Category: News

Turkey’s Opposition Takes the Shine off Erdogan’s Victory
Apr 1, 2019 | 21:24 GMT

(YASIN AKGUL/AFP/Getty Images)

Stratfor’s geopolitical guidance provides insight on what we’re watching out for in the week

Turkey’s government and political institutions are heavily controlled by Turkey’s powerful ruling party, the Justice and Development Party of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. In March 31 local elections, the largest opposition party challenged some of that dominance in Turkey’s largest cities when it won mayoral races in Ankara, Izmir and Istanbul, according to preliminary data. The close races in Turkey’s biggest cities show that Turkish voters worried by the country’s unstable economic conditions are divided over whether the ruling party or the opposition can best help Turkey emerge from a nascent recession. To maintain its dominance over the next several years before the next elections, the ruling party will have to adjust its messaging and reassess its alliances.

What Happened

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan won yet another election on March 31, but few victories have been as pyrrhic as this. Twelve parties competed for thousands of local government posts at the municipal and provincial level. According to preliminary results (official results might not be available for many weeks) the Justice and Development Party (AKP), an Islamist and populist party that has governed Turkey since 2002, gained 44.3 percent of the votes in mayoral contests, ahead of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), a secularist party, with 30.1 percent. Trailing behind was the AKP’s right-wing ally, the National Movement Party (MHP) at 7.31 percent; the CHP’s nationalist ally, the Good Party, at 7.45 percent; as well as the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) at 4.24 percent. The AKP also won 41.61 percent of the overall vote for the provincial assemblies across the country, far ahead of the MHP, which garnered 18 percent.

Crucially, however, the AKP lost the capital, Ankara, and appears to have come second in the country’s largest city, Istanbul. Indeed, the AKP’s candidate in Istanbul, former Prime Minister Binali Yildirim, said early April 1 that his CHP challenger, Ekrem Imamoglu, received 25,000 more votes than he did but that election clerks declared 216,000 votes invalid. As a result, both parties are calling for a recount.

Why It Matters

The results are mixed for the government. The AKP has won an overall victory in terms of votes, especially the provincial assembly vote. But in the mayoral races in several key cities, including Ankara and Istanbul, as well as the CHP stronghold of Izmir, the main opposition beat the AKP, according to the Supreme Election Board. If the results in Ankara and Istanbul are confirmed, it would deal a highly symbolic blow to the AKP. The party (or one of its predecessors) has ruled each since 1994. Moreover, Erdogan launched his political career as mayor of Istanbul in the mid-1990s, while Ankara has long been a bastion of AKP support.

Losing the popular vote in Turkey’s major cities highlights the AKP’s tough balancing act: It needs to court popular support at a time when the fragile economy demands that the AKP do the exact opposite by implementing structural reforms.

What We’re Looking for Next

How will the government deal with citizens’ economic stress? The shift in Turkey’s urban centers, the first in a quarter century, stemmed in part from the deep economic strain which many Turkish citizens are feeling — and which more and more are blaming on the government. On the day after the election, Erdogan promised to enact better economic policies, while his son-in-law and finance minister, Berat Albayrak, promised to double down on the government’s economic rebalancing program, which envisions a reduction in fiscal spending on government programs. But losing the popular vote in Turkey’s major cities highlights the AKP’s tough balancing act: It needs to court popular support, which it has typically done through economic stimulus, at a time when the fragile economy demands that the AKP do the exact opposite by implementing structural reforms, including austerity measures.

What does this say about Turkey’s demographics? This is the first local election in five years, and Turkey’s population is younger than ever. Young citizens might have tuned out the AKP and its populist and Islamist values in favor of the CHP, which is stronger in urban secular areas. This is one reason why the AKP will have to reassess its platform. Whatever the case, the close margins highlight Turkey’s intense polarization over social and economic issues, which suggests that authorities will encounter more difficulties making policy and implementing reforms in the years to come.

What does this mean for the AKP’s alliance strategy? The AKP will also reassess its alliance strategy, in which the party has recently relied on working closely with nationalist allies like the MHP. That alliance might have worked against the AKP by splitting some of the votes it could have garnered. The AKP will recalibrate its platform and message after these races, even though there are still four years to go until more important general and presidential races.

What does this say about the opposition? Turkey’s typically fragmented opposition finally figured out a way to work together and support a single candidate in many key races. The HDP, for example, did not field candidates in Turkey’s five largest cities, and encouraged its followers in those cities to vote for the CHP candidate, thereby tipping the balance. Mansur Yavas of the CHP won the Ankara mayoral race by uniting a combination of nationalists, leftists, secularists and conservatives on a platform to restore Ankara’s prestige and improve the city’s overall conditions. Yavas’ victory in Ankara sets him up to be a prominent future opposition figure in the often unwieldy CHP. Meanwhile, Imamoglu is a young (he was born in 1970) businessman who was formerly the mayor of the western Istanbul district of Beylikduzu. If he survives the coming recount, Imamoglu will have the chance to use Istanbul — which, at more than 15 million people, is almost as large as neighboring Greece and Bulgaria combined — to build a national platform and become a potentially major player in the CHP and the opposition in general.

Turkey’s typically fragmented opposition finally figured out a way to work together and support a single candidate in many key races.

What does this say about the government’s relationship with Turkey’s Kurds? In addition to acting as kingmaker in major races in western Turkey, the HDP also won most of its key races in the Kurdish-dominated southeast, particularly Diyarbakir. In the latter, the party scored more than double the figure of its main rival, an AKP candidate who had been running the city for more than two years as a government-appointed trustee after authorities removed the erstwhile HDP co-mayors for alleged ties to terrorists. The HDP’s success in the southeast and strategic support for the CHP in the west highlight how the AKP has lost some of its ability to court Kurds, who make up roughly 20 percent of Turkey’s population. This was the first local election in five years, during which time the AKP moved more aggressively against Kurdish politicians in an attempt to damage their appeal to the Kurdish voter base. Already, Erdogan has extended an olive branch of sorts, referring to Turkey’s “Kurdish brothers” in an indication that he might need to appeal to the oft-maligned community, even as he works to contain Kurdish militants in the southeast and in Iraq and Syria.

What happens next? Both the government and the opposition will continue to trade accusations of election fraud; at present, the Istanbul race will come down to the electoral board’s decision. The opposition doesn’t trust the electoral board, which has frequently sided with the government in past elections. The AKP is well-positioned to challenge the results — as appears likely to happen. The election board has already conceded that the CHP has more votes than the AKP in Istanbul, but each will push for a recount before either one can claim ultimate victory in Turkey’s most important municipal race.
- Copyright ©2019 Stratfor Enterprises, LLC. All rights reserved.
April 4, 2019
is Turkey and an armed system completely independent from the NATO possible?
Why should Turkey buy the S-400 and have an armed system independent from the USA?
6:16 April 1, 2019

2288
Experts:

Mehmet Perincek
Turkish-American relations have never been in such a crisis. The causes of this crisis are clear:

– US support for Kurdish separatists and its plan for a great Kurdistan.

– The role of Washington in the attempted coup on June 15, 2016 and the use of US Gulenist against Turkey.

– Trump’s announcement of an economic war against Turkey.

Facing threats from the United States, to ensure their national security, Turkey began to look for alternative armed systems. Although Turkey is a member of NATO, it has become a target of Washington. Because of this, firstly the Americans stopped supplying the necessary weapons, secondly the armed systems dependent on the USA did not meet the needs of present times.

In this regard, Turkey decided to buy the Russian anti-aircraft missile system S-400, which annoyed Washington very much, and the crisis between the two countries has grown. Even Trump’s administration saw this purchase as a betrayal and has threatened Ankara several times.

On this issue, we reached out to Turkish political scientists and military experts to discuss the S-400 crisis with them and the actual needs of the Turkish Army for its armed system.

“INCREDIBLE DEGREE OF MISTRUST BETWEEN US AND TURKEY”

Commenting on Turkish-American relations for USA Really, Prof. Dr. Hasan Ünal, an expert on Turkish foreign policy, pointed out that there has been a security and political dimension all along:

“There has been an incredible degree of mistrust between the two NATO allies. The US’s efforts to carve out a Greater Kurdistan in the Middle East of Iraq, Syria in particular, and Turkey, linking it through a corridor to the Eastern Mediterranean is certainly a very disturbing element in US-Turkish relations from Ankara’s point of view. Notorious US efforts to bolster up the PYD in Syria, for example, despite repeated warnings from Ankara, have fostered this mistrust to a considerable degree. Ankara does not presumably think that it is going to have to encounter Russia or any Russia-backed force in the foreseeable future in this part of the world.”

“TURKEY WILL NOT CHANGE ITS MIND”

On the other hand, everyone is wondering if these threats of sanctions repeatedly pronounced by US officials about the purchase of the S-400 air defense systems from Russia will scare off Turkey. Prof. Ünal emphasizes that Turkey’s decisions are already determined by the needs of the country, and not by threats from the Atlantic:

“I would say that it is less likely than otherwise that these threats are going to make Turkey give up. To put it into some perspective, Turkey desperately needs air defense systems. It would like to buy and jointly produce these systems together with Russia, and Russia’s agreement to sell these sophisticated weapons and to produce them together with Turkey at a later stage is an important inducement. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, Turkey had earlier approached the US with a view to buying them from it but it had been turned down by Washington. The US not only did not want to sell its Patriot missiles, which are not as effective as the S-400s, but it also did not agree with Turkey’s offer of co-production, let alone transfer the technology to Turkey. After Turkey made a deal with Russia about the purchase of the S-400s, the US appears to be more than willing to sell the Patriots but I suppose that it is too late.”

WHAT CHARACTERIZES S-400s AS COMPARED OTHER AIR DEFENSE SYSTEMS

After Prof. Unal explained the geopolitical reasons for purchasing the S-400s, we asked Beyazıt Karataş, the retired Air Force Major General (TUAF), the following question: Is the S-400 responsive to Turkey’s military needs? First he said that the most important indicator for NATO and the West is their opposition to Turkey’s territorial integrity; In this case, it is necessary to question the relations of alliance with these simple facts and take measures accordingly. Then, he told us about the characterization of S-400s as compared to other air defense systems:

“The S-400 Long Range High Altitude Air Defense System has properties two to five times better when compared to other long-range high-altitude air defense systems in terms of their ability, as shown in the table.”

Why should Turkey buy the S-400 and have an armed system independent from the USA?

ARE THE S-400s DANGEROUS FOR NATO?

Having found such an expert, it was imperative to find out whether the S-400 was a danger for NATO, as Washington said it is:

“The S-400 is an air defense system and not an attack weapon. In particular, Turkey, having felt the lack of a long-range system since the 1990s will fill an important gap in its high-altitude air defense system. Very clearly ‘our country, our motherland’ will constitute a threat and it will be used against enemy attacks. This means that it is a system to be used against threats from an enemy country, as it is raised most, not directly against NATO, but from the air, whether it is coming from a NATO member or any country.”

“S-400s ARE ENOUGH FOR TURKEY’S DEFENSE”

Then the conversation with Major General Beyazıt Karataş came to the most important point: Are the S-400s enough for Turkey’s defense?:

“There will never be an air defense system alone. Because every air defense system itself needs air defense protection. In contrast, in the S-400 contract with Turkey, Russia will provide a significant deterrence for the protection of our airspace.

The S-400s will enter our inventory in the 2019-2020 year, according to the agreements to be made to produce our future long-range high-altitude national air defense system. Turkey will make an important contribution to the experience and Turkey-Russian political relations, the military, the defense industry, and the economic dimension will contribute to this development.

As a result, the US and NATO are still hoping that the S-400 agreement will be canceled, as happened with China. The US is putting all sorts of pressure and blocking against Turkey and threatening not to provide F-35 aircrafts if Turkey buys the S-400. It is seen that the US will continue these threats and blackmail until the end. The implementation of the agreement signed on the supply of Russia’s S-400, for safety, also holds great importance in terms of cooperation with neighbouring countries and prestige in the international arena.”

“THE F-35 SYSTEM WILL DAMAGE TURKEY IN TWO WAYS”

On Turkey’s agenda there is not only the purchase of the S-400s, but American F-35s are also being discussed. Major General Karataş considers the F-35s very dangerous for Turkish defense. According to Karataş, in case of a possible war with the US, Turkey could lose control of these fighters. He says that Turkey has other reliable alternatives:

“As it’s known, in January 2019, US President Donald Trump signed the 2019 year budget, and according to the relevant clauses contained in it, if Turkey buys S-400s from Russia, they will prevent the delivery of F-35 aircraft, sa they have repeated in every platform and continues to repeat.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration will try to compensate for possible radical steps regarding Turkey as Congress has done so far. Indeed, in the case of the S-400 coming to Turkey, Congress would not execute the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA)–the US State Department would decide. Of course, the State Department will have to move with instructions from Trump. However, Trump may not be able to bypass the Congress in these processes.

Technical characteristics of the F-35 aircraft include invisibility, a combination of antennas, sensors and cryptographic links to enable NATO to operate jointly, to transfer information to land maritime and other elements. These features can create the perception of “perfect planes.” But from the national logistics point of view, as particularly important considering the problems experienced between Turkey and the US, the F-35 will be out of Turkey’s control. The F-35 system will damage Turkey in two ways.

The first is the Autonomic Logistics Information System (ALIS) and the second Performance Based Logistics (PBL). You are now procuring services from a US company and transferring logistics planning to the US nationally. For example, you want your 25 planes to be active. Under the agreement with Lockheed Martin, the parent company of the F-35s, the company manages this system to provide the activities of these aircraft to keep 25 active. So you can’t manage the activity of your own aircraft. You cannot manage your own logistics system according to the old national system. Yes, this method is economically good, but Turkey-US relations are not as they used to be.

As a result, the US does not give the F-35s to do Turkey a great favor. Because of Turkey’s decision on F-35s, the Air Force will make Turkey 100 percent dependent on the US. This will prevent the development of our national aircraft. While the Turkish Air Force has already been tied to the US by 90-95 percent, it should be lowered. The F-35’s polished, exaggerated charm to be in the US’s orbit will make you 100 percent dependent on the US.

If Turkey does not buy the F-35 aircraft, it won’t be the end of the world. Turkish-Russian military relations are not limited to the intake of air defense missiles, they are also increasing cooperation in space with the production of joint combat aircraft (TF-X), which should be among the priority targets. We can also say that the chance to develop new collaborations outside the US and NATO is now much more important and this is the exactly what the US fears.”

“A NEW ERA IN RUSSIAN-TURKISH MILITARY RELATIONS”

All our interlocutors emphasized the importance and necessity of an armed system independent from the United States. According to the Turkish political scientist Prof. Ünal, since it’s admission, Turkey has learned to develop some sort of an independent security policy for itself. He recalled that initially in the 1950s and early 1960s, it was perhaps like a US/NATO garrison in the Middle East and the Balkans and after the arrival of the infamous Johnson Letter in Ankara, in the summer of 1964, Turkey certainly moulded an independent foreign policy, though it remained in NATO:

“It was after this 1964 policy re-evaluation that Turkey began to cultivate the best possible relations with the Soviet Union, a period that continued right up to the 1980s and even after. During these years, Turkey and the Soviet Union were on the best possible terms on trade and economy and, short of cooperating in security matters, they cultivated very good relations indeed.

Since the end of the Cold War, things took a sharp turn for the better. Despite the Syrian crisis and the shooting down of a Russian fighter jet by Turkey, relations between Ankara and Moscow seem to be steady, and the purchase of the S-400s and possibility of co-production of several systems including S-400s seem to be heralding a new era in Russian-Turkish relations in which cooperation on security and military matters would well be on the agenda too.”

TURKEY CHOOSES ITS FRONT

Based on this, we can say that serious conflict and possible clashes with the United States force Turkey to have an armed system independent from NATO. In this sense, Russia and China are potential partners for Turkey.

Turkey’s choice of the S-400 is not only an economic or technical choice. Although the S-400 has better properties compared to other systems, Turkey’s purchase of the S-400 primarily comes from geopolitical and strategic reasons. Turkey is choosing its front, its side. It is responding to threats from the United States by relocating in Eurasia.

And this is not a choice but a necessity for Turkey. Turkey cannot survive in the Atlantic system, and maintain its territorial integrity and overcome the economic crisis. That is, to continue to exist, Turkey needs Eurasian cooperation.

Beyazıt Karataş is a retired Air Force Major General (TUAF). Major General KARATAŞ served as the 2nd Tactical Air Force Command Chief of Staff in 2005-2006, and the 8th Main Jet Base Commander in 2006-2007. After being promoted to the rank of Major General on August 30, 2007, he served as Deputy Commander of Air Training Command and was assigned to the post of Deputy Undersecretary for Technology and Coordination of the Turkish Minister of National Defense (TMND) from September 10, 2007 to August 13, 2010. Major General KARATAŞ was assigned as the Deputy Commander of 2nd Tactical Air Force Command in 2010-2012 and retired from the Turkish Air Force on August 30, 2012. He has more than 3000 flight hours on different types of aircraft.

Hasan Ünal is an expert on Turkish foreign policy. He holds a Ph.D. from Manchester University, Britain, where he lived between 1986 and 1993. Upon his return to Turkey, he took up a teaching job at Bilkent University, Ankara, in the Department of International Relations. Having worked at several other universities in Ankara, he recently moved to Istanbul Maltepe University.

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Why Turkey’s export rise is hard to sustain

Article Summary

A heavy reliance on imported inputs to manufacture goods for export casts a shadow on Turkey’s hype about headway in foreign trade.

REUTERS/Nir Elias

A truck is driven off a Turkish freighter, docked at Haifa port in northern Israel, Feb. 17, 2014.

As Turkey’s March 31 local elections draw nearer, debates over the ailing economy are flaring up, marked by attempts to use economic data for propaganda, minus any objective and prudent analysis. Turkey’s economic woes last year resulted in a 3% contraction in the fourth quarter, officials announced March 11. Amid the downturn, Turkey’s imports have declined and exports have grown — a trend that both the economy management and some industrialist groups present in exaggerated terms to the public.

In early March, Trade Minister Ruhsar Pekcan made the following comments on the still unofficial foreign trade figures for February: “Despite all problems in global trade, we had the highest February export figure in Turkey’s history. Exports increased 5% in the first two months of the year, while imports decreased 23.1%.” She maintained that the rate of exports covering imports was the most important economic indicator this year and it had reached 87.3% in the first two months, up from about 64% in the same period last year.

The relative increase in exports and the sharp decline in imports is obvious, but what really matters are the dynamics underlying the trend and how sustainable it is.

Turkey’s economy grew only 1.8% in the third quarter of 2018 before shrinking 3% in the fourth one. As a result of the sharp contraction, the importation of items used by the industry — intermediate goods, inputs and investment machinery — has dropped. The decline is a direct reflection of decreasing production and stalling investments. Similarly, the increase in exports is hardly the sign of some industrial boom but has to do with goods produced of now-depleted or stocked raw materials. Hence, the uptick that Pekcan hails is hard to sustain for the time being.

Indeed, the big increase in Turkish exports in recent years has been accompanied by a similar increase in imports. In 2017, exports hit $157 billion, increasing 234% from $47 billion in 2003. Imports, meanwhile, rose 239% to $234 billion from $69 billion in the same period. Consequently, the country’s foreign trade deficit expanded to $77 billion in 2017 from $22 billion in 2003.

In other words, production depends heavily on imports; hence, exports cannot grow without imports. In major export items such as automotive products, food, textiles, apparel, white appliances and iron and steel, the equivalent of up to 60% of export proceeds is spent on imported inputs. Without those imports, production and therefore exportation is not sustainable.

The dependency on imports varies between sectors, but on average it stands at about 60%. This could be observed in the so-called inward processing permission certificates, which denote government incentives to exporters. The “inward processing regime” is the backbone of export activities and, as a policy, has contributed to the exports’ dependency on imports. Under the system, tax exemptions and other perks are granted to industrialists who do processing at home and export their products within a certain period of time. The incentive certificates are published monthly in the official gazette.

Since its introduction in 1996, this incentive system has come to encompass nearly half of Turkey’s exports. Under the system, companies notify the authorities of their export plans, asking for exemption from taxes and fees. In their applications, they specify export commitments and identify what they need to import for that purpose, for which they receive incentives as well.

Though figures vary from year to year, the value of incentivized imports is equivalent to around 60% of the value of exports within the scope of the inward processing regime. In 2010, for instance, the ratio hit 60%, with incentivized import permissions of $33 billion for exports worth $55 billion. In 2017, the ratio was 55%, with the import and export figures standing respectively at $34 billion and $62 billion.

In the 2003-2017 period, dependency on imports reached up to 75% in some categories such as base metal, computers and electronics, while generally standing at some 60% in the automotive sector and around 50% in the food industry.

Several recent examples could give a better idea. According to incentive certificates issued in July 2018, Ford Otosan, a leading automotive company that is part of the Koc business empire, received incentives for exports worth some $1.5 billion, for which it needed to import goods worth $887 million. This means that for the said batch of exports, the need for imports was some 60%. Similarly, tire maker Birsa declared a need for $42 million imports for an export batch of $76 million, meaning a 55% dependency on imports. Icdas, a major company in the iron and steel industry, needed to import items worth $153 million — probably scrap iron — to export goods worth $199 million, which means a dependency ratio of up to 77%.

The reliance on imports is not limited to intermediate and capital goods, extending to subsectors such as food, textiles and apparel, where Turkey is generally known as a competitive country. The importation of wheat to make flour for export is a typical example. In the apparel sector, even basic items such as cloth and yarn are being imported.

The share of imported inputs particularly grew in the 2003-2013 period, when Turkey enjoyed low foreign exchange prices under the impact of an abundant inflow of foreign funds, stimulated by favorable external and domestic conditions. As a result, the importation of many inputs was seen as more profitable than buying them domestically, which, in turn, brought about the demise of many local suppliers.

Such a reliance on imports in the industry has a damaging impact on competitiveness once foreign exchange prices shoot up, as happened last year, making imports more expensive and thus increasing production costs.

To make the old scheme work, one needs to bring foreign exchange prices down, which, in turn, requires an increase in the inflow of foreign capital. This, however, appears a distant prospect for Turkey in the near future. There are serious signs that the Turkish lira has again entered a downward trend, which means that the headway of exporters is limited to stocks since the uptick in exports can hardly be sustained with foreign inputs purchased on the current exchange rates. The replacement of imported inputs and machinery with local ones, meanwhile, requires a steady long-term effort, including most notably a review of Ankara’s growth paradigm, which has for years encouraged construction while ignoring the industry.

Found in: Economy and trade

Mustafa Sonmez is a Turkish economist and writer. He has worked as an economic commentator and editor for more than 30 years and authored some 30 books on the Turkish economy, media and the Kurdish question.

March 13, 2019
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- EU funded programmes in Turkey are helping Syrian refugee children and others (Photo: EU/ECHO/Abdurrahman Antakyali)
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BRUSSELS, 13. Nov 2018, 09:21

The EU is unable to verify with certainty how over €1bn of European taxpayer money was spent on Syrian refugees in Turkey because of Ankara’s data protection laws.

“I can say that this is a serious situation,” chief European auditor Bettina Jakobsen told reporters in Brussels on Monday (12 November).
March 13, 2019
Leaked document sheds light on Turkey’s controlled ‘coup’
Some of the events of 16 July seem to have been forecast in the official document before they happened – or never happened at all (Photo: Reuters)

By Selcuk Gultasli and Andrew Rettman

BRUSSELS, 11. Mar, 12:15
The failed coup in Turkey in 2016 transformed its internal politics and EU relations.

But two and half years later, evidence is trickling out to support what the EU initially suspected – that president Recep Tayyip Erdogan knew what was going to happen and let it go ahead as a pretext to create one-man rule.
Some 110 journalists in jail as crackdown continues (Photo: Reuters)

The new evidence recently came in the form of a document written by a Turkish prosecutor on 16 July 2016, and obtained by an investigative journalist, Ahmet Donmez, who lives in exile in Sweden.

The document is a detailed record of events which took place between the start of the coup and 5AM and 7AM that morning.

It said that putschists in the Turkish air force had bombed the parliament and the garden of the presidential palace, for instance.

They did so. But oddly enough, the prosecutor who minuted the events, Serdar Coskun, dated his record as having been written at 1AM – four hours before it all happened.

Coskun at first kept silent about the revelation.

He then gave an interview to a pro-government journalist in which he confirmed the authenticity of the document, but in which he also said he had made a mistake on the timing.

He had started writing at 1AM, he said, but finished at 7AM and indicated that he forgot to change the time.

Coskun’s explanation lacked credibility because some of the things he minuted as having just taken place never did take place, however.

The non-events he recorded included a siege of the MIT (the national intelligence service), the bombing of the special forces command HQ, and the bombing of the police intelligence bureau.

The Turkish embassy to the EU in Brussels declined to comment when asked by EUobserver.

But for one Turkey expert, the minutes indicate that Erdogan’s people knew exactly what was going to happen, let some of the events unfold in a controlled way as a pretext for the ensuing crackdown, and even began drafting papers beforehand that they would later use in trials against his political opponents.

“Finally, we now know how Erdogan exploited the so-called coup so quickly and ruthlessly … my suspicions are even more aroused,” Andrew Duff, a British former MEP who now works at the European Policy Centre, a think-tank in Brussels, told this website.

Recalling the events of July 2016, Duff said that even back then the coup appeared to contain bogus incidents.

“From watching on TV and social media the events of that night, I was suspicious that all was not as it seemed. I couldn’t understand, for example, how the seizure of the Bosporus bridges by the armed forces could fit into the pattern of a genuine coup d’etat,” he said.

The fact that Erdogan himself was not captured or harmed also looked odd, Duff added.

“In a proper coup, he [Erdogan] would have been the main and possibly only target of the plotters,” he said.

“On speaking to several very well informed sources after the event, I am more than ever puzzled why the coup – if it was a proper coup – failed. The Turkish military have never failed in a coup before…why would they do so now?,” Duff asked.

Wider suspicion

He is not alone in his suspicions.

The leader of Turkey’s main opposition party, the Republican People’s Party (CHP), Kemal Kilicdaroglu, has called the failed putsch “a controlled coup”.

The former president of the European Parliament, German politician Martin Schulz, has said that while the preparations for the coup looked amateurish, the measures taken against it were extremely professional.

The EU foreign service’s intelligence branch, IntCen, which compiles information from EU states’ spy services, also echoed the politicians.

Erdogan blamed the coup on Fethullah Gulen, the head of a religious movement who lives in exile in the US and who is one of his main political opponents.

But the IntCen report on the coup, dated 24 August 2016, and seen by this website, said it was “unlikely that Gulen had the abilities and the capacities to take such steps”, even if some individual Gulenists were involved in the attempted overthrow.

“According to available information, a far-reaching purge of the GM’s [Gulen movement’s] followers in the armed forces and the gendarmerie was planned for early August 2016 based on lists produced by the MIT. Some arrests were already planned for 16 July, the day after the coup attempt”, the EU report added.

“The coup was just the catalyst for the crackdown prepared in advance,” the IntCen report said.

Much has happened since Coskun drafted his fateful minutes back at 1AM on 16 July 2016.

Erdogan has detained over 70,000 people, including opposition MPs, 110 journalists, and human rights defenders.

He has sacked 150,000 public officials and shut down all government-critical media.

He also rammed through constitutional changes under a post-coup state of emergency that gave himself new powers amounting to one-man rule.

Archeology?

Drilling into the events of 16 July and into Coskun’s minutes might seem like political archeology two and half years down the line.

But those events transformed Turkey in ways which continue to shape its foreign relations and the lives of Turkish people to this day.

The idea that Turkey might one day join the EU has evaporated no matter how much it helps Europe to control flows of refugees.

Erdogan’s decision, last weekend, to expel three German journalists, shows that his contempt for Europe has continued to deepen.

“The Turkish government managed to more or less silence the national media, and they are now trying to do it with the international media,” Joerg Brase, the head of German broadcaster ZDF’s Istanbul bureau, who was given 10 days to leave the country, said.

“It cannot be ruled out … that the Turkish government will take further action against representatives of German media and civil society organisations,” the German foreign ministry added in an update to its Turkey travel advice.

“Statements, which are covered by the German legal understanding of the freedom of expression, can lead in Turkey to … criminal proceedings,” it also said.

Meanwhile, Coskun has been promoted to become a member of one of Turkey’ highest courts, the court of cassation.

At the same time, many military officers are behind bars on the basis of trials which referenced his strange minutes in official court records.

Fake history

Erdogan has also instituted 15 July as a national holiday, called the Democracy and National Unity Day of Turkey, in commemoration of the national resistance against the coup.

But documents such as Coskun’s minutes help suggest that holiday is a gross falsification of Turkish history.

“Deploying the coup as a pretext, Erdogan … rammed through his own version of a constitutional coup d’etat to aggrandise and protect himself, to weaken the armed forces and to silence or force into exile Turkey’s intelligentsia,” Duff said
March 13, 2019
Ankara Calculates the Risks of an Offensive in Northeastern Syria
(OMAR HAJ KADOUR/AFP/Getty Images)
Highlights

Amid the U.S. drawdown of forces from Syria, Turkey is gearing up for further incursions in the country to reduce the power of the Syrian Democratic Forces.

Residual U.S. and allied forces will remain, however, raising the risk of a miscalculation or confrontation as Turkish forces push into the area.

Despite improved ties with Russia, Ankara will also have to contend with Moscow’s opposition to Turkey’s full ambitions in the country.

With the United States on the cusp of a significant withdrawal from northern Syria and Turkey continuing to court better relations with Russia, Ankara is gearing up to cross its southern border to pursue its cherished goal of taking on the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). But even as Turkey might soon enjoy clear sailing into northeastern Syria to seek to drive the SDF away from key positions, particularly around the Euphrates, pitfalls remain. From remaining U.S. forces to possible Russian resistance, Ankara’s likely offensive into the area could even drag it into a dangerous conflict with the numerous other countries involved in Syria.

The Big Picture

In our 2019 Annual Forecast, we highlighted the increased risk of clashes between regional and global powers in Syria. The U.S. decision to draw down its forces from Syria has galvanized Turkey to fulfill its goal of launching a military operation against the Syrian Democratic Forces. Such an assault, however, raises the possibility of clashes between Turkey and the other countries operating in the area.

See 2019 Annual Forecast

See The Syrian Civil War

NATO Allies in the Way

Ever since the People’s Protection Units (YPG), a mostly Kurdish militia, emerged as a significant force in Syria, the Turks have been focused on ensuring their ultimate defeat. Fearing the YPG’s ties with Ankara’s archenemy, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) — particularly the prospect that the latter could use northeastern Syria as a platform to launch potential attacks into Turkey — Ankara has prioritized its efforts to eradicate the YPG above all others in Syria, even over the removal of its main ostensible foe in the country, President Bashar al Assad. Turkey’s August 2016 Operation Euphrates Shield to capture parts of northern Syria like Azaz and al-Bab, for instance, came at the cost of supporting the Syrian rebel battle for Aleppo, as Turkey drew a number of rebel forces away from that fight and limited its assistance to the insurgents in the city in exchange for a Russian green light for the operation. Last year, Turkey’s Operation Olive Branch dealt a further blow to the YPG by seizing the group’s longtime stronghold in Afrin. With the announcement that the United States is drawing down its forces, Turkey’s goal of staging another military operation, this time a decisive one east of the Euphrates River to extend Turkey’s buffer in Syria, finally appears to be on the cards.

Still, the picture is not entirely rosy for the Turks. Aware of the U.S. penchant for abrupt strategy changes in Syria, Ankara has remained cautious following U.S. President Donald Trump’s sudden announcement that he was initiating a full withdrawal of troops from the country pending imminent victory over the Islamic State. As it is, Trump gave Turkey more cause for caution after threatening to “devastate Turkey economically” if it attacked the YPG after the U.S. withdrawal. Indeed, the United States has once again retracted its decision to withdraw all of its forces from the area; instead, it now plans to keep a residual force of 400 personnel in Syria, 200 of whom will remain in SDF areas in the northeast.

Other U.S. allies like France and the United Kingdom could bolster these U.S. forces with their own troops, even if these countries could be wary about deploying significant forces in the absence of a larger U.S. presence on the ground. A few hundred American and allied troops are unlikely to deter Turkish military operations against the SDF in such a large area, but their presence could still throw a wrench into Turkey’s plans, as Ankara will strive to avoid moving into specific areas where they are present. More important, the presence of such troops in the vicinity of Turkish military operations raises the risk of miscalculations or accidental clashes that could lead to a rapid escalation in tensions between Turkey and the United States and other NATO members.

Russian Resistance

But other NATO members are not the only countries Ankara will have to worry about. Although Turkish-Russian relations have undergone a remarkable improvement in the last few years, the two nations do not entirely see eye to eye in Syria. Russia remains wary of Turkey’s further expansion in the country, especially if it impinges on the Syrian government, which Moscow is attempting to prop up. While Russia is unlikely to block all Turkish operations in the northeast, it will seek to discourage Turkey from pushing too deep into Syrian territory. And because the SDF is likely to turn to Damascus for assistance in the face of a Turkish assault, Ankara will also have to factor in the potential that it will end up battling Syrian government forces and associated militias — many of which also enjoy Iranian or Russian backing.

Yet another potential Russian stumbling block to Turkey’s operations in the northeast lies far in Syria’s west. In line with the Astana process, in which Russia, Turkey and Iran have sought to manage aspects of Syria’s war, Ankara and Moscow have succeeded in handling the rebel-controlled western province of Idlib, but the countries remain deeply divided on policy in the area — something that could obstruct future cooperation.

Previous agreements between Turkey and Russia facilitated the creation of a so-called de-escalation zone in Idlib, as well as the establishment of a dozen observation posts manned by Turkish forces. Turkey agreed to the arrangement to forestall further Russian-backed Syrian government offensives that would have further weakened Turkish-backed rebel groups in the province, driven further waves of refugees into Turkey and eroded Ankara’s attempts to establish an expansive buffer zone in northern Syria. For its part, Russia was happy to avoid additional military commitments in Syria, both because it wished to draw down its forces in the country and because it did not want to endanger its relations with Turkey. Moscow, however, always intended for the Idlib arrangement to be temporary; what’s more, the agreement stipulated that Turkey would move to dismantle the more extreme rebel groups in the province, such as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the latest incarnation of Jabhat al-Nusra.

The situation in Idlib is a potential flashpoint that could seriously undermine not just Turkey’s position in Syria, but also its wider relationship with Russia.

But Russian patience has been wearing thin over the last six months as Turkey has not just failed to crack down on Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, but failed to contain it to the extent that it has driven other rebel groups, including Turkish-backed groups, from key positions in the province. Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and its allies have also continued to conduct attacks on Syrian government forces along the provincial border in response to cease-fire violations by Damascus, which has never been particularly enthused by the Russian-Turkish arrangement.

Distracted as it is by its primary focus on northeastern Syria, Turkey is now unlikely to stage a significant crackdown on Hayat Tahrir al-Sham. And as the extremist group further entrenches itself in the province, Russia, Iran and the Syrian government might give the go-ahead for an offensive. Naturally, such an assault could have far-reaching consequences. Lodged between the rebels and Syrian government forces, Turkish troops could find themselves under fire. And because Turkey has shown no inclination to abandon its rebel allies in Idlib, it could well choose to reinforce them if they came under heavy attack. Accordingly, the situation in the province is a potential flashpoint that could seriously test and undermine not just Turkey’s position in Syria, but also its wider relationship with Russia.

The U.S. decision to draw down its forces in Syria (even if pared down from the initially declared full withdrawal) will likely pave the way for more Turkish incursions into northern Syria. But as Turkey gears up for military operations against the SDF, it will run the risk of a confrontation with residual U.S. and other NATO forces in the area, along with Russian- and Iranian-backed Syrian government forces that will likely seek to forestall Turkish gains by coming to the YPG’s defense. An attack on Turkey’s rebel allies far to the west could also divert Turkey’s attention from any offensive on Kurdish areas in the northeast. In such a situation, Ankara’s road south may be open, but it will have more than a few bumps.

The Syrian Civil War

The Kurdish Struggle

Turkey’s Resurgence

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