US embassy cable - 04ANKARA5310

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 ANKARA 005310 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/16/2014 
TAGS: PREL, PGOV, PHUM, PINS, TU 
SUBJECT: RULING AK PARTY COMPLICATES ITS ITS POLITICAL 
FUTURE AND EU CANDIDACY: SEX, HYPOCRISY, AND NIKEPHOBIA 
 
REF: A. ANKARA 5200 
     B. ANKARA 5113 
 
(U) Classified by Ambassador Eric Edelman; reasons: E.O. 
12958 1.4 (b,d). 
 
1. (U) Summary: AK Party (AKP) government's reversal of 
course by a renewed insistence on criminalizing adultery and 
subsequent suspension of passage of the new criminal code 
until after the Oct. 6 release of the EU's progress report on 
Turkey's candidacy; EU's insistence that Turkey pass its new 
criminal code before Oct. 6; and PM Erdogan's harsh rejoinder 
that no one should interfere in Turkey's internal affairs 
have complicated AKP's political standing and Turkey's EU 
candidacy.  End summary. 
 
2. (U) PM Erdogan's zigzags on criminalization of adultery 
(reftels) appear to stem from more than the mixture of 
incompetence and unclear intentions -- i.e., the possibility 
of a hidden agenda -- that has dogged AKP since it came to 
power in Nov. 2002. 
 
3. (U) Erdogan's uneven course reflects the pressure he is 
under to square his EU aspirations, which in this specific 
instance would mean foregoing criminalization of adultery, 
with the need he keenly feels to respond to a party base 
disturbed by his advance and retreat on other social issues 
of long-standing interest to much of the base.  These issues 
include the right to wear Islamic headscarves in universities 
and official spaces (e.g., parliament), expanded access to 
Koran courses, and discrimination against general university 
entrance for graduates of preacher (imam-hatip) high schools. 
 In this regard, the Sept. 16 column of influential Islamist 
columnist Ahmet Tasgetiren in vocally pro-AKP "Yeni Safak", 
warning the AKP leadership that the party's base has had 
enough of indecision on these issues, is a strong signal that 
Erdogan's room for maneuver is closing. 
 
4. (C) Influencing Erdogan's domestic political calculations 
are the pressure for criminalization brought to bear from 
four directions: 
 
--"Aksam" Ankara bureau chief Nuray Basaran, the Turkish 
journalist with the best access to Erdogan and his wife 
Emine, affirmed to us Sept. 17 that Emine, who has strong 
influence on her husband's party-related decisions, has put 
unremitting pressure on her husband to act in response to the 
sexual peccadilloes of Education Minister Huseyin Celik and 
Erdogan foreign policy advisor Omer Celik (ref B; no 
relation). 
 
--Abdurrahman Celik (no relation), a key advisor to 
influential Islamic lodge leader Fethullah Gulen and a guru 
to scores of AKP MP's, including Justice Minister Cemil 
Cicek, acknowledged to us Sept. 14 that it was Cicek who 
persuaded Erdogan to approve the original, sudden gambit to 
criminalize adultery and fornication (ref B). 
 
--Basaran and the staffer for a conservative AKP Gaziantep MP 
also affirmed to us Sept. 17 that various NGOs from the 
Fethullah Gulen lodge have lobbied AKP MPs intensively in the 
past few days to ensure inclusion of criminalization of 
adultery to draw the attention of core anti-Gulen elements of 
the Turkish State away from criminal code amendments which 
would remove clauses that formed the legal base for 
still-open prosecutions of Gulen, and caused Gulen to seek 
(continuing) residence in the U.S. 
 
--AKP Istanbul MP Nimet Cubukcu, a lawyer and the party's 
highest-profile woman MP on legal issues, insisted to us 
Sept. 16 that criminalization is strongly supported among 
women in the party's base.  With just the official count of 
imam weddings (used as a normal equivalent of church weddings 
or to give a man a religious stamp of approval for sexual 
relations outside his legally-recognized marriage) at 1.2 
million and women in the conservative eastern Black Sea 
region expressing outrage at what Cubukcu reported as 
numerous instances of prostitutes from the Caucasus or Russia 
being taken as concubines, criminalization would be at least 
a first step to try to deter abusive use of imam weddings. 
Turkey has a very different set of problems around the status 
of women than EU member states in this regard and has to have 
the freedom to tackle these problems in a way consistent with 
Turkey's traditions, she asserted. 
 
5. (C) AKP's move to keep criminalization of adultery in play 
is likely to cost the government and party leadership dearly 
for several reasons. 
 
6. (C) First, it is considered further proof for those both 
in the core elements of the State and in more mainstream 
conservative but anti-AKP circles, that Erdogan, FonMin Gul 
and others have not in fact broken with their radical 
Islamist upbringing.  In this regard, Yasar Okuyan, a former 
Labor Minister from center-right ANAP and a classic 
pious-but-liberal (he drinks) heartlander who shared a 
university past with both Erdogan and Gul in the 
nationalist-Islamist Turkish National Student Union (MTTB), 
is only one of many experienced center-right politicians and 
analysts who patiently insist to us that, despite their 
pragmatic demeanor, Erdogan and -- to a much more ideological 
extent Gul -- remain political Islamists. 
 
7. (C) Second, it will give core elements of the State, 
especially the Turkish General Staff, which under CHOD Ozkok 
has carefully refrained from more than reminding everyone of 
certain redlines, a clearer sense that there are fault lines 
within AKP, including growing resentment at Erdogan's 
high-handed ways and AKP's ability to stumble just when it 
approaches the finish line, eventually exploitable by 
indirect ("post-post-modern") means.  In this light Okuyan 
told us Sept. 17 that if instead of challenging AKP's base in 
a way which seems to demean the base's religious faith and is 
thus counterproductive, the TGS could begin seriously to 
erode AKP's popularity by pointing out the party's failure to 
deliver on its headscarf and other promises and rank 
hypocrisy on adultery.  Okuyan says there are at least 85 AKP 
MPs with more than one wife and that 23 of these 
relationships are long-term. 
 
8. (C) Third, the move does not enjoy uniform support in AKP, 
either among cabinet members and MPs or more broadly. 
Despite Cubukcu's observation that criminalization has wide 
support among AKP's women supporters, three women research 
assistants to AKP deputy party chairmen (one uncovered, two 
with turbans) sought to tell us Sept. 16 at party 
headquarters they consider it unwise to pursue the issue now, 
especially given the loss of momentum the controversy will 
cause just as AKP appears headed for success on the EU front. 
 
9. (C) Fourth, EU Ambassadors in Ankara, including the Dutch 
presidency, told Ambassador Edelman Sept. 16 there is an EU 
consensus that, even before AKP's attempt to resuscitate the 
adultery issue, the initial gambit did considerable damage to 
Turkey's momentum in EU capitals and cast doubt on the 
probability the EU will issue a clear invitation at its 
December summit to start the harmonization process in 2005. 
What is especially troubling to the EU Ambassadors here is 
the unwillingness of the GOT leadership -- above all Gul -- 
to take the point that renewing the criminalization drive 
will cast an even deeper shadow over Turkey's candidacy. 
 
10. (C) Comment: Erdogan's tough-guy rejoinder to the EU to 
avoid interference in Turkey's internal affairs betrays his, 
and a broad cross section of Turks', total misunderstanding 
of what EU harmonization entails.  At the same time Erdogan, 
Gul and others in the AKP leadership are desperate to get an 
EU start date in December since they know they and their 
government will face a huge, and perhaps terminal, political 
management problem if they fail.  Judging by Erdogan's and 
Gul's pattern of retreating from tough statements when faced 
with concerted resistance, we expect they will return to 
trying to square the circle of competing EU and domestic 
exigencies. 
 
11. (C) Comment contd.: However, if Erdogan and Gul interpret 
the October EU progress report as substantially narrowing 
Turkey's chances for a yes in December, we should be prepared 
to see Erdogan pre-emptively wrap himself in a 
nationalist-Islamist flag.  In a broader sense, we should 
heed Okuyan's observation that Erdogan's, Gul's and in 
general AKP's dualism (e.g., east versus west; Islamism 
versus tolerance and modernity), in other words the 
instinctive preference to dissemble that flows from their 
Islamism, will continue to cause them to dig their own traps 
and to fail to carry through to success even with a positive 
EU decision in December.  End comment. 
EDELMAN