of justice is as far away as ever.
AS TURKEY AND NATO DRIFT APART, RUSSIA,
Marc C. Johnson
National Review, July 19, 2017
On paper at least, NATO is looking pretty healthy. From Tallinn on the Baltic to Dubrovnik on the Adriatic, Churchill’s Iron Curtain has more or less ascended from Eastern Europe, in no small part owing to the NATO expansion process begun after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. But if policymakers have confidence about the political stability and martial resolve of the former Warsaw Pact states, they are also disquieted by developments on NATO’s southern flank. Turkey, long a bulwark against Soviet (later Russian) adventurism, has started to look wobbly.
Most of the concern within NATO’s leadership and in the halls of its member states’ parliaments can be traced back to one man: Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the prime minister of Turkey from 2003 to 2014 and since then its president. Turkey’s foreign policy has shifted since Erdogan’s arrival. Once a stalwart secular Western partner, Turkey is now an increasingly antagonistic and theocracy-curious fair-weather friend. The government of the secular republic founded by Ataturk is now focused more on consolidating political power with appeals to Islamic constituencies than on playing the role of NATO’s southernmost partner. And it’s getting worse, not better.
Erdogan has a long list of grievances, some more understandable than others, with NATO’s largest member states. Not without some justification, he feels that Ankara has been unfairly strung along by Brussels in Turkey’s bid to join the European Union. Turkey’s recent open flirtation with a re-imposition of the death penalty — a red line for the EU’s acquis communautaire — suggests that Erdogan has more or less given up on membership. Erdogan’s open hostility to Germany in particular has been notable. When the German parliament recognized the Armenian genocide of 1915–17, he refused to guarantee the security of German troops posted at Incirlik Air Base, prompting Angela Merkel to threaten to withdraw them. Erdogan’s retort: “Auf wiedersehen.” The German troops began leaving Incirlik in early July.
The Turkish president appears to be interested in building good relations with the Trump administration, but here, too, significant bilateral issues remain unresolved. Erdogan is principally focused on the extradition of Fethullah Gulen, the cleric whose followers were blamed for the failed coup against him last year. So far the new White House has stuck to the previous administration’s position — namely, that it is a matter for courts to decide. (The recent mini-riot caused by Erdogan’s bodyguards in Washington, D.C., didn’t help relations.)
Another person Erdogan wants back in Turkey, but for entirely different reasons, is Reza Zarrab, an Iranian-born Turkish businessman. Zarrab was charged last year with money laundering and skirting U.S. sanctions on Iran. The Economist speculated that the Zarrab case, if pursued in open court, could expose high-level Turkish government corruption. The American prosecutor in the case argued that if Zarrab was granted bail (even the $50 million his legal team proposed), he would be spirited back to Turkey and never face justice in the United States. That prosecutor, Preet Bharara, was dismissed from his position by President Trump in March of this year, but Zarrab remains in custody.
Erdogan’s frustration with the United States doesn’t end there. Ankara, along with Damascus, Moscow, and Tehran, considers many of the Kurdish fighters supported by the United States against the Assad government to be terrorists. Turkey was relatively restrained in its military activity within Syria during most of the Obama administration. Since early 2016, however, the Turkish army has been more assertive, using its participation in joint military operations against ISIS as cover for also hitting Rojava Kurds. If the Kurds were to supplant the Islamic State in Northern Syria, Erdogan fears, they would support PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party) forces within Turkey.
Erdogan’s participation in the anti-ISIS alliance has brought him closer to two countries, Russia and Iran, with which Turkey had previously maintained frosty relations. The Obama administration’s Iran deal resulted in the lifting of many sanctions that Turkey was eager to see go away, and Turkey is already benefiting from additional commerce between itself and Iran. And Erdogan eagerly stepped into the middle of the recent Qatar diplomatic crisis, appearing to take Iran’s side in the dispute and even fast-tracking the deployment of additional Turkish troops to Doha. Turkey’s downing of a Russian fighter jet in November 2015 marked a low point in the bilateral relationship, but tensions have eased since then; Erdogan met with Putin for an hour at the recent G20 event in Hamburg. Turkey is near agreement with Moscow to purchase a version of Russia’s most advanced air defense system, the S-400, in a deal rumored to be worth $2.5 billion. Russia is so keen on moving the deal forward that it reportedly plans to loan Turkey the money to purchase the system. The Russian propaganda outlet Sputnik was quick to trumpet the deal as a “tectonic shift,” a “game-changer in the arms market.”
It goes without saying that Russian air-defense systems are not NATO-compatible, but this isn’t even the first time Turkey has looked outside NATO for such options. It approached a Chinese weapons manufacturer a few years ago but bowed to pressure from Washington to abandon the deal when it emerged that the Chinese company had also supplied missiles to Iran. And Turkey’s spending on defense has been declining since 2009, from the NATO-mandated 2 percent then to 1.7 percent in 2016.
Taken together, these developments raise the question of whether Turkey intends to remain in NATO, and — if push came to shove — whether Ankara would honor its mutual-defense pledge under Article 5 of the NATO agreement, especially if that would mean responding to a military threat from Russia or Iran. It is difficult to make the case that leaving NATO would be a good move for Turkey. But if Erdogan needed a short-term political boost, threatening to leave could position him well domestically as a leader willing to stand up to “Western powers.” His post-coup crackdown on the press (along with public servants) leaves him with fewer journalists likely to call departure from NATO a diplomatic or strategic blunder.
Moreover, there is a precedent for such a seemingly rash action. In 1966, during a period of worldwide societal upheaval, Charles de Gaulle pulled France out of NATO’s military structure. While Paris never fully withdrew its support for the treaty, the country did not rejoin the alliance militarily until 1996. Who would be the biggest loser if Turkey felt the need to withdraw — in whatever form — from NATO? It’s hard to say. Clearly, though, it would be viewed as a massive strategic windfall for Moscow, Beijing, Tehran, and other capitals with an interest in counteracting the influence of the United States and NATO. And it’s a scenario that seems more plausible now than at any point in the alliance’s history.
SUSTAINABLE TURKISH-ARAB SOLIDARITY
Burak Bekdil
BESA, July 20, 2017
The modern Turkish language refers to an impasse without a solution as “an Arab’s hair.” To convince others he is telling the truth, a Turk swears: “I should be an Arab if I am telling a lie.” If Turks wish to describe a negative that is accompanied by something tempting, they say, “Neither an Arab’s [ugly] face nor sweets from Damascus.”
Most of the dozen or so common and rather racist Turkish proverbs denigrating Arabs and their culture date back to Ottoman times, despite the fact that during that period, Turks and Arabs lived in peace, shared a common religion, and did not have major political disputes. After the founding of the modern Turkish state in 1923, however, the Turks’ dislike of Arabs gained rational ground. Modern Turkish textbooks teach children how treacherous Arabs stabbed their Ottoman ancestors in the back during WWI, how Arabs collaborated with non-Muslim western powers against Muslim Ottomans, and how Arabs fought Ottoman soldiers in desert battlegrounds.
All that ingrained anti-Arabism in the Turkish psyche had to be reversed after a Sunni imam took over as Turkey’s prime minister in 2002. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, now president, firmly believes religion must shape friendships and enmities between nations – and even among members of the same nation. With that in mind, he has tried systematically to inject love of the Arab into Turkish society. Since Erdoğan came to power, the number of students enrolled at imam schools – where pupils are taught to pray in Arabic, among other classes – has risen from 60,000 to more than 1.2 million. The Education Ministry added Arabic courses to its curriculum. The state broadcaster, TRT, launched an Arabic television channel.
An exponentially growing number of Turkish Islamists and pundits rediscovered Arabia and its culture. Islam, they argue, and the umma “which one day will unite under a single banner,” should iron out its cultural and linguistic differences. Ali Bulac, a prominent Islamist columnist and one-time Erdoğan favorite (now jailed for belonging to a rival Islamist community, the Gülenists), wrote an op-ed in 2008, “Sushi and Oratorios,” criticizing world-renowned (and secular) Turkish pianist Fazil Say. He wrote, “First of all, music is not a universal product, music belongs to a time, a religion and a place. Say does not play our music, he plays Western music. Our music is Umm Kulthum, Mohammed Abdul Wahab and Abdul Khader Marari. Our people will never enjoy theater, opera, an oratorio or a symphony forced on them by the republican elites.” In Bulac’s mentality, Say’s symphonic masterpieces are not Turkish, but the tunes of Kulthum, Wahab, and Marari – all Arabs – are “ours.”
That kind of thinking has implications for Turkish foreign policy. Erdoğan and then foreign minister (later prime minister) Ahmet Davutoglu launched a charm offensive in 2009 that they hoped would make Erdoğan a “rock star” on the Arab street. To accomplish this, they reflexively confronted all things Israeli or Jewish. This tactic had the desired effect: tens of thousands of Arabs greeted Erdoğan passionately in the main squares of Beirut and Cairo. This was good, but not enough. Erdoğan and Davutoglu devised a plan to launch a Muslim EU and Muslim NATO all in one. In that regional design, two countries were of great strategic importance: Saudi Arabia, which has regional clout; and Qatar, which has money and an ideological commitment to the Islamist cause.
The Saudi-led Gulf siege of Qatar imposed on June 5, therefore, came as a complete shock to Erdoğan and his pro-Sunni optimists. One Sunni brother had taken out the sword against another. Once again, Erdoğan chose religious ideology as his lighthouse. He did not abandon his ideological bond with his brothers in Doha, the same bond he has with his brothers in Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood. His pro-Qatar, pro-Hamas, and pro-Brotherhood position put him on the same wavelength as al-Qaeda, which, in a video, condemned the sanctions against Qatar and pledged support for the Brotherhood.
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said, “At the top of the quality chain, if I can call it that, there are elements of Muslim Brotherhood that have now become part of governments. There are members of parliament in Bahrain that are parts of government. There are members in Turkey that are parts of government.” Not even one-time Sunni brothers in Saudi Arabia are sympathetic to the Turkish position. Erdoğan offered to build a Turkish military base in the Kingdom, but Saudi officials turned him down.
On a doctrinaire and rhetorical level, too, Erdoğan is showing signs of inconsistency. On June 13, he said Gulf sanctions on Qatar were inhumane and violated Islamic values. Which Islamic values? one might be tempted to ask. Erdoğan likened the sanctions to the death penalty, but this was the first time he had ever objected to the death penalty as imposed by his Saudi “brothers.” Naturally, the Saudis show no inclination to be educated about “Islamic values” by a man who dresses in western suits and ties. Taha Akyol, a prominent Turkish columnist, recently noted some research conducted by the pollster Zogby in 2016. The poll found that 67% of Egyptians, 65% of Saudis, 59% of United Arab Emirates citizens, and 70% of Iraqis had an unfavorable opinion of Turkey. If “polling” had existed a century ago, similar numbers would likely have been found in Arabia.
This is the century-long Turkish alienation. Turkey is too far away and alien to Asian Muslims, too western for Middle Eastern Sunnis, too Sunni for the Shiites, and too Turkish for Arabs of all religious denominations.
Michael Rubin
Commentary, May 9, 2017
Much has been written about Turkey’s turn toward Islamism and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s growing autocracy. Turkish officials and their proxies argue, however, that Turkey remains both tolerant and democratic. The problem, they say, is limited to the followers of Islamic theologian Fethullah Gülen and Kurdish politicians and activists whom Erdogan accuses of terrorism. Turkey’s minorities, they say, are safe. The Turkish Heritage Organization, for example, argued, “Turkey has been a safe haven for Jews, Arabs, Kurds, Yazidis and Muslim nations for generations.”
That may have once been true for minorities besides Armenians and Kurds but, increasingly, it’s no longer the case for Yezidis, Christians, and Jews. The Erdoğan years have been scary ones for Turkey’s Jews, with wild anti-Semitic conspiracy theories becoming increasingly commonplace. Many Jews have nonetheless remained hopeful that the repression and intolerance would pass. There were reasons for hope: Turkey was never a perfect democracy but, even after setbacks, its developmental trajectory was toward greater tolerance.
No longer. In many societies, Jews have been the canary in the coal mine. When a country loses its Jews, it is a sign that its democratic evolution has halted. Four years ago, some Turkish Jews began to leave. That trickle appears to be turning into a flood. From the European Jewish Press:
Today Turkey’s Jews, most of whose ancestors sought refuge here from the Spanish Inquisition, are on edge. Their school and synagogues are behind security tunnels, shielded by steel blast protection. “In 2016, the Jewish immigration from Turkey has doubled. In percentage terms, the largest increase of Aliyah registered during this period was the immigration from Turkey,’’ notes the Jewish agency. ‘’It appears to be connected to growing political instability in that country and fears that the Jewish community is being targeted,” the agency says. According to Jewish Agency estimates, more than 220 Turkish Jews moved to Israel by the end of 2016. And 74 Turkish Jews moved to Israel between January and March, almost the triple last year’s quarterly number. The figures seem to reflect a growing insecurity among Turkish Jews, many of whom blame Erdoğan of using anti-Israel rhetoric with anti-Semitic overtones.
The Forward reported that the descendants of many of the Jews who fled Spain for the safety of the Ottoman Empire more than 500 years ago now seek to return to Spain or Portugal:
Over the past 15 months—a stormy political stretch culminating in a disputed vote to expand President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s already substantial executive powers — close to 4,700 Turkish Jews applied for or received passports from Spain, Portugal and Israel. When children of applicants to Spain are added in, the number balloons to over 6,200. The number is cause for concern in a community that totals just 15,500…
Erdogan may meet with American Jewish and Israeli community leaders and offer assurances but, increasingly, such meetings appear to be little more than empty photo opportunities. Simply put, the numbers don’t lie. A centuries-old community appears to be ending faster than most imagined it would or could.
EU Threatens to Sanction Turkey for Imprisonment of Journalists: Jerusalem Post, July 20, 2017—Turkey's arrest of human rights defenders, journalists and opposition is "alarming", the European Union said on Thursday (July 20), calling for their "immediate release". European Commission Chief spokesperson Margaritis Schinas said that EU funding for the country would not necessarily be stopped as a sanction against Turkey, as funding is a matter decided jointly by the EU's member states.
Turkish Report Exposes Locations of U.S. Troops in Syria: Benjamin Harvey and Taylan Bilgic, Bloomberg, July 19, 2017—Turkey’s state-run news agency published U.S. base locations in northern Syria, a move that threatens to deepen distrust between the two allies by exposing American soldiers on the front lines of the fight against Islamic State.
Another Turkish Ambassador Confronts Me: Daniel Pipes, Gatestone Institute, July 18, 2017—In February, Turkey's ambassador to Israel told this author to stay away from his country; at least he did so diplomatically. In June, Turkey's ambassador to Bulgaria treated me in a remarkably rude and undiplomatic manner.
Is Turkey Headed for Another Coup?: Mohammed Ayoob, National Interest, July 18, 2017—On July 15 Turkey commemorated the first anniversary of the 2016 failed military coup with a great deal of pomp, grandeur and public rallies in the major cities.
