Turkish Forum

Tag: Wikileaks

  • WikiLeaks cable on Turkish economy

    WikiLeaks cable on Turkish economy

    EMRE DELİVELİ

    [email protected]

    Your friendly neighborhood economist recently stumbled upon a WikiLeaked United States’ Istanbul Consulate cable on the Turkish economy, dated Nov. 31, 2010, which he is duly passing along:

    “Turkey’s macroeconomic policy is mostly on track thanks to prudential macro management after the 2001 crisis. However, macro reforms have not been followed by micro reforms, except for a few feeble attempts during the first reign of the Justice and Development Party, or AKP, government.

    “Expatriate CEO XXX told us that the government is dragging its feet on the structural reform agenda: “We have led the horse to water, but we have not been able to make it drink the water,” he lamented, noting that their reform proposals have gone unnoticed. The same complaint can be heard from World Bank official XXX, who states that their findings are never put into action.

    “However, economics policymakers are first-rate spin doctors. They are adept at hypnotizing the markets with rumors for months. First, the government dragged its feet on the IMF stand-by Arrangement (SBA) for months, whereby hearsay that the SBA was about to be finalized would conveniently resurface every time Turkish assets tumbled.

    “Then, the government’s new opiate for the masses became the fiscal rule. Markets chose to ignore the few economists who were pointing to the deficiencies in its institutional set-up or noting that the government would never engage in fiscal restraint in an election year. Nevertheless, smart maneuvering ensured markets did not even stir when the rule was, for all practical purposes, annulled.

    “Part of the problem seems to be PM Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who recently said that he had “the last say in economics matters.” XXX from the Treasury confided in us that they and the IMF were steps away from an SBA, and that economics czar Ali Babacan was very enthusiastic towards the fiscal rule even a couple of weeks before the PM shelved it for good. These remarks lead us to believe that it was the PM who decided against both, or at least was convinced so by his phalanx of sycophantic advisors.

    “It seems that the PM’s authoritarian style spills over to economic policymaking as well. Besides, he has an interesting view of economics, accented by his recent remarks that “low interest rates beget low inflation,” rather than the other way around, as the economics profession mistakenly believes. XXX from the AKP told us that Babacan spends a lot of time and energy trying to persuade the PM. His success is crucial for the clear-steering of the Turkish economy.

    “Interestingly enough, the main opposition Republican People’s Party has been unable to spell out a coherent economics agenda so far. As in politics, these elitist ankle-biters are suffering from status-quo bias. Moreover, they have serious issues with main free market economics ideas such as privatization and foreign investment, leaving the business community with no viable alternative to the AKP.

    “Among all this white noise, the Central Bank has been doing an excellent job in fine-tuning the economy and resisting demands from exporters as well as certain government ministers for lower interest rates and a weaker lira. The same Istanbul high-finance community that looked down upon Governor Durmuş Yılmaz when he was first appointed is now quick to praise him.

    “In this sense, the appointment of the new governor when Yılmaz’s term expires in April is crucial. It is rumored that he will be replaced by Erdem Başçı, a current VP who used to play marbles with Babacan when they were kids. While he is competent, a more complacent Central Bank would not bode well for economic management.”

    For those of you who thought this was real, it wasn’t.

    Emre Deliveli is a freelance consultant and columnist for Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review and Forbes, and a contributor to Roubini Global Economics. Read his economics blog at http://emredeliveli.blogspot.com.

  • Inner City Press: Wikileaks Buzz from Turkey to UN, But Ban Quiet with Clinton, Assange as Terrorist?

    Inner City Press: Wikileaks Buzz from Turkey to UN, But Ban Quiet with Clinton, Assange as Terrorist?

    By Matthew Russell Lee

    UNITED NATIONS, December 1 — As the new Wikileaks of US State Department cables were the buzz at the UN on Wednesday, from Sri Lanka war crimes to Russia’s “Mafia state,” the UN Secretariat did all it could to dodge questions about Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s directive that the UN and its officials be spied on.

    But at a Turkish Mission reception on Wednesday evening, a European Ambassador told Inner City Press that the leaks were going to cause trouble within countries all over the world. “Why did the US distribute these cables so widely?” he asked. “When I have information, I write only to my minister and his chief of staff, no one else.”

    Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has threatened to sue the American diplomats who cabled home that Erdogan has secret bank accounts in Switzerland. But well placed sources tell Inner City Press that the origin of the Swiss bank detail is the “Turkish minister who covers the European Union process.”

    So maybe the lawsuit, if there is one, should be filed in Turkey itself.

    After Secretary General Ban Ki-moon met with Clinton in Astana, the UN said only that “they discussed… the complications caused by the recent massive leak of US diplomatic cables.”

    Inner City Press asked the UN’s Counter-Terrorism Executive Director Mike Smith about calls to designate Wikileaks and its founder Julian Assange as part of a “Foreign Terrorist Organization.” Video here, from Minute 17:40.

    Smith said he would “leave it up to the countries that are talking about that to work it out through these systems, I’m not going to comment on that.” Of course, it is within Smith’s and the UN’s stated job to speak on the misuse of terrorism laws and designations.

    Footnote: beyond Ban Ki-moon’s meeting with Hillary Clinton, the UN on Wednesday afternoon confirmed to Inner City Press what it had asked about Ban’s meeting with South Korea’s foreign minister. Yes they met, including about two conferences in Seoul. But there was apparently no meeting with Ukraine’s president, despite Ukrainian press reports that there would be.

    via Inner City Press: Wikileaks Buzz from Turkey to UN, But Ban Quiet with Clinton, Assange as Terrorist?.

  • WikiLeaks in Turkey — Cui bono?

    WikiLeaks in Turkey — Cui bono?

    My study window used to provide a view of the steps outside our house, which meant that I could see through the net curtain anyone trying to ring the bell. This was particularly bad news for a little girl with a mischievous streak who thought it great fun to creep up the stairs, ring the bell and then run away.

    One day my own mischievous streak got the better of me and I waited by the door and opened it just as she tried to play her prank. I almost felt sorry for her as she stood there, finger still in mid-air, caught red handed her mouth gulping like a gold fish as she gasped for something to say. But sympathy turned to admiration as she collected her wits and used that finger to point to what I can only assume was an imaginary friend. “O yaptı,” she said in a matter-of-fact tone. “He did it.” She walked back calmly down the steps, leaving her invisible accomplice to face the music.

    Since then I have noted various instances when even quite senior public figures have used the “He did it” reflex to get themselves off the hook. And it is a reflex which some of my colleagues appear all too eager to adopt to explain away, perhaps not so much their faults as a sense of cognitive dissonance and the uncomfortable sense that what they are seeing is not what they assumed was the case. It is, of course, the drip, drip, drip of WikiLeaks which has caused all the problems. For reasons I myself do not entirely understand, WikiLeaks has caused a major sense of humor failure in Turkey. You might think that the press and politicians might unloosen their ties, put up their feet and enjoy the amusement of seeing American diplomats caught with their trousers somewhere near their ankles. Instead it is Turkey which is feeling the pain. One of the leaked telegrams describes the Turkish prime minister is thinned skin — and true to that description, he has threatened to sue goodness knows who for defamation and is demanding the resignation of ambassadors long since retired. None of this is going to happen. If it is revenge he wants, he will find himself joining a very long queue.

    Which is why one particular opinion that seems to have gained some currency in Turkey sounds so bizarre. It was published as an assertion in this newspaper that, “The main target [of WikiLeaks] is Turkey and its ruling Justice and Development Party [AK Party].” This is solipsism and paranoia tipping over the edge. It implies that those doing the leaking are controlled by a very narrow, Turkey-centric political agenda. Ask The New York Times or Julian Assange the key question, “Cui bono?”(Who benefits?) from the disclosure of so much confidential information, and the answer is citizens throughout the world who have a right to know what their public servants really think. Whether this answer is correct is open to debate. Some would argue that it is one thing to expose government misdeeds or the abuse of power and another to undermine a nation’s ability to deal with other nations. Is WikiLeaks satisfying our right to know or our innate love of gossip?

    But ask the Turkish government spokesman Cemil Çiçek “cui bono” and he insinuates the answer is Israel — a nation determined to throw a spanner in the wheel of Turkish foreign policy. It is an answer that is either foolish or patently dishonest. Others suggest the culprit is Ergenekon, arising like Freddy Krueger from the grave.

    Yet when all is said and done, WikiLeaks has not so much damaged Turkey’s reputation as informed a Turkish public that reputations are not as shiny as they are sometimes led to believe. This too will lead to productive discussion. Is Turkish policy towards Iran correct and nuanced or is it as some in the State Department believe, blinkered and naïve? It is an argument worth having. It does no one any good, however, to react to criticism by saying “he did it” or treating Ergenekon as a mischievous imaginary friend.

  • Turkish Minister Retaliates Against WikiLeaks Claims

    Turkish Minister Retaliates Against WikiLeaks Claims

    By Joe Parkinson

    The WikiLeaks cables may have ensnared diplomats and heads of state across the globe, but in Turkey, the “revelations” have also hit the finance ministry.

    Associated Press Turkish Finance Minister Mehment Simsek, pictured last year.
    Associated Press Turkish Finance Minister Mehment Simsek, pictured last year.

    According to one of the documents obtained from the U.S. embassy in Ankara, Turkish Finance Minister Mehment Simsek urged investors to sell stock in Turkey’s largest media company, Dogan Yayin Holding AS, as it became locked in a tax battle with the government.

    The cable, dated Sept. 15, 2008, said: “There are suggestions of a deliberate political move against Dogan,” adding that the finance minister said the media group “won’t be around much longer.”

    On Friday, Simsek, a former Merrill Lynch banker with strong links to the international investor community gave his most vocal response to the allegations.

    He didn’t mince his words.

    “This is despicable — if they prove that I used such words, I will not stay another day in politics,” he told CNBC-e Turkish television, adding that “I wish there would be a possibility for a lawsuit, but unfortunately these low-lives are protected by Vienna agreement,” referring to the treaty that protects diplomats from prosecution.

    Dogan Yayin, which owns newspapers and TV stations accounting for more than 30% of Turkish audience share, has been locked in a dispute with Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP, over a series of tax fines totaling 4.8 billion lira ($3.39 billion), which is more than the value of the company.

    Dogan media outlets infuriated Mr. Erdogan in 2008 by writing a series of articles on alleged links between the AKP and a corruption case in Germany. Erdogan at the time called on Turks to boycott the group’s newspapers. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal last year, he likened the tax case against the group to that against 1930s U.S. gangster Al Capone, who was jailed for tax evasion. The government said the Dogan tax case is purely technical.

    The U.S. cable traces the rapid deterioration between the Dogan group and the government around the reporting by Dogan media of a court case in Germany, in which the group’s media and TV stations linked corruption at a charity to the ruling party in Turkey.

    Simsek had already rebutted the allegations in a statement Monday, where he labeled the content of the cable “baseless” and “fabricated.” He pointed to an error in the document, which incorrectly identified his 2008 post as “trade minister,” as evidence that its contents couldn’t be trusted. Simsek became a state minister for economic affairs in August 2007.

    But the nearly 8,000 documents leaked from the U.S. embassy in Ankara have captivated the public and dominated the news agenda here this week, pushing Mr. Erdogan on Wednesday to call on the U.S to punish diplomats who reported certain inflammatory claims, and threaten to take legal action against them.

    via Turkish Minister Retaliates Against WikiLeaks Claims – New Europe – WSJ.

  • WikiLeaks may galvanise Turkey on relations with Azerbaijan

    WikiLeaks may galvanise Turkey on relations with Azerbaijan

    News.Az interviews Gareth Jenkins, non-resident Turkey expert at the USA’s Johns Hopkins University.

    What do you think lies behind the WikiLeaks scandal?

    jenkinsI think the main factor behind the WikiLeaks scandal is US bureaucratic incompetence. If you give 3 million people clearance to view such a huge amount of confidential information, you only have yourself to blame if one of them decides to go public with it. The US should have been more careful. It is like leaving a wallet full of money in the middle of a public park, coming back one week later and being surprised that someone has stolen it. Instead of trying to prosecute the person who has picked up the wallet, the US should be asking themselves why they left it lying around.

    There have been claims by some Iranian and Turkish politicians that the scandal is all part of some US conspiracy to make them look bad. This is just crazy. The cause is simply US incompetence. Any embarrassment the revelations have caused to anyone else is secondary. Although the revelations have seriously damaged the reputations of several countries, the US has been more badly damaged by this scandal than anyone else.

    Is it just a coincidence that this happened right before the OSCE summit in Astana?

    I think it probably is a coincidence, although I am not 100 percent sure. Those who run WikiLeaks are not just concerned with freedom of information. They are also out to embarrass governments. It does seem that they have tried to publish some of the most damaging material early to try to maximize its impact, but I haven’t seen any evidence that it is linked to the OSCE summit.

    Has this incident damaged the US image?

    Absolutely. I was pleasantly surprised by the eloquence and the candour of many of the cables. I had expected them to be very dull to read. It is good to see that the US is encouraging its diplomats to write freely and candidly. Also, I don’t think the damage to the image of the US itself is as bad as with the leaks of documents and videos about Afghanistan and Iraq – which seemed to indicate that, at best, US officials and members of the security forces sometimes had a callous disregard for human life, and, at worst, condoned the killing of innocent people. This time the damage is more to people’s pride and reputations. But the scandal has still damaged the US, not least because it makes US diplomats look untrustworthy.

    People are going to be very wary about expressing themselves openly to US diplomats for fear that, despite what the diplomats may say about it all being in confidence, it may eventually be broadcast all over the world. If people cannot trust US diplomats, then they will avoid telling the whole truth and it will become difficult for Washington to get a clear picture of what is happening in the world. Over the last few years there have already been several examples which suggest that the US doesn’t understand the world very well – the failure to foresee the bloodbath in Iraq after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein is probably the most striking example. Washington’s understanding of the world is not going to improve if people are frightened of speaking openly to its diplomats.

    Will the WikiLeaks revelations harm relations between Azerbaijan and Turkey, bearing in mind reported criticism by President Aliyev about Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan?

    I think that the revelations so far – and only a tiny proportion of the documents have been published – have had a devastating impact on the reputation of Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). There are a lot of conspiracy theorists in Turkey and the press is frightened of opposing the government. So it might be possible for the AKP to limit the domestic damage. But internationally the revelations have been extremely corrosive. It is possible that some of the accusations of lying, corruption and sexual depravity by AKP ministers are rumour rather than fact, but it is difficult to dismiss so many reports of incompetence and AKP ministers complaining about each other. At the very least, it should be clear to the AKP that the rest of the world does not believe the image the AKP tries to project of itself.

    One example of this is what President Aliyev is reported as saying about the AKP. The AKP – and particularly Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu – have been going around praising their foreign policy, telling everybody how successful they are etc. and, with regard to Azerbaijan, how relations are as strong as ever. Davutoglu has been saying both publicly and privately that, when the Azeri government expressed its dismay at the signing of the agreement with Armenia in October 2009, all he had to do was fly to Baku and, because he was such a skilled diplomat, he was able to reassure the Azeri government and that Turkish-Azeri relations were now as strong as ever – and many people in Turkey believed him. President Aliyev’s remarks demonstrate how inaccurate this was and what many in the Azeri government really think about the AKP, i.e. betrayed. In this sense, the leaked cables might serve as a wake-up call and perhaps persuade the AKP in general – and Davutoglu in particular – that they may believe their own propaganda, but nobody else does; and that arrogance is no substitute for genuine ability and success. If this results in Turkey actually working at its foreign relations with long-term allies such as Azerbaijan, instead of telling everybody how wonderful the AKP is, then the leaked cables may actually have a positive effect.

    Leyla Tagiyeva

    News.Az

  • ‘Cablegate’ refrerances on Rafale, Israeli UAVs, Turkey’s F-35s

    ‘Cablegate’ refrerances on Rafale, Israeli UAVs, Turkey’s F-35s

    Buried in Wikileaks’ latest document dump exposing about 250,000 US diplomatic cables are a few items of real interest to the global aerospace industry. Here’s a list of the five most interesting cables:

    1. A cable on 4 November 2009 summarizes a meeting between then-US Central Command chief Gen David Petraeus and King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa of Bahrain. Pushing Petraeus to pressure US fighter manufacturers to participate in the upcoming Bahrain air show, the monarch of Manama noted Dassault Rafale would be represented. Hamad, however, is apparently not a fan of the Rafale , as “he agreed with Petraeus that the French fighter was yesterday’s technology”. Oh la la!

    2. In a cable dated 22 December 2009, Israeli political-military chief Amos Gilad talks about Russian interest in Israeli UAV technology. Although Russia is prepared to pay $1 billion for access to Israeli’s latest capability, Israel is not inclined to sell, Gilad says. “Such technology would likely end up in the hands of the Chinese,” the cable says, paraphrasing Gilad’s remarks. This raises a question about exactly what Russia wants to buy. Could it be the Eitan (or Heron 2), or perhaps a secret project? The cable doesn’t say.

    3. Qatar operates two Boeing C-17s, but a cable dated 10 August 2009 reveals misgivings. Qatar’s military “clearly registered its disappointment” that the US government blocked the installation of the Northrop Grumman large area infrared countermeasures (LAIRCM) as part of the direct commercial sale of the large transports. The chief of staff of Qatari’s military was “particularly sensitive”, believing the LAIRCM rejection made him look bad to his civilian superiors.

    4. Israel’s concerns about US arms sales to Arab states are well-known, but two cables illuminate the process. A cable on 18 November 2009 describes Israeli concerns about the US government plan to sell F-15SAs to Saudi Arabia and AIM-120C7 AMRAAMs to Jordan. Another cable on 30 July 2009 explains the F-15SA concerns are focused on the transfer of Enhanced Paveway II bombs, joint helmet mounted cueing system (JHMCS) and active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar. The same cable also registers concerns about the US government’s plan to sell Cessna Caravans and Raven unmanned aircraft systems to the Lebanon air force, which Israel fears could become targets in a war with Hezbollah.

    5. So far, only one mention of the Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF). A cable on 16 February 2010 summarizes a meeting between Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and his counterpart in Turkey, Vecdi Gonul. Perhaps concerned about preserving national sovereignty, Gonul noted the importance of establishing F-35 maintenance facilities in Turkey.