US embassy cable - 04ANKARA2078

S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 03 ANKARA 002078 
 
SIPDIS 
 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/09/2019 
TAGS: PREL, PGOV, PINS, TU 
SUBJECT: TURKISH POST-ELECTION POLITICS: WHAT IS THE 
INFLUENCE OF ISLAMIST "MILLI GORUS" ON RULING AKP? 
 
REF: A. ANKARA 1842 
     B. ANKARA 348 
     C. ANKARA 2074 
 
 
(U) Classified by Polcounselor John Kunstadter; reasons: 1.4 
(b,d). 
 
 
1. (C) Summary: PM Erdogan's reforms in pursuit of Turkey's 
EU candidacy suggest there is truth in his assertions that he 
and AKP hew to western concepts of democracy.  At the same 
time, many in AKP and the Turkish "secular" establishment 
worry that because Erdogan and other AKP founders came out of 
the Islamist movement Milli Gorus (MG) and MG adherents, 
though in a minority, are found throughout AKP, the party is 
vulnerable to control by MG.  It appears to us that, as long 
as Erdogan maintains momentum toward making AKP into a 
centrist party, MG will remain a drag but not a determinant 
factor.  End summary. 
 
 
2. (C) Has ruling AKP has truly transformed itself into a 
"conservative democrat" party of the center?  Or, given the 
past of its founders, does AKP remain merely an offshoot of 
Milli Gorus (National View), the movement of Turkey's 
guardian of political Islam Necmettin Erbakan? 
 
 
3. (C) AKP's leader Erdogan asserts he has changed, become 
democratic, embraced the EU and good relations with the U.S. 
His pragmatism, rhetoric far different from the past, actions 
on Cyprus and in favor of reform and Turkey's EU candidacy, 
and personal ambition suggest there is truth to his 
assertion.  FonMin Abdullah Gul has also put great energy 
into Turkey's EU candidacy and delivered major speeches 
calling for reform in the Muslim world at OIC conferences in 
Tehran and Kuala Lumpur.  Most of the M.P.s and party 
provincial chairmen with an MG past whom we maintain contact 
with also assert they have changed.  AKP projects a much more 
mass-party orientation and its public rhetoric avoids the 
Islam-drenched vocabulary of Erbakan and his movement. 
Erbakan in turn scorns Erdogan (but not Gul) with sly 
condescension, highlighting a deep and personal split. 
 
 
4. (C) Therefore, establishmentarian columnist Sedat Ergin's 
Feb. 29 assertion (picked up and disseminated further by at 
least one Washington think-tank) that 80% of AKP's mayoral 
candidates represented MG, aside from providing no basis for 
his claim, obscures three essential questions.  First, what 
is MG?  Second, how far have MG types in AKP changed? 
Second, how much influence does MG have over Erdogan and 
party decisions? 
 
 
------------------------- 
THE NATURE OF MILLI GORUS 
------------------------- 
 
 
5. (C) As summarized in ref (A) MG types wrap themselves in 
prejudice and Islamist rhetoric, interpreting both Islam and 
the world in an arid, conspiratorial, anti-democratic way. 
In this sense, they bear careful watching.  However, they are 
arch-hypocrites and willing to overlook their alleged 
Islamist principles to make deals beneficial to themselves 
and their narrow circle.  In this sense, their 
too-clever-by-half duality works against them.  Regarding 
MG's focus on material benefits, one of the basic motives for 
the break with Erbakan was the frustration on Erdogan's, 
Gul's, and others' part that Erbakan's inner circle was 
hoarding the substantial inflow of contributions, especially 
from MG in Germany (the common estimate we heard several 
years ago was two million DM a month). 
 
 
----------------------------- 
HAS AKP BLEACHED MILLI GORUS? 
----------------------------- 
 
 
6. (C) Reflecting the duality within MG, opinions are mixed 
about how far those in AKP from the MG line have changed. 
AKP Afyon M.P. Mahmut Kocak, ex-center right DYP and thus by 
his pragmatic nature opposed to MG, complained to us in 
bitter frustration about how the MG hold on the AKP Afyon 
organization led to the choice of a colorless, pliant mayoral 
candidate and has blocked Kocak's ability to get can-do 
candidates appointed to key civil service posts in the 
province.  Yet in a later conversation he dismissed claims 
that MG influence is a danger to AKP's centrist direction 
since, as he averred, MG types are forced to adapt to 
Erdogan's more centrist, pragmatic vision whether they like 
it or not. 
7. (C) In this vein AKP whip Sadullah Ergin, who comes from 
the MG line, has long tried to assert to us -- although each 
time with a classically MG expression of vague and passive 
acceptance -- that MG types recognize they have to 
change...and are changing.  Yet we recently witnessed him in 
classic MG mode patronizing three of the leading AKP women 
M.P.s, who were pointing out to him the need for more women 
in the party's leadership. 
 
 
8. (C) AKP deputy chairman for policy Dengir Firat, who says 
he is called an infidel by the outwardly more pious AKP 
M.P.s, resents what he sees as the continuing dead hand of MG 
on the party, especially at the provincial level (ref A). 
AKP Erzurum-Ispir district chairman Osman Cakir was one of 
several independently-minded, salt-of-the-earth district 
chairmen in the northeast who told us last autumn they would 
leave the party if the MG types did not change; Cakir did 
leave and won the Ispir mayoral election as an independent. 
 
 
9. (C) Views of pious Turks outside the party are split. 
Renowned calligrapher Ismet Keten, formerly an activist in 
rightist-nationalist MHP and with extensive contacts among 
various religious brotherhoods, dismisses MG as a corrupt, 
spent force.  On the other hand, Bedreddin Habiboglu, son of 
a famous Islamic theologian and himself an expert on Islam, 
asserts MG types are indelibly tainted by their collectivist 
(secret lodge) approach to Islam and will never be able to 
think for themselves.  Likewise, an upper-mid-level police 
intelligence official stationed in central Anatolia tells us 
that in his experience MG types throughout the heart of 
Anatolia are only pretending to change.  When they think they 
are among friends they still speak of the U.S. as their main 
enemy and acknowledge their change is only a facade. 
 
 
10. (S) Other long-time Embassy contacts also voice mixed 
assessments.  Leading national security analyst Faruk Demir, 
whom we have seen recently drafting a series of eyes-only 
security and foreign policy analyses hand-delivered to 
Erdogan, points out that Erdogan has never explained how he 
has changed or developed.  Demir, who had a religious 
education including graduation from a preacher (imam-hatip) 
high school, is also uneasy with Erdogan's bristling 
rejection of a connection between Islam and terrorism. 
 
 
11. (S) But Demir concurs with long-time Erdogan confidant 
Mustafa Birbilen (aka Bilginer), who sees Erdogan as having 
distanced himself from MG for several reasons (ref B).  Both 
Demir and Birbilen agree with the widespread assessment in 
AKP and among other who follow the party closely (e.g., 
Bedreddin Habiboglu, Islam-oriented "Yeni Safak"'s diplomatic 
correspondent Duygu Guvenc, Islam-oriented "Zaman" columnist 
and sociologist Nevval Sevindi) that, underneath his 
reasonable exterior, FonMin Gul remains much closer to MG 
ideological precepts than Erdogan. 
 
 
----------------------------- 
THE MILLI GORUS IMPACT ON AKP 
----------------------------- 
 
 
12. (C) On core foreign policy questions such as EU candidacy 
or continued close adherence to NATO, MG has had no 
discernible influence.  Likewise on Cyprus, although "Yeni 
Safak"'s Duygu Guvenc avers that at times FonMin Gul's 
approach -- e.g., his openly friendly overtures to Rauf 
Denktash just before the February meetings at which the 
parties agreed to re-open negotiations -- suggests that, 
while he supports a settlement, he's trying to carve out a 
margin for maneuver from Erdogan's forthright line.  On 
"Eurasia" and policy toward Syria and Iran, Gul's and foreign 
policy advisor Ahmet Davutoglu's approach contains Islamist 
tones, although to call the approach MG would be to miss 
nuances. 
 
 
13. (C) Some appointees in national-level positions, e.g., 
Prime Ministry Undersecretary Omer Dincer, have clear 
Islamist tendencies; in the words of one contact, "to say 
that Dincer is not MG is to assume a heavy responsibility." 
Given the wide assortment of advisors around Erdogan, it does 
not appear that Dincer has undue influence at present. 
Samsun M.P. Musa Uzunkaya, a former mufti (civil servant 
supervisor of mosques and imams) and a founder of AKP, was 
one of the first MG types to join Erdogan as he split from 
Erbakan, and appears to be one of Erdogan's main channels for 
controlling the MG fraction of perhaps 40 M.P.s (15 
hard-core) in AKP's parliamentary group.  In our experience 
Uzunkaya retains the classic MG physical appearance and 
mannerisms but is shrewd enough to sense that he must adapt 
to keep up with Erdogan's move toward the center. 
 
 
14. (C) From our own observation and by admission of scores 
of AKP M.P.s and local party officials we have talked to 
across the country, MG types remain in control of many of 
AKP's provincial organizations.  Kemal Kaya, legislative 
assistant to liberal-conservative NATO parliamentary group 
chairman (and former ANAPer) Vahit Erdem, confirmed to us 
Erdem's discomfort at MG's influence in the selection of 
mayoral candidates for the March 28 local elections.  Several 
contacts in or close to AKP acknowledged to us that Gul 
adamantly opposed Erdogan's choice of incumbent Melih Gokcek, 
a latecomer to AKP and too independent, nationalist, and 
ambitious for MG tastes, as AKP's mayoral candidate for 
metropolitan Ankara.  Telling us infighting between MG types 
and the AKP mainstream is now fiercer than AKP's competition 
with other parties, liberal-conservative AKP deputy chairman 
for foreign affairs Saban Disli averred that MG is powerful 
but not so powerful as some media reports indicate.  Erdogan 
will now seek to lop off MG extremists, Disli asserted. 
 
 
------- 
COMMENT 
------- 
 
 
15. (C) In our view, MG types in AKP are in a minority.  They 
are a drag but not a fully operational brake on AKP's 
consolidation and transformation into a centrist party.  They 
will remain under pressure to adapt to the extent that 
momentum to move AKP toward the center remains with Erdogan, 
who has moved substantially away from the full-blown MG 
environment of his youth and his work in MG founder Erbakan's 
parties. 
 
 
16. (C) But in the context of the challenges facing Erdogan 
outlined in reftels, open questions remain.  First, how the 
Erdogan-Gul dynamic will play out in terms of appointments. 
Second, how Erdogan will be able to keep Gul in line on 
foreign policy ("Aksam" Ankara bureau chief Nuray Basaran, 
who has the best access to Erdogan of all correspondents we 
know, tells us Erdogan has heard that Gul is disparaging him 
to foreign interlocutors).  Third, how Erdogan will have the 
time and energy to clean MG's influence out of the provincial 
organizations. 
 
 
 
 
EDELMAN