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12th president of Turkey

Referendum Deepens Fragmentation in Turkey

Referendum Deepens Fragmentation in Turkey

Publication: Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 7 Issue: 168

September 20, 2010

By Saban Kardas

In the Turkish referendum held on September 12, voters supported the constitutional amendment package promoted by the governing Justice and Development Party (AKP). Despite earlier forecasts and opinion polls, the changes were approved by a wide margin: 58 percent voted in favor, while 42 percent opposed the amendment (Anadolu Ajansi, September 13). This rather surprising outcome will have significant implications for Turkish politics, possibly accelerating social fragmentation.

The referendum marks a major victory for the ruling AKP. Through their aggressive campaign, the opposition parties Republican People’s Party (CHP) and the Nationalist Action Party (MHP) had worked hard to present the referendum as a vote of confidence for the government (EDM, July 13). These two parties, which formed a “no front” against the reform package both during the parliamentary debates and in the referendum, had substantial reasons for objecting to the proposed constitutional changes. Yet, overall their mobilization strategy was based on a knee-jerk criticism of the AKP’s policies. In contrast, the AKP stated on many occasions that they would not capitalize on yes votes and present them as support for the AKP. The AKP, instead, defined the changes as a move towards the democratization of Turkish politics. Other smaller parties on the right of the political spectrum, which supported the AKP’s argument, mobilized their supporters in favor of the changes. However, for a great portion of Turkish voters the content of the constitutional changes was less important than their party affiliation (Hurriyet Daily News, September 15).

The results can be interpreted as a reaffirmation of domestic support for the AKP’s tenure in power. This success represents the sixth major electoral victory for the AKP under Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Since 2002, the AKP has won two parliamentary elections and two municipal elections, and managed to pass constitutional amendment packages in two referendums. Following the latest result, many observers expect the AKP to win the next national elections slated for 2011. With this unprecedented track record, the AKP machinery has emerged almost as an invincible force in the Turkish political scene, raising the question as to how it will use its power. AKP representatives already indicated that they would revive the debate on introducing a new constitution, most likely following the 2011 elections. Many liberal and reformist groups, as well as the European Union, therefore, welcomed the referendum result, because they believe that the expression of support for the constitutional changes will put pressure on the AKP to maintain its momentum towards the further democratization of the Turkish political system. Earlier, the AKP had come under criticism for slowing the pace of political reform required by the EU membership process (Hurriyet Daily News, September 14).

A more interesting question, however, concerns how Erdogan, who can claim credit for AKP’s unprecedented track record, will use this power to secure his personal position in Turkish politics. Many observers expect Erdogan to run for the presidency after the current President Abdullah Gul’s term expires in 2012. The next president will be elected by popular vote according to the constitutional changes of 2007. One drawback for Erdogan is that in Turkey’s parliamentary system, presidents can exercise only limited influence. Given Erdogan’s interest in political power, he might also push for a more radical overhaul of the Turkish political system. Erdogan has already initiated a debate on replacing the current parliamentary system with a presidential system. It remains a possibility that Erdogan will revive such a debate, in order that he might eventually lead a strong presidential system (Anadolu Ajansi, September 13).

This unprecedented popular support and resulting latitude that the AKP and Erdogan have gained in restructuring the Turkish political system has triggered anger among the AKP’s opponents. Erdogan announced that his party will seek consensus with other parties, as they work on a new constitution. However, many of the AKP’s critics argue that after the AKP managed to curb the power of the Turkish military, it has moved on to undermine the power of other state institutions, mainly the independent judiciary. The AKP’s critics believe that as a result of the recent constitutional changes, the system of checks and balances has already been undermined, and if the AKP continues on its current path, it might eventually form a civilian despotism and suppress secular segments of the society.

Therefore, the representatives of Turkey’s secularist opposition and speakers from the high courts have maintained that although they respect the people’s choice in the referendum, they would continue their struggle to maintain judicial independence and not allow the AKP to take complete control of all state institutions. As a result, the fragmentation in Turkish politics and society appears to be deepening. The aggressive campaign prior to the referendum and the statements from the representatives of the AKP and its opponents indicate that secularist and nationalist groups represented by the CHP and MHP on the one side, and conservative and liberal groups represented by the AKP on the other, will remain engaged in a fierce battle over how to define Turkey’s political system and values. Moreover, this fragmentation also has geographic ramifications. While the provinces in central Anatolia and the Black Sea region supported the constitutional changes, the provinces in the western coastal areas and Thrace voted against the changes. This distribution corresponds closely to the results of the 2009 municipal elections, whereby coastal areas voted for the CHP and MHP and central Anatolian provinces voted for the AKP (EDM, March 31, 2009).

Another division is hidden in the voting patterns in the Kurdish speaking provinces in Eastern Turkey. Pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) called on its supporters to boycott the referendum. Low voter turnout in many of the eastern provinces shows that the BDP controls a large section of the Kurdish vote, which corresponds to the results of the 2009 elections. With this boost of self-confidence, the BDP is likely to intensify its campaign to disconnect the Kurdish-speaking areas from Turkey’s mainstream political system, in line with its strategy of demanding “democratic autonomy” for the Kurds. As such, the referendum results might also deepen the divisions around the Kurdish issue, further accelerating Turkey’s social fragmentation.

https://jamestown.org/program/referendum-deepens-fragmentation-in-turkey/

September 20, 2010
SYMPATHY FOR THE TURKISH DEVIL

SYMPATHY FOR THE TURKISH DEVIL

By Spengler

The American commentariat is shocked, shocked , to discover that Turkey has abandoned the Western alliance for an adventurous bid to become the dominant Muslim power in the Middle East. Tom Friedman of the New York Times suggested on June 15 that “President [Barack] Obama should invite him for a weekend at Camp David to clear the air before US-Turkey relations get where they’re going – over a cliff.” Friedman blames the European Community for rejecting Turkey’s membership bid which, he says, was a “key factor prompting Turkey to move closer to Iran and the Arab world”.

But it is not quite so simple. Friedman and the conventional wisdom are wrong, as usual. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is behaving dreadfully, to the point that a group of retired senior Turkish diplomats denounced him for “neo-Ottomanism”. But Turkey has not moved closer to Iran, except in tactical diplomatic terms. The problem is more subtle: America’s blunders in Iraq gave Iran the chance to become a regional hegemon, and Turkey must vie with Iran for this role as a matter of self-preservation.

It was not the European Community, but rather the George W Bush administration, that pulled the rug out from under Turkey’s secularists and built up Erdogan as a paragon of “moderate Islam”. America’s feckless nation-building policy in Iraq helped Turkey over the edge into Islamism.

In a recent essay [1], I portrayed the Mavi Marmara incident in which nine Turks were killed by Israeli commandos onboard one of the six boats attempting to breach the blockade on the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, as a Turkish farce. It should be obvious to anyone with access to YouTube that Erdogan conducted an exercise in guerilla theater, which qualifies as a comedy of sorts unless you were one of the dead Turks on the boat. What has transpired over the past eight years, though, is a tragedy.

Turkey is held together by weak glue. It never was a nation-state, despite founding father Kemal Ataturk’s ferocious efforts to make it appear to be one. Kurds comprise somewhere between six million and 20 million (the Kurdish nationalists’ claim) of Turkey’s population, and Kurdish separatism poses a continuing threat to Turkey’s national integrity.

For the usual corrupt and foolish reasons, world opinion has focused on the nine dead Turks on the flotilla; of far greater consequence are the several dozen Turkish soldiers who died at the hands of Kurdish guerillas in the past two weeks. More important still are the 2,000 or so Turkic people who died in Kyrgyzstan in the past weeks. Much less distinguishes a failed state like Kyrgyzstan from an apparently successful state like Turkey than Westerners think.

America is about to leave Iraq; Iraq is likely to break up; and if an independent Kurdish state emerges from the breakup it will become a magnet for Kurdish separatists within Turkey. Erdogan has 1,500 Kurds under arrest, including the mayors of some Kurdish towns.

Ataturk’s post-war secularism defined “Turkishness” as a national identity that had never before existed. “Turkishness” is something of a blood pudding. Ottoman identity had nothing to do with nationality in the Western sense. It was religious and ethnic. A fifth of the population of Anatolia before World War I was Christian, mainly Armenian and Greek; virtually all were expelled or murdered. The Turks killed more than a million-and-a-half Armenians, employing Kurdish militia to do most of the actual dirty work (that is why what is now “Turkish Kurdistan” was until 1916 “Western Armenia”. The modern Turkish state was born in a bloodbath, and founded on massive population shifts. The enormous Kurdish minority got the southeast as a consolation prize but still longs for its own language, culture and eventual national state.

Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was a monster, but for the Turks a useful monster. The 1988 Anfal campaign against the Kurds of northern Iraq killed up to 180,000 of them, and the crackdown on the Kurds after the 1991 First Gulf War killed as many as 100,000. The Turks, by contrast, killed perhaps 20,000 to 40,000 Kurds during the 1980s and 1990s.

Turkey in 2003 refused America permission to open a northern front against Saddam out of fear that the war would destroy Turkey’s ability to control its restive border. The destruction of the Iraqi state, moreover, created a de facto independent Kurdish entity on Turkey’s border, the last thing Ankara wanted. If America had simply installed a new strongman and left, Turkey would have been relieved. But America’s commitment to “nation-building” and “democracy” in Iraq, to Ankara’s way of thinking, meant that Iraq inevitably would break up; the Kurdish entity in northern Iraq would become a breakaway state; and Iran’s power would grow at the expense of Turkey.

Turkey has many reasons to fear Iran, whose possible nuclear ambitions make it a prospective spoiler in the region. But there is another vital issue. Among the fault lines that run through the modern Turkish state is a religious divide. Iran exercises influence through the Alevi minority in Turkey, a heretical Muslim sect closer in some ways to Shi’ite than Sunni Islam. No accurate census of the Alevi exists; they may comprise between a fifth and a quarter of of Turkey’s population. The late Iranian leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, declared the Alevi to be part of Shi’ite Islam in the 1970s, and they have been subjected to occasional violence by Sunni Turks.

The Iraq war undermined the position of the Kemalist military, which had bloodied its hands for decades in counter-insurgency operations against the Kurds. Erdogan’s Islamists argued that the weak glue of secular Turkish identity no longer could hold Turkey together, and proposed instead to win the Kurds over through Islamic solidarity. The Kurds are quite traditional Muslims; unlike the Turkish Sunnis, the provincial Kurds of southeastern Turkey and northern Iraq often practice female circumcision.

After the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the George W Bush administration saw no reason to back the Turkish generals who had let them down in Iraq, and instead threw their backing to the Islamists, on the theory that Erdogan represented a sort of “moderate Islam” that would provide an example to other prospective democratic Muslim regimes. When Erdogan won parliamentary elections in 2003, Bush invited him to the White House before he took office, a gesture that persuaded most Turks that America had jettisoned its erstwhile secular allies, as I wrote in 2007. [2]

The Bush State Department stuck to the story of “moderate Islam” in Turkey even while Erdogan used outlandishly extra-legal methods to dismantle the secular establishment, as I wrote in 2008. [3] In fairness to the State Department, the idea that Turkey was home to a specially moderate strain of Islam was not the invention of American foreign policy analysts but of the Islam specialists of the Jesuit order. Father Christian Troll, a German Islamologist who advises Pope Benedict XVI, and his student Father Felix Koerner popularized the notion of a less virulent strain of Turkish Islam. I reviewed Koerner’s book on Turkish Islam in 2008. [4]

One cannot blame the Bush administration (nor the Jesuit Islamologists) for the person Erdogan has become. By the turn of the millennium, Kemalist secularism was a grotesque relic of 1930s European nationalism. Turkey’s leading novelist, Orhan Pamuk, evoked the spiritual misery of secularist Turkey and the attractions of radical Islam in his Nobel-prize-winning novel Snow, which I reviewed in this space in 2004. [5]

To the extent that there was some hope of keeping Turkey in the Western camp, though, the Bush administration’s nation-building blunders in Iraq and credulous admiration of “moderate Islam” in Ankara destroyed it.

Political Islam as a replacement for Kemalist nationalism is the glue that will hold Turkey together, in Erdogan’s view. It does not seem to be doing a good job. Islamic solidarity was supposed to persuade the Kurds to behave themselves, along with a few nods in the direction of the use of the Kurdish language, which the Kemalists tried to suppress. The killing of 11 Turkish soldiers in raids staged from Iraq and the bombing of a military bus in Ankara show that Kurdish resistance has not diminished. Erdogan, previously so concerned about human rights and the Biblical injunction against killing, raged that the Kurdish rebels will “drown in their own blood”.

Erdogan’s political Islam failed to stabilize Turkey. It will contribute to instability in the region to an extent that is difficult to foresee. Iran now has the more reason to assert its influence in Iraq, perhaps by encouraging the breakup of the country and the emergence of a Kurdish state that might threaten Turkey.

Turkey, in turn, has all the more reason to agitate among the Turkish-speaking, or Azeri, quarter of Iran’s population. Iran will use its influence among Turkish Alevis to challenge the Turkish Sunni establishment; Iran will encourage Turkish separatism. Meanwhile Erdogan’s alliance of opportunity with Hamas undercuts the American-allied Sunni Arab states, Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, not to mention Mahmoud Abbas’ Palestine Authority.

With the United States in full strategic withdrawal, a Thirty Years War in western and central Asia seems all the more likely.

Notes
1. Fethullah Gulen’s cave of wonders Asia Times Online, June 9, 2010.
2. Why does Turkey hate America? Asia Times Online, October 23, 2007.
3. Turkey in the throes of Islamic revolution? Asia Times Online, July 22, 2008.
4. Tin-opener theology from Turkey Asia Times Online, June 3, 2008.
5. In defense of Turkish cigarettes Asia Times Online, August 24, 2004.

Spengler is channeled by David P Goldman, senior editor at First Things magazine (www.firstthings.com).

August 29, 2010
Gulen Movement Funded by Heroin Via the CIA?

Paul Williams, PhD

June 29, 2010

Court records and the testimony of former government officials show that Fethullah Gulen, who presently resides in Pennsylvania, has amassed more than $25 billion in assets from the heroin route which runs from Afghanistan to Turkey.

Sibel Edmonds, a former FBI translator, testified that the drug money has been channeled into Gulen’s coffers by the C.I.A.

“A lot of the drugs were going to Belgium with NATO planes,” Ms. Edmonds said. “After that, they went to the UK, and a lot came to the US via military planes to distribution centers in Chicago, and Paterson, New Jersey.”

Ms. Edmonds further said that Turkish diplomats, who would never be searched by airport officials, have come into the country “with suitcases of heroin.”

According to Ms. Edmonds and other government witnesses, Gulen began to receive funding from the CIA in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union when federal officials realized that the U.S. could not obtain control of the vast energy resources of the newly created Russian republics because of deep-seated suspicion of American motives.

Turkey, the U.S. officials came to realize, could serve as a perfect “proxy” since it was a NATO ally that shared the same language, culture, and religion as the other Central Asian countries.

The strategy has met with success since Turkey has formed an alliance with Iran and is emerging as the world’s most powerful Islamic nation.

But the success has come with a price. The only way to provide Gulen with sufficient funds to topple Turkey’s secular regime and to conduct education jihad within the Russian republics came from the poppy fields of Afghanistan.

This scenario serves to explain why US-led coalition troops in Afghanistan are forbidden to firebomb the fields or fumigate the poppies with a chemical herbicide, such as glyphosate.

Despite such testimony and growing concern over Turkey, the Obama administration has opted to turn a blind eye to Gulen and his mountain fortress in Saylorsburg, Pennsylvania.

Fethullah Gulen has been called the “most dangerous Islamist” on the planet.

In his native Turkey, Gulen’s vast fortune has been used to create the Justice and Democratic Party (Adalet ve Kalkinma, AKP), which has gained control of the government.

With the elections of 2002, the AKP gained absolute control of the Turkish government.

Abdullah Gul, Turkey’s first Islamist President, is a Gulen disciple along with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and Yusuf Ziya Ozcan, the head of Turkey’s Council of Higher Education.

Under the AKP, Turkey has transformed from a secular state into an Islamic country with 85,000 active mosques – – one for every 350- citizens – – the highest number per capita in the world, 90,000 imams, more imams than teachers and physicians – – and thousands of state-run Islamic schools.

Despite the rhetoric of European Union accession, Turkey has transferred its alliance from Europe and the United States to Russia and Iran. It has moved toward friendship with Hamas, Hezbollah, and Syria and created a pervasive anti-Christian, anti-Jewish, and anti-America animus throughout the populace.

Gulen has purchased newspapers, television networks, construction companies, universities, banks, utilities, technological outlets, pharmaceutics, and manufacturing firms throughout the country.

In addition, he has established thousands of madrassahs (Islamic religious schools) throughout Central Asia where students are indoctrinated in the tenets of militant Islam so they may be of service in the creation of a universal caliphate.

This notion is not an idle pipedream. The dream of a universal caliphate came closer to reality in recent weeks with the collapse of the secular government in Kyrgyzstan,.

But the Gulen movement is not confined to Turkey and Central Asia.

Eighty-five Gulen schools have been set up in the United States as charter academies funded by public funds.

Is Gulen really affiliated with the CIA?

In support of his application for permanent residency status, Gulen obtained letters of support and endorsement, from Graham Fuller and other former CIA officials.

His petition was also endorsed by former Under Secretary of State Marc Grossman, and former Ambassador to Turkey Morton Abramowitz.

FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Paul L. Williamsis the author of The Day of Islam: The Annihilation of America and the Western World, The Al Qaeda Connection, and other best-selling books. He is a frequent guest on such national news networks as ABC News, CBS News, Fox News, MSNBC, and NPR.

Visit his website at: http://thelastcrusade.org

August 15, 2010
POLYGAMY: 4TH WIFE FOR ERDOGANS ADVISOR

Erdogan’s advisor’s polygamy stirs debate in Turkey

Ali Yuksal has already said he plans on marrying fourth wife, but the cabinet authorized his appointment. Once media clues in to situation, controversial family values espoused by ruling party provoke public debate

Ynet

Published: 08.06.10, 09:38 / Israel News

The change taking place in the fabric of Turkey’ society as it grows closer to Islam under the guiding hand of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is becoming increasingly ubiquitous, even manifesting itself in the personal lives of the leader’s close associates. The Turkish administration has come under fire recently when it came to light that one of Erdogan’s advisors has taken family values to an extreme many find unacceptable – he is married to three women.

Turkish newspaper Hurriyet reported Ali Yuksel, an advisor to Erdogan who considers himself an Islamic authority, is married to three women and has declared his intentions to marry a fourth, sparking criticism within the government. Yuksel’s appointment was approved quietly by the government in June. However, Turkish journalists have recently decided to surface the issue of his polygamous lifestyle.

Yuksel’s polygamy made headlines already in 2004, when he was quoted as saying that he plans to marry a fourth wife.

“Such matters are not considered to be problematic by the Development and Justice Party (Erdogan’s ruling party, also known as AKP),” said sociologist Yıldız Ecevit to Hurriyet. “They don’t’ see this as adulterous and justify it with Islam. This contradicts efforts to achieve equality between men and women. This practice challenges women’s rights.”

About six years ago, AKP considered making adultery a criminal offense, but withdrew their efforts following criticism from the EU. Senior party members expressed conservative views on marriage and family. Erdogan himself asked all Turkish couples to have at least three children, while his minister responsible for women and family affairs criticized scenes in soap operas that show couples kissing.

The newspaper quotes Attorney Yasmin Oz, a Turkish lawyer, who indicated that though polygamy is outlawed in Turkey, the law does not indicate any punishment for someone married to more than one woman. “Sanctions are needed,” she said.

Though polygamy was outlawed in 1926 shortly after founder of secular Turkey Kemal Ataturk took power, the phenomenon is still prevalent in some parts of the country.

On this matter, an AKP mayor of a town in the Reza district, near the Black Sea, claimed that the Kurdish issue could be solved by Turkish men marrying multiple Kurdish wives. He was later forced to apologize and the party launched an investigation against him.

August 9, 2010
Jewish Racism

Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Erdogan Lies for the Benefit of Israel: Turks, Learn from the US and Germany
Christopher Jon Bjerknes

Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan has lied to the World and claimed that Ergenekon is the power behind the PKK, without mentioning Israel. Erdogan had earlier said that there were evil forces behind the PKK without specifying who those evil forces are. Everyone naturally assumed that Erdogan was referring to Israel, because everyone knows that Israel is the power behind the PKK, having been caught training them. See:

PM specifies Ergenekon as power behind PKK terror

Erdogan is both lying by omission and is directly lying. If Erdogan would have us believe that Ergenekon timed the PKK attacks to coincide with the Israeli assault on a Turkish vessel, then Erdogan must admit that Ergenekon is an arm of the Israeli government, or shares its Jewish loyalty and common interests with the “Jewish State”. As such, Erdogan is lying by omission to cover up Israel’s longstanding war on Turkey, and the fact that Ergenekon is a Jewish organization run by Jews and crypto-Jews.

Erdogan is directly lying when he claims that Ergenekon runs the PKK which has arms in several countries and has been observed working with, and receiving training from, Mossad.

I have been warning that Erdogan would betray the country of Turkey, and he has committed this heinous act of betrayal of covering up the murder of Turkish citizens as acts of war by Israel against the Turkish nation, thereby creating the illusion that the problem is a domestic political struggle, instead of an international war in which Israel has murdered tens of thousands of Turks without any reprisals. This also serves to prevent the international community from recognizing that Israel is a State sponsor of terrorism, terrorism that has claimed tens of thousands of innocent lives.

Though Erdogan is portrayed as some kind of hero because of the Israeli assault on a Turkish vessel, Erdogan was not aboard the ship and failed to protect it in spite of Israeli threats to assault it. Erdogan has performed no heroics, but has instead lagged behind Turkish public opinion and has repeatedly tried to soften the blow to Israel, instead of hammering the “Jewish State”.

Erdogan and the AKP continue to erode Turkish sovereignty, having recently arranged for visa free travel with Indonesia, adding to a growing list of nations. The AKP does not intend to stop with visa free travel, but is also seeking borderless travel and trade with many, many nations, and is making its strongest push to date for admission into the EU. See:

Turkey, Indonesia to lift visa requirements

Turks should be wary of these measures and learn from the US, and from Germany, where Turks were encouraged to move during Germany’s reconstruction so as provide cheap labor to rebuild the nation and its industry. There was a Wirtschaftswunderzeit for a brief period in Germany, but today Turkish neighborhoods are comparatively dangerous and unprosperous “slums” in Germany, though nowhere near so bad as the slums in America where blacks and Mexicans have been imported as cheap labor only to end up jobless and/or in prison.

Turks your economy may well continue to grow and I wish you well and encourage cooperation between Muslim nations, and have done so for years. But I warn you, do not so on the Jewish capitalist internationalist model.

Expect your wages to fall, slums to emerge in your cities, drugs and prostitution to infest your nation, greater disparity in wealth, healthcare to go to hell, and the loss of your culture, ethnic strife, etc. etc. etc. if you continue down the Jewish path to internationalization. Europeans, expect Turkey to be a temporary stop for hundreds of millions of immigrants, and their problems, if you admit Turkey into the EU in its present form. The rich in Turkey will get richer, but the rest will eventually suffer badly. There are better ways of doing what you plan to do, but do not expect Erdogan and the AKP to propose them.

It is very interesting that Erdogan is scapegoating the Ergenekon, which is also Jewish, for Israel’s part in the Jewish war on Turkey. It is also very interesting how the Ergenekon are going free after plotting to murder Erdogan, and this is being used as a pretext by the AKP to rewrite the constitution to make it EU friendly.

Is there strife between the Ergenekon Doenmeh and Israel? Erdogan is clearly working for the Israelis. I wonder if Erdogan is aware that the Ergenekon are as well? He must be. . . and they must be working together.

August 1, 2010
Sponsor of Flotilla Tied to Elite of Turkey

Tyler Hicks/The New York Times

Nursema, 10, a daughter of Ali Haydar Bengi, who was among the nine Turks killed during an Israeli raid on a flotilla trying to run the Gaza blockade.

By DAN BILEFSKY and SEBNEM ARSU

Published: July 15, 2010

ISTANBUL — The Turkish charity that led the flotilla involved in a deadly Israeli raid has extensive connections with Turkey’s political elite, and the group’s efforts to challenge Israel’s blockade of Gaza received support at the top levels of the governing party, Turkish diplomats and government officials said.

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Tyler Hicks/The New York Times

An anti-Israel slogan in Istanbul reflects the rift in Israeli-Turkish relations after the raid. Turkey warns that relations could be irreparably damaged.

The charity, the Humanitarian Relief Foundation, often called I.H.H., has come under attack in Israel and the West for offering financial support to groups accused of terrorism. But in Turkey the group has helped Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan shore up support from conservative Muslims ahead of critical elections next year and improve Turkey’s standing and influence in the Arab world.

According to a senior Turkish official close to the government, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the political delicacy of the issue, as many as 10 Parliament members from Mr. Erdogan’s governing Justice and Development Party were considering boarding the Mavi Marmara, the ship where the deadly raid occurred, but were warned off at the last minute by senior Foreign Ministry officials concerned that their presence might escalate tensions too much.

When leaders of the charity returned home after nine Turks died in the Israeli raid, they were warmly embraced by top Turkish officials, said Huseyin Oruc, deputy director of the charity, who was aboard the flotilla.

“When we flew back to Turkey, I was afraid we would be in trouble for what happened, but the first thing we saw when the plane’s door opened in Istanbul was Bulent Arinc, the deputy prime minister, in tears,” he said in an interview. “We have good coordination with Mr. Erdogan,” he added. “But I am not sure he is happy with us now.”

The raid has caused a rupture between Turkey and Israel, and heightened alarm in the United States and Europe that Turkey, a large Muslim country and a major NATO member, is shifting allegiance toward the Arab world. Turkey has warned that its cooperative ties to Israel could be irreparably damaged unless the Israelis apologize and accept an international investigation, steps Israel has so far refused to take.

The charity’s mission, political analysts said, has advanced Mr. Erdogan’s aim of shifting Turkey’s focus to the Muslim east when its prospects for joining the European Union are dim.

The government “could have stopped the ship if it wanted to, but the mission to Gaza served both the I.H.H. and the government by making both heroes at home and in the Arab world,” said Ercan Citlioglu, a terrorism expert at Bahcesehir University in Istanbul.

Turkish officials said that the charity operated independently and that its leadership had refused to drop plans to break Israel’s naval blockade of Hamas-controlled Gaza, despite requests from the government. The officials said they had no legal authority to stop the work of a private charity.

Egemen Bagis, Turkey’s minister for European affairs, said in an interview that the charity and the Justice and Development Party, called the AK Party, had no substantive ties, even if people in politics often became involved in charitable groups. “The I.H.H. has nothing to do with the AK Party, and we have no hidden agenda,” Mr. Bagis said.

But critics say such statements belie the close connections between the party and the charity, as well as the extent to which Turkish officials were closely attuned to the details of the flotilla’s mission before its departure.

“How can such a large country as Turkey, with interests in four continents, and with an export- and investment-driven economy requiring extra caution all around the globe, be dragged to the brink of war by a nongovernmental organization?” asked Semih Idiz, a columnist for the Hurriyet Daily News in Turkey, in a June 7 editorial. The answer, he added, is that the charity is a “GNGO” — a “governmental-nongovernmental-organization.”

Many of the 21 people listed on the charity’s board have or had close links to the AK Party. In January, Murat Mercan, chairman of Parliament’s foreign affairs committee and a senior party official, joined an overland aid convoy to Gaza organized by the charity that tried to force its way through the Rafah crossing from Egypt to Gaza.

A trustee of the charity, Ali Yandir, is a senior manager at the Istanbul City Municipality Transportation Corporation. The corporation sold the Mavi Marmara, with a capacity for 1,090 passengers, to the charity for about $1.2 million. In 2004, Mr. Yandir was an AK Party candidate for the mayor’s office in Istanbul’s Esenler District.

The charity’s board includes Zeyid Aslan, an AK Party member of Parliament and the acting head of the Turkey-Palestine Interparliamentary Friendship Group; Ahmet Faruk Unsal, an AK Party member of Parliament from 2002 to 2007; and Mehmet Emin Sen, a former AK Party mayor in the central Anatolian township of Mihalgazi.

Those ties partly reflect the common agenda of the party and the charity. Both are involved in relief work among the poor and are bound by a common Islamic ideology. Many of the 60,000 people the charity claims as members come from the religious merchant class that helped Mr. Erdogan sweep to power.

The Humanitarian Relief Foundation was founded in the early 1990s, first as a charity for the poor in Istanbul, and later for Bosnian war victims. It works in more than 100 countries and sent 33 tons of aid to Haiti after its January earthquake. The charity has one branch in the West Bank and another in Gaza, where Turkish families help pay for the care and education of 9,000 orphans.

On Monday, Germany banned the charity’s offices there, citing its support for Hamas, which Germany considers a terrorist organization. Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière said the charity abused donors’ good intentions “to support a terrorist organization with money supposedly donated for charitable purposes.” The newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung said that from 2007 the charity collected $8.5 million and transferred money to six smaller organizations, two belonging directly to Hamas and four with close ties to it.

The charity called the ban a “disgrace” and “misanthropic” and said it would challenge it in court.

A June 21 letter signed by 87 United States senators urged the White House to investigate whether the charity should be designated a foreign terrorist organization. Israel has accused the charity of bolstering Hamas. It also says the group has links to Al Qaeda and has bought weapons, accusations the charity denies.

A senior Turkish government official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, called such allegations false and said they would not persuade politicians who supported the group’s causes to shun it.

“We are not trying to disengage ourselves from I.H.H. because of the current allegations on their terror links — we are simply not related with them,” the official said. “We consider Israeli efforts to link I.H.H. with terror in light of fake intelligence reports and hence hold AK Party government responsible for the killing of nine innocent people as extremely cheap and improper tactics.”

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: July 23, 2010

An article last Friday about the connections between Turkey’s political elite and I.H.H., the Turkish charity that organized the Gaza-bound aid flotilla stopped by a deadly Israeli raid on May 31, contained several errors.

Because of an editing error, the article misstated the effect of a ban on I.H.H. in Germany, where a charity that operates under the same name and was founded by the same people became legally separate in 1997. The ban applied only to the German charity, not the Turkish one.

The article also misstated the price paid by the Turkish charity for the lead flotilla vessel, the Mavi Marmara. It was $1.2 million, not $1.8 million.

And the article referred incorrectly to the relationship between Istanbul Fast Ferries, the municipal agency that sold the Mavi Marmara to the Turkish charity, and the Istanbul City Municipality Transportation Corporation, another city agency. While both are controlled by Turkey’s ruling AK party, the transportation corporation is responsible for land transit; it does not oversee the ferry agency.

A version of this article appeared in print on July 16, 2010, on page A4 of the New York edition.

July 24, 2010