Turkey’s migrant deal with Europe may collapse under post-coup attempt crackdown

People wave Turkish national flags as they gather this month at Kizilay Democracy Square in Ankara during a rally against a failed military coup on July 15. (Adem Altan/AFP/Getty Images)

By Michael Birnbaum and Erin Cunningham

Europe

August 23 at 3:00 AM

BRUSSELS — The landmark agreement that halted a torrent of migrants flowing from Turkey into Europe is nearing collapse in the wake of the failed Turkish coup and the subsequent nationwide crackdown.

Turkish and European leaders are threatening to abandon the deal — the Europeans because they say they are worried about widespread human rights abuses, the Turks because of European reluctance to fulfill a promise to drop visa restrictions for Turkish nationals.

Now, even as it detains tens of thousands of people in response to the coup attempt, Turkey has given the European Union an October deadline over the visa pledge — or it will walk away from its commitment to stem the flow.

An end to the agreement, which came after more than a million migrants and refugees entered in Europe in 2015, would mark another blow to the contentious relationship between the E.U. and Turkey, which is petitioning to join the bloc. It could also result in a fresh surge of asylum seekers traveling from Turkey, which would confront E.U. leaders with a new humanitarian and political dilemma after a relatively quiet spring and summer.

Austrian Chancellor Christian Kern said this month that Turkey was headed toward dictatorship, and that Europe should reset talks with the Turkish government.

“I do not know if the deal with Turkey will be officially terminated,” Austrian Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz said in an interview with a German publication last week. But “what we are experiencing now are threats and the attempt by Turkey to give us an ultimatum for visa liberalization.”

On Monday, in a blunt acknowledgment of the rising tension, Turkey withdrew its ambassador from Vienna, for what Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu called “consultations.”

For months, Europe has demanded changes to Turkey’s harsh anti-terrorism legislation before it loosens its visa rules. But Turkey has fired back, pointing to the terrorist attacks that have hit the country in recent years.

Now, as Turkish authorities clamp down on dissent, the dispute is more heated than ever. Where E.U. leaders see rights violations, Turkish officials see measures necessary to head off another coup attempt.

[Turkey’s purge turns a former national hero into a fugitive]

“It cannot be that everything that is good for the E.U. is implemented by our side, but Turkey gets nothing in return,” Cavusoglu told Germany’s Bild newspaper.

“I don’t want to talk about the worst-case scenario,” he said, referring to the potential for another swell of migrants. “But it’s clear that we either apply all treaties at the same time or we put them all aside.”

Migration agencies and analysts say the consequences of the deal’s breakdown are difficult to predict. At stake is Europe’s fragile migration system, more than $6 billion in aid for refugees, and Turkey’s broader relationship with the West.

For thousands of migrants and refugees, their futures may be at risk.

Under the agreement, the E.U. can send back migrants who have arrived from Turkey in exchange for aid and visa-free travel for Turks. Before it went into effect in March, an average of 1,740 asylum seekers, mostly from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, were arriving in Greece every day, according to E.U. figures.

But by May, the average number had plummeted to just 47 a day. And aid agencies say that it was clear Turkish security forces were working to block the stream of people leaving for Greece, which is just across the Aegean Sea.

Although the number of arrivals is down, Greek authorities say they have returned only 482 of more than 10,000 people who have arrived on their shores from Turkey since March. The implementation of the agreement was slow, but deportations were delayed even further when Turkish liaison officers posted to Greece were recalled after the coup attempt, aid officials say.

As part of the wide-scale purge that has followed, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has sought to consolidate control over the security services. In addition to detaining 18,000 military personnel, Erdogan shook up command structures and placed the Turkish coast guard under the control of the Interior Ministry.

The purge “will kill the bureaucracy’s ability to think,” said Aaron Stein, an expert in Turkish politics and a resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center. “So things slow down and grind to a halt.”

[Welcome to Greece’s refugee squats]

The chaos may have also led to a rise in the number of arrivals in Greece over the past month, according to figures from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). More than 2,700 asylum seekers landed in Greece from Turkey from July 15 to Aug. 15, or about 90 a day. And although that is a fraction of last year’s influx, it’s still nearly double the late-spring average.

“We need to be prepared. Contingency, it’s important — it’s something we are doing with Greece and with other countries, telling them you need to be prepared in case this happens,” said William Spindler, a spokesman for the UNHCR.

More than 800,000 men, women and children arrived in Greece last year, overwhelming the nation’s weak response system. Any new spike in arrivals could crowd the camps Greece has established to house migrants and refugees, which are over capacity.

But the greater pressure on Europe may have abated, even if Turkey refuses to patrol its coastline for asylum seekers.

Because western Balkan nations sealed their borders this year, the migrants who make it to Greece are marooned there, unable to press northward. Germany and Sweden, once generous to new refugees, have become less so as their respective governments face domestic backlash for the influx.

“People in Turkey who had been thinking about migrating to Greece know that there they will get stuck, and Greece is not their final destination,” said Eugenio Ambrosi, the director of the E.U., Norway and Switzerland office of the International Organization for Migration, which is involved in providing aid to asylum seekers in Greece and Turkey.

“There are a series of constraints that now exist,” he said, “regardless of the deal.”

Still, a full pullback from the agreement could affect broader cooperation between Europe and Turkey — and also make life tougher for refugees.

The E.U. pledged $3.4 billion in aid for refugees in Turkey, plus up to another $3.4 billion by 2018. This funding could help ease living conditions for the 2.7 million Syrian refugees living in Turkey.

But what happens to that money if the deal falls apart is unclear. And advocacy groups have warned of the human consequences should the two sides walk away from each other.

“Canceling this agreement would inevitably risk a return to smuggling of human beings, illegal trafficking, illegal trade and a massive undermining of human rights,” said Daniel Holtgen, a spokesman for the Council of Europe, a human rights group.

But the post-coup attempt crackdown suggests to some critics that Turkey won’t be able fulfill its human rights obligations under the agreement.

“It’s another nail in the coffin of the deal,” Elizabeth Collett, director of the Brussels-based Migration Policy Institute Europe, said of the crackdown. “It’s another reason to be skeptical.”

Is Fethullah Gülen behind Turkey’s coup? (with update) : https://www.turkishnews.com/en/content/2016/07/31/is-fethullah-gulen-behind-turkeys-coup-with-update-pulat-tacar/

JULY 30, 2016

Is the U.S. behind Fethullah Gulen?

Whenever I talk with another Turk about the Gulen movement, a question invariably props up: is the CIA behind Gulen? In fact for most Turks this is a rather rhetorical question, with an incontrovertible answer. The belief that Gulen and his activities are orchestrated by the U.S. is as strongly held as it is widespread among Turks of all political coloration – secular or Islamist.

This is my attempt at providing a reasoned answer to the question. My conclusion in brief: I don’t think Gulen is a tool of the U.S. or has received support from the U.S. for its clandestine operations. But it is possible that some elements within the U.S. national security apparatus think Gulen furthers their agenda, is worth protecting on U.S. soil, and have so far prevailed on other voices in the establishment with different views. Regardless, the U.S. needs to seriously reconsider its attitude towards Gulen and his movement.

Direct support?

Those who believe the U.S. is behind Gulen typically make two arguments. First, they point to how Gulen got his green card in the first place. The long list of individuals who wrote letters of recommendations on Gulen’s behalf includes two long-time CIA employees (George Fidas and Graham Fuller) and a former U.S. ambassador to Turkey (Morton Abramowitz). These individuals write in their individual capacities and their advocacy was based both on Gulen’s persecution by the then-secularist Turkish judiciary and on Gulen’s apparent promotion of a moderate brand of Islam.

On the latter question, at least, it is fair to assume that these recommenders had only limited knowledge of Gulen’s full corpus, which includes some fairly incendiary stuff against Jews, Christians, the United States, and Western Europe. (Some years ago I showed one of the letter writers a particularly anti-semitic sermons and asked him if he was aware of it; he said he had no idea.)

However, the more important point about his green card that – and one that is overlooked in Turkey — is that the U.S. administration was in fact opposed to giving Gulen a green card. It rejected Gulen’s application, and then strenuously objected in court when Gulen’s lawyers appealed. Lawyers for the Department of Homeland Security were scathing about Gulen’s qualifications and argued there was no evidence he was an individual of exceptional ability in the field of education: “far from being an academic, plaintiff seeks to cloak himself with academic status by commissioning academics to write about him and paying for conferences at which his work is studied.”

Gulen owes his residency not to the U.S. executive branch (and whichever intelligence agency may be hiding behind it), but to a federal judge with scant interest in foreign policy or intelligence matters who somehow nonetheless ruled in his favor. The judge’s argument was that the Administration had construed the relevant field of “education” too narrowly, and should have considered Gulen’s contributions to other areas such as “theology, political science, and Islamic studies.”

The second argument is that Gulen and his followers would not have been so successful in spreading their empire and influence without active U.S. support. I think this severely underestimates the movement’s own capabilities. Gulen has long stressed education, organization, and secrecy. His movement has invested in raising a “golden generation” of smart, well-trained individuals. Lack of resources has never been a constraint, thanks to the contributions of an army of devout businessmen. As the AKP found out to its own chagrin, its most capable and competent public servants turned out to be serving a different master in Pennsylvania. And in any case, this argument exaggerates U.S.’ own capabilities in my view: given the CIA’s history of blunders, there is in fact much that it could learn from the Gulen movement on cloak-and-dagger operations.

The critical question here is whether there is anything the movement has done that it could not have done without active U.S. backing. Did it really need the help of some U.S. intelligence agency to expand its charter-school network, to stage the Sledgehammer trial, or to infiltrate and organize within the Turkish military? I don’t think so.

Tacit support?

The U.S. government may not have had a direct hand in Gulen’s activities, but it is more difficult to dismiss the argument that it provided tacit support – or that some parts of the U.S. administration prevailed on other parts who were less keen on Gulen.

Judging by Wikileaks cables, U.S. diplomats in Turkey were exceptionally knowledgeable about Gulenist activities. These cables are in fact a goldmine of information on the Gulen movement. Form these we learn, among others, about the elaborate ruses used by Gulenist sympathizers to infiltrate the Turkish army, Gulen’s request for support from the Jewish Rabbinate’s during his green card application, and the attempt by sympathizers within the Turkish national police to get a “clean bill of health” for Gulen from the U.S. consulate in Istanbul. We also learn that even in the heyday of their alliance, Gulenists presciently regarded Erdogan as a liability.

Perhaps of more direct interest to the U.S., foreign service officers have long been aware that many Turks have been obtaining visas under false pretenses, with the ultimate aim of ending up as teachers in Gulen’s charter schools. Yet apparently nothing was ever done to stop this flow, nor to hold the movement to account. A ridiculous number of H-1B visas — which require demonstration that no qualified U.S. workers are available — have been issued to Turkish teachers in these schools. One naturally wonders why the U.S. administration never clamped down on the Gulen movement for apparent visa fraud.

The same question arises with respect to the widespread pattern of financial improprieties that has been uncovered in Gulen’s charter schools. A whistleblower has provided evidence that Turkish teachers are required to kick back a portion of their salary to the movement. The FBI has seized documents revealing preferential awarding of contracts to Turkish-connected businesses. Such improprieties are apparently still under investigation. But the slow pace at which the government has moved does make one suspect that there is no overwhelming desire to bring Gulen to justice.

Gulen typically defends himself against such charges by saying that the schools are run by sympathizers and are not directly under his control. Yet the fact is that he took direct credit for the schools in his green card application, saying he had overseen their establishment.

Then there is the Sledgehammer case, which has the Gulen movement’s fingerprints all over it. This and the closely related Ergenekon trials did untold damage to the military of U.S.’ Nato ally. The jailing of hundreds of officers, including a former chief of staff, sowed a climate of fear and suspicion within the army and sapped military morale. Perhaps the U.S. was bamboozled, like many others, early on about these trials. But by now it should know that these sham trials were launched and stage managed by Gulenists. American officials have been quick to complain in public about the damage the post-coup purge has done to Turkish military capabilities. Yet there was not a peep from them during the Ergenekon and Sledgehammer witch hunts; and nor has the U.S. administration expressed any discontent about the Gulen movement’s role in them since.

The failed coup

The mystery only deepens after the botched coup. The U.S. has demanded credible evidence from Turkey on Gulen’s involvement, which is as it should be. But beyond that, it appears from the outside as if administration officials have been interested mostly in throwing cold water on the Turkish government’s claim that Gulen was behind the coup – a claim that is largely justified.

The most egregious example is that of James Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence. Asked whether Turkish allegations that Gulen planned the attempted coup passed the “smell test” of credibility, Clapper answered: “No. Not to me.” Clapper said Secretary of State Kerry “was right on the ball” to press the Turks to back up their extradition request with evidence of Gulen’s involvement, adding: “We haven’t seen it yet. We certainly haven’t seen it in intel.”

Now coming from the head of American intelligence, this is no less than a stunning statement. As the Wikileaks cables I referred to above make clear, the State Department, at least, has been well aware of Gulenist infiltration of the Turkish military for quite some time. The Gulenists’s role in Sledgehammer, which led to the discharge of many of the most Kemalist/secularist officers in the military is equally clear. Beyond Sledgehammer, the Gulenists’ wide range of clandestine operations against opponents in Turkey must be well known to American intelligence. So when the most senior intelligence officer in the U.S. instinctively brushes off Gulen’s possible involvement, it looks awfully like he is either incompetent or has something to hide.

Since Clapper’s statement was made, the head of the Turkish military, who was held hostage by the putschists during the coup attempt, has said that one of his captors offered to put him in touch with Gulen directly. This, on its own, is prima facie evidence of Gulen’s involvement, and likely passes the “probable cause” test that is required for extradition. Incredibly, administration officials are still quoted as saying “there is no credible evidence of Mr. Gulen’s personal involvement.” In other words, these officials must think that the army chief of their NATO ally is lying.

(I will not get into former CIA official Graham Fuller’s silly piece exonerating the Gulen movement, which is at best woefully uninformed, at worst willfully misleading. Fuller has been retired for some time, and I doubt he is playing any role in administration policy.)

So what the hell is going on here?

In light of the confusing signals that come out of the U.S., and the apparent desire of many people in or close to the administration to defend Gulen, it’s not difficult to empathize with those in Turkey who believe the U.S. must be behind Gulen (and, yes, even the coup attempt). I think it is too farfetched to think that the U.S. knew of beforehand or supported the coup. There were far too many risks and too few benefits for the U.S. to be involved. And contrary to what many people in Turkey believe, U.S. intelligence is far from omniscient – so yes, the coup likely did happen without U.S. knowledge.

But it is not farfetched to think that there are some groups in the administration – perhaps in the intelligence branches – who have been protecting Gulen because they think he is useful to U.S. foreign policy interests. This could be because Gulen’s brand/mask of moderate Islam is a rare thing in that part of the world. It could be because taking Gulen down would only benefit groups in Turkey they consider more inimical to U.S. interests – Erdogan’s AKP and the arch-secularists. It is even possible that the movement has occasionally performed services for U.S. intel operations. (Some of Gulen’s schools in Central Asia were used to “shelter” American spies according to a former Turkish intelligence chief.) That kind of thing would not be beneath either the CIA or the Gulen movement.

Perhaps these groups have so far have had the better of the argument and have held the upper hand in the administration against those in State or elsewhere who know full well what the Gulen movement is up to and would rather see him go. In the aftermath of the coup, perhaps this balance will change in favor of the latter. Perhaps not. Whether it does or not, I think the Gulen issue will ultimately explode in somebody’s face in the U.S. The only questions are whose, and when.

I would be the first to admit that this is just a hypothesis. But if there is a better story that explains the U.S. reaction I’d love to hear it.

Extradition?

It is very unlikely that Gulen would receive a fair trial in Turkey. So the U.S. has a legitimate ground for not extraditing him. But the U.S. foreign policy establishment would be making a very big mistake if they simply dismissed the calls from Turkey about Gulen’s complicity. It is easy for the U.S. to hide behind Erdogan’s clampdown and the ill treatment of the putschists. But the U.S. has considerable explaining to do too.

Posted

STRATFOR INTELLIGENCE REPORTS

Turkish armored personnel carriers move through the streets of Istanbul in the early hours of July 16. The plotters of the coup had the element of surprise on their side, but the attempt is already starting to fray. (DEFNE KARADENIZ/Getty Images)

Analysis

Turkey’s coup plotters certainly had the element of surprise working in their favor. The speed in which the military deployed in major cities and took control of critical power nodes showed a high degree of organization and efficiency. However, the coup attempt is already starting to fray, and its chances of failing are high because a polarizing faction is leading it.

There are multiple indications that followers of the Gulen movement embedded within the military are spearheading the coup attempt. The Gulenists are an Islamist movement that has built up significant influence in Turkey since the 1970s. They started with the gendarmerie, where they could take advantage of lax background checks, and gradually worked their way up the military chain of command. When President Recep Tayyip Erdogan felt that the Gulen movement had become too powerful, relations started to fray between the ruling party and the Gulenists. Starting in 2014, massive purges took place to whittle down Gulenist influence in the media and government.

But the Gulenist influence in the military was not fully purged. This may be because of the large amount of blackmail that the Gulenists retained on major military figures to prevent their own dismissals. In essence, an Islamist faction within the military that has deeply alienated the secular strongmen within the armed forces is the one leading the challenge against Erdogan. In other words, it is not a coup backed by Turkey’s secular political, military and civilian opposition. This is already evidenced by signs of a countercoup led by a number of military commanders and the national police, as well as by the main secular opposition Republican People’s Party leader saying it is against the coup.

As we saw in Turkey’s 2015 elections, when the Justice and Development Party won 49.5 percent of the vote, the country is deeply polarized among secularists, Islamists, Kurds and nationalists. Turkey has a number of fault lines that breed opposition to Erdogan’s Islamist-leaning political agenda and neo-Ottoman foreign policy direction, but on the other side of those splits are a substantial number of supporters who legitimately support the president. Moreover, there are many Turks who are anti-Erdogan yet also anti-coup, and who remember the deep economic and political instability of Turkey’s coup-ridden past. This coup attempt is the product of an Islamist division within the military – and divisions within divisions do not spell success for a coup.