Turkish Forum

Author: Aylin D. Miller

  • America’s top cops in Istanbul during attack

    America’s top cops in Istanbul during attack

    America’s top cops in Istanbul during attack on consulate
    Thursday, July 10, 2008
     
    ISTANBUL – Turkish Daily News

      The armed attack in front of the American Consulate in Istanbul took place at a time when high-level U.S. drug enforcement agents were in town to attend the 26th International Drug Enforcement Conference, bringing together top law enforcement officials from 91 countries.

      When the attack took place at around 10:30 a.m. yesterday, Michele Leonhart, the Drug Enforcement Agency’s, or DEA, acting administrator; Scott Burns, deputy director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy; and Mark Destito, the DEA’s Regional Director based in Ankara were briefing a group of journalists at the conference venue in the Conrad Hotel in Beşiktaş district, 10 kilometers from İstinye, where the consulate moved a few years ago.

      The news of the attack, which left three Turkish police officers dead, sent shock waves through the U.S. agents who organized the conference with the Directorate of the Turkish Police.

      During the press briefing, which likely began around when the 15-minute gunfight between the Turkish police and the assailants started, Turkish law enforcement officials were praised for their success in intercepting drug trafficking passing through Turkey.

      “Turkey seized 15 to 16 percent of the heroin coming from Afghanistan. Turkey has done such a good job that drug smugglers have started to take a different route rather than the Balkan route, which is the primary corridor for Afghan-produced drugs to reach Europe. The anchor point for the Balkan Route is Turkey, which remains a major staging area and transportation route for heroin destined for European markets,” said the Interpol Web site. 

      “Turkish authorities need to be recognized because they have put so much pressure on the drug lords that they started to change methods and routes,” said Leonhart.

       Answering a question regarding the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, Leonhart recalled President Bush’s decision to use a U.S. drug trafficking law to impose financial sanctions on the PKK.  “This allows us to cut off organizations helping the PKK in their criminal activities,” said Leonhart. 

      Scott Burns from the White House said those using drugs are funding terrorism.

  • Al-Qaeda might be behind Istanbul attack

    Al-Qaeda might be behind Istanbul attack

    NTV news channel reported : Turkish police suspect the gunmen behind Wednesday’s attack on a guardpost outside the US embassy in Istanbul might belong to Al-Qaeda. Police had found information linking the gunmen to Afghanistan, leading to suspicions that the attack was inspired by the Al-Qaeda network.

  • Ataturk veneration challenged

    Ataturk veneration challenged

    Nationalists and Islamists pursued by prosecutors

    Nicholas Birch THE WASHINGTON TIMES
    Thursday, July 10, 2008

    ISTANBUL | In a contest for the affections of schoolchildren in their respective countries, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln would have a tough time competing with Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey.

    Every school in Turkey has what is called an Ataturk corner, including a bust and list of his accomplishments. Excerpts from Ataturk speeches are part of every public building. His mausoleum in Ankara is a national shrine, and his image appears as a shadow on one mountain twice each summer, a few days before and after the spring equinox.

    More recently, Ataturk helped inspire Osama bin Laden, whose primary goal is to restore the position of caliph, or Muslim leader, that Ataturk abolished in 1924.

    Read more…

  • Turkey at the Crossroads: No Passport Required

    Turkey at the Crossroads: No Passport Required

    By Patrick J. McGinnis
    Article Date: Thursday, July 10, 2008

    Patrick McGinnis

    Over the last year, Turkey has been in the news with some frequency. From mammoth street protests against the perceived deterioration of societal secularism to the Parliament’s approval of Islamic headscarves in universities, Turkey is passing through a time of profound internal discussion. Since I’ve been to Turkey almost 20 times in the last two and half years, I’ve had a front-row seat to this process. In fact, I was in Istanbul a few weeks ago when the court system overturned the headscarf law and banned them once again.

    Turkey’s largest city, Istanbul, is a timeless city that has been populated for over 6,000 years. It is typically referred to as the crossroads between East and West as it sits on the two shores of the Bosphorus, which is the narrow body of water that separates Europe and Asia. Thus, in a typical day, one can wake up in Europe, cross a bridge to have lunch in Asia, and take a cab back to Europe by early afternoon.

    The first time that I visited Turkey, in late 2005, I had no idea what to expect given the fact that Turkey is a Muslim nation. Somehow, I expected Istanbul to feel very Middle Eastern, conservative, and Islamic. Like many visitors, I found something quite different from what I had imagined. Istanbul is a highly cosmopolitan city with an energetic nightlife, and citizens that look and dress like their neighbors in Europe. In fact, most visitors to Turkey would find Istanbul to have plenty in common with the other great cities of Europe. As any Turkish person will remind you, while they are largely Muslim, the Turks are not part of the Arab world, but rather have their own distinct culture that is quite different from the Middle East.

    Scratching below the surface, one quickly learns that Turkey is a complex place. First of all, it’s in a tough neighborhood. With neighbors like Iran, Iraq, and Syria, things don’t stay quiet for too long in the region. Second, Turkey is a country that is constantly wrestling with the interaction between religion, secularism, democracy, and modernity. While many Turks in Istanbul and the western part of Turkey consider themselves European and secular, the heartland and eastern section of the country are far more conservative, religious, and traditional. It’s not unlike the red state/blue state divide that we see in the United States.

    The pull between East and West is a fundamental element of life in Istanbul. For example, my company’s office is located in a part of the city that would fit in well in Vienna or Prague. The streets are lined with luxury goods stores and girls in the latest Parisian fashions cautiously navigate their way across the streets in high heels. At the same time, directly across the street is a large and historic mosque that broadcasts the Muslim call to prayer five times per day. Yet in the mosque’s courtyard there is an über-trendy cafe where Istanbul hipsters dressed in jeans and t-shirts drink lattes, oblivious to the religious programming going on next door. Still, at the same time, in another part of the city, visitors will see women wearing headscarves shopping at local markets. In sum, Istanbul, much like Turkey itself, won’t — or can’t — allow itself to be easily classified.

    My experiences in Turkey have taught me that the line between a religious and secular society can be very blurry. Take the example of Ramadan, the Muslim holy month during which observant Muslims are required to abstain from food and drink from sunrise to sunset. First of all, let me note that Ramadan is one of my favorite times of year. As a non-Muslim, I’m not required to fast during Ramadan, although I try not to eat of drink in front of those who are fasting. The payoff comes at sunset when the massive meal to break the fast, or ifthar, is served. Although I’ve made none of the sacrifices entailed in fasting, I get to take part in a veritable feast. It’s sort of like having Thanksgiving every day for a month.

    In any case, while in some nations like Kuwait, Muslims and non-Muslims alike are forbidden by law from eating or drinking in public during the season, Turkey is quite the opposite. Fasting is an individual choice and in cities like Istanbul, as many citizens choose to fast as those who do not. In that way, Turkey does not fit the traditional perception that most Westerners have about Muslim nations. Instead, in its approach to religion, Turkey, at least in cities like Istanbul, reminds me much more of a nation in Europe or even the United States. Of course, I haven’t yet been to the rural east of Turkey — but then again, I haven’t been to rural Alabama either.

    Source :

  • Turkey Versus Turkey

    Turkey Versus Turkey

    Turkey Versus Turkey

    By SONER CAGAPTAY
    FROM TODAY’S WALL STREET JOURNAL EUROPE
    July 8, 2008

    The jailing of two retired Turkish generals over the weekend has heightened tensions between the government in Ankara and its critics. The generals are among 21 people whom police have detained over the past week, including a senior industrialist and a prominent journalist, on suspicion of plotting a coup against the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) government. Interestingly, the interrogations occurred as the chief prosecutor appeared before the constitutional court to make his case that the AKP be shut down for violating the state’s official secularism.

    David Klein

    While this showdown immediately revived the cliché of the “real Turks” of the AKP fighting off the “secular elites,” this is not a case of the pious, popular masses versus an irreligious intelligentsia. Both Turkeys in this power struggle are religious, both are wealthy, and both are equipped with powerful media and security assets. Still, the outcome will have a profound effect on Turkey’s future direction.

    The AKP has been ascendant since winning 47% of the vote in the July 2007 elections. That result was an improvement on its previous showing at the ballot box, and many viewed it as proof of the AKP’s strength. But the other way to look at it is that 53% of the Turkish electorate did not vote for the party. If secular Turks have their sympathetic journalists and their cadre of wealthy businessmen, so does the AKP: Pro-AKP billionaires abound in Istanbul, and they own around 50% of Turkey’s media outlets. What’s more, even Turks who voted for secular parties are religious: Opinion polls show that over 90% of Turks, regardless of which side of the political fault line they fall on, practice Islam. Finally, well-connected Turks suggest that while secular Turks can rely on military intelligence, pro-AKP groups control police intelligence.

    The struggle is for Turkey’s soul, specifically whose vision should win the age-old debate in Turkey between religion and politics. Secular Turks want to keep religion firmly separated from politics, education and government, while the AKP sees no harm in bringing religion into these realms.

    The AKP has been winning this struggle of late. The military, long considered a bastion of secular Turkish politics, is in disarray. In the latest incident, a Turkish general was unwittingly videotaped while discussing confidential information about another general’s health, and the recording posted on YouTube. This was all the more embarrassing because the general speaking in the video is responsible for electronic warfare — and has been busy fighting a spate of recent condemning leaks about top military brass, including top secret military documents published in pro-AKP media.

    The powerful secular business community, too, feels the pinch of six years of single-party rule. It’s true that Turkish businessmen of all persuasions have prospered from economic growth under the AKP. There was even a time when Tusiad, a lobbying group of secular business leaders, felt comfortable with the AKP, as Tusiad could offer the party advice and act as a check on its power.

    That does not seem to be the case today. Emboldened by its electoral victory, the AKP is steadfastly ignoring secular Turkey. The government’s first postelection move was to press media outlets owned by Tusiad members to fire prominent journalists, such as Emin Colasan and Asli Aydintasbas, who had not supported the party during the campaign.

    The AKP has also used legal loopholes to transfer large media companies, such as Sabah-ATV, Turkey’s second-largest media conglomerate, to pro-AKP businessmen. The government first charged Sabah-ATV’s owners with improper business practices and then passed control of the company to a national regulator. The regulator then sold the media group at an auction that had only one bidder: an AKP supporter who appointed Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s son-in-law as the media group’s new CEO.

    Media companies aren’t the only businesses threatened by this newly muscular AKP. The CEOs of several major Turkish banks and other companies have told me that if a firm criticizes the government, the financial police soon visit its offices to find a potentially devastating problem with its books. In the Byzantine world of Turkish bureaucracy, this is not such a difficult task.

    The AKP’s dismissive attitude toward secular Turkey also became apparent in the debate over a new constitution. Turkey indeed needs a liberal new constitution. Shortly after its 2007 victory, the AKP started to draft a new constitution but vehemently refused any input from outside its ranks, even telling its erstwhile supporter Tusiad to “keep away.” The new constitution has yet to be finalized and has turned into a partisan project.

    Then, in February 2008, the AKP passed a law permitting the wearing of the Islamic-style headscarf on college campuses. The Islamic headscarf is the most divisive social issue in Turkey, splitting the country in the same way abortion divides American society. Yet the AKP changed the status quo on the headscarf issue in just three weeks, once again dismissing public debate.

    These developments led to harsh action by secular Turkey. The constitutional court has reversed the AKP’s legislation on the headscarf issue, and the country’s chief prosecutor has begun a case to shut down the party for breaching the country’s constitution, which says that Turkey’s secular nature is inviolable. The court will decide the AKP’s fate later this summer.

    It’s in this context that one has to assess the past week’s jailings and other arrests since last year. The government has certainly targeted some real criminals — some of whom are outright mafia types, and some of whom may have been contemplating a coup. But the police have also detained honest critics of the AKP, such as journalists. The government seems to try to harass these journalists by arresting them together with real criminals. Even if they are released later without any charges, in the public eye the reporters might still be guilty simply by association.

    One such opponent that the AKP has targeted is Turkey’s oldest daily newspaper, Cumhuriyet, which has been steadfast and often alone in its criticism of the AKP ever since the party came to power in November 2002. Among the arrested last week was Cumhuriyet’s Ankara bureau chief, Mustafa Balbay. This follows the March 21 jailing of the paper’s 83-year-old editor, Ilhan Selçuk, at 4:30 a.m. at his Istanbul apartment.

    Mr. Selçuk was released after a two-day interrogation about private phone conversations, including chats with the paper’s correspondents, which the police had wiretapped. Almost four months later, the authorities have yet to bring charges against him. This story is a case in point: Turkish journalists tell me privately that they believe the AKP government has intercepted more than 1.5 million phone and email conversations involving its secular opponents. These journalists are left to wonder who among them will be jailed next.

    * * *

    So it’s clear that neither secular Turkey nor the AKP will go down without a fight. The question is who will win this battle for Turkey’s soul.

    There are two possible outcomes. In 2001, when the constitutional court shut down the AKP’s predecessor, the Welfare Party, the Islamists conceded defeat. At that time they had neither massive public support nor billionaire donors nor media backup to rely on. But that scenario is unlikely today, since the picture now is very different. The AKP is as well-equipped as secular Turkey. Hence, instead of conceding defeat, the party is more likely to fight on, cornering the military and using intelligence assets, the arrest and intimidation of opponents, and the financial police to create a more compliant society. The AKP will crush dissent when necessary, and cajole the business community into acquiescence.

    If the AKP wins, Turkey will not become a Shariah state; fundamentalist Islam is alien to the Turkish soul. However, it will become a country in which dissent is difficult, and a society suffused with a new, intimate version of a religion-state relationship. Islam will dominate politics and education and will shape the government’s administrative actions — such as curtailing women’s employment and the issuance of alcohol licenses. In other words, it will be less like secular, liberal-democratic Italy and more like authoritarian, semisecular Jordan. This is indeed a battle for two very different Turkeys.

    Mr. Cagaptay, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, is the author of “Islam, Secularism and Nationalism in Modern Turkey: Who is a Turk?” (Routledge, 2006).

    See all of today’s editorials and op-eds, plus video commentary, on Opinion Journal.

    And add your comments to the Opinion Journal forum.

  • TURKEY PUSHES FOR D-8 LEADING ROLE

    TURKEY PUSHES FOR D-8 LEADING ROLE

    By Gareth Jenkins

    Tuesday, July 8, 2008 Published by jamestown Foundation

    On July 6 Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan announced that Istanbul had been chosen as the site for the permanent secretariat of the Developing Eight (D-8) organization.Speaking after the Eleventh D-8 Foreign Ministers’ Council Meeting in Kuala Lumpur, Babacan declared, “Until now there was a temporary secretariat in Istanbul, which we have now decided to make permanent” (Dunya, July 7).

    The idea of the D-8 was first discussed in October 1996 by the then Turkish Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan, the chairman of the Islamist Welfare Party (RP), who was eager to create a Muslim alternative to the EU and what was then the G-7. The organization was formally established on June 15, 1997, in Istanbul. The eight member countries that give the organization its name are Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan and Turkey.

    After Erbakan and the RP had been forced from office in Turkey by a campaign of pressure coordinated by the staunchly secularist Turkish military, subsequent Turkish governments paid little attention to the D-8, although they were also reluctant to withdraw from the organization. Despite its name, the defining characteristic of the D-8 has always been religion rather than the relative level of development of the member states’ economies.

    Since first taking office in November 2002, Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has sought to strengthen the country’s relations with predominantly Muslim countries in fulfillment of what the party’s leadership regards as Turkey’s natural role as one of the leaders of the Islamic world. It has intensified contacts with other members of the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) and lobbied vigorously to ensure that, in January 2005, Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu became the first Turk ever to serve as Secretary General of the organization, a position he still holds.

    The chairmanship of the D-8 is held for two years on a rotating basis by one of its members. The Foreign Ministers’ Council Meeting preceded the meeting of the biennial D-8 Summit, which opened in Kuala Lumpur on July 7 and at which the chairmanship of the D-8 was transferred from Indonesia to Malaysia (D-8 official website, www.developing8.org). The summit is expected to approve the decision to base the organization’s permanent secretariat in Istanbul and to discuss the implementation of a Preferential Tariff Agreement (PTA) on selected goods traded among member countries. Although all eight members have agreed to the PTA in principle, only two, Malaysia and Iran, have ratified it to date and it needs four ratifications before it can come into force (D-8 official website, www.developing8.org).

    The framework for the D-8 temporary secretariat was agreed upon at the previous D-8 Summit in Bali, Indonesia, in May 2006. The current secretary general is Dipo Alam from Indonesia. Speaking in Kuala Lumpur, Babacan announced that Alam would remain in office for another four years following the upgrading of the temporary secretariat in Istanbul to permanent status.

    “After that, the member states will choose a secretary general for a four-year term in alphabetical order. According to this system, the next secretary will be chosen by Iran, then by Nigeria,” said Babacan (Anadolu Ajansi, July 6).

    Babacan also predicted that the subsequent summit meeting would finalize a proposed visa agreement to facilitate closer economic ties among member states.

    “The only state not to have signed the treaty regarding visas was Malaysia but it has agreed to sign the document during this meeting,” said Babacan. “Thus the treaty allowing businessmen from the eight states to meet and visit each other easily is now complete” (Anadolu Ajansi, July 6).

    On July 3 a D-8 Business Forum was held in Kuala Lumpur to discuss biotechnology, renewable energy and the development and regulation of the halal industry, which ensures that activities, particularly the production and processing of food, comply with Islamic precepts.

    Alam admitted, however, that such meetings had so far failed to have a significant impact on economic relations among D-8 member states. “The total trade of D-8 nations to the world reached $1 trillion last year, while among member states was only $60 billion. This accounts for only five percent of our trade to the world,” he said. “Our combined population is 930 million, so the market is there” (D-8 official website, www.developing8.org).

    However, whatever the Turkish government’s religious reflexes, the simple reality is that for the foreseeable future, the D-8 cannot represent a viable alternative, or even a substantial supplement, to its trade with the West, particularly with the EU, which currently accounts for around half of all of the country’s foreign trade. Perhaps more importantly, Turkey’s 1995 Customs Union agreement with the EU requires Turkey to ensure that any tariff agreements with third countries are in harmony with those of the EU.

    Nevertheless, Babacan is likely to regard ensuring that the D-8 secretariat is based in Istanbul as a personal coup. Since taking over from Abdullah Gul as Turkish Foreign Minister in August 2007, Babacan has appeared out of his depth and, particularly in terms of Turkey’s stalled EU accession process, frequently invisible. He has often been mocked by his political opponents as having ambitions that outstrip his ability. They have also noted that whenever a particularly important foreign policy issue is involved, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan ensures that he handles it himself rather than entrusting it to Babacan. In this context, any success that Babacan can claim, however minor, is likely to be welcome, particularly as the leading members of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) begin to position themselves for the inevitable changes in cabinet posts if, as appears likely, the party is closed in late summer or early fall.