US embassy cable - 05ANKARA911

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 ANKARA 000911 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/16/2015 
TAGS: PREL, PGOV, PINS, TU 
SUBJECT: RESIGNATION FROM TURKISH CABINET: WHEN AND HOW 
WILL A VIABLE ALTERNATIVE TO PM ERDOGAN APPEAR? 
 
 
(U) Classified by Ambassador Eric Edelman; reasons: E.O. 
12958 1.4 (b,d). 
 
1. (C) Summary: Culture and Tourism Minister Mumcu's 
resignation from the AKP cabinet and the party will not split 
AKP.  Nor is Mumcu or anyone else outside AKP with 
aspirations to form a credible political alternative able to 
challenge AKP's dominance in the near term.  But Mumcu's move 
highlights the toll two months of post Dec. 17 drift have 
taken on PM Erdogan's leadership.  Mumcu's now unbraked 
willingness publicly to expose cabinet incompetence will 
further encourage more viable centers of opposition to 
Erdogan -- core institutions of the Turkish state and his own 
FonMin Gul -- to seek further advantage.  Erdogan thus has 
key decisions to take, and only a short time to do so, if he 
is to re-establish sustainable leadership.  End summary. 
 
2. (C) Culture and Tourism Minister Erkan Mumcu's Feb. 15 
resignation from the cabinet and from ruling AKP came as no 
surprise.  A last-minute adherent to AKP before the Nov. 2002 
general elections, Mumcu never bothered to conceal his 
impatience with what he saw as the inept way in which AKP 
tried to further the more Islamic-oriented elements of its 
social agenda, e.g., Islamic headscarves ("turban"). 
 
3. (C) At the same time, more assertively pious AKP ministers 
and MPs did not conceal their view that Mumcu was an 
opportunist, an odd man out with his naked ambition, more 
"liberal" approach to Islamic values, and attachment to 
Islamist thinker Fethullah Gulen (seen as a rival movement by 
those AKP members with roots in the Islamist "Milli Gorus" 
movement of one-time PM Necmettin Erbakan).  Moreover, while 
marital infidelity appears to be so widespread in the cabinet 
that even mild-mannered State Minister and Islamic scholar 
Mehmet Aydin has been known to make ribald jokes about it to 
colleagues, Mumcu's casual approach has been an easy target 
for the more hypocritical ones among his former cabinet 
colleagues, and he was also among those most rumored as 
likely choices to be axed in any cabinet re-shuffle. 
 
4. (C) While the Turkish press has gone into overtime 
speculating on the reasons for Mumcu's move, contacts deep 
inside or close to AKP (Istanbul MP Huseyin Besli, who writes 
many of Erdogan's speeches; "Bilge" think tank chairman Hasan 
Osman Celik; and Prime Ministry advisor Aydin Kanat among 
others we have talked to) do not see the resignation as 
fracturing AKP.  Mumcu may take a handful of unhappy AKP MPs 
with him.  He will appeal to a section of the 
center-right/right-of-center electorate as well as to some on 
the center-left.  Yet his opportunism, ambition and 
know-it-all attitude rub too many people the wrong way.  The 
armed forces have never forgiven him for anti-military 
comments he made at the end of the 1990's.  He thus faces a 
very slippery road ahead. 
 
5. (C) As we assess potential serious challengers to Erdogan, 
none of the other conventional names appears to have serious 
traction. 
 
6. (C) Left-of-center CHP chairman Baykal is a loser.  Baykal 
rival Mustafa Sarigul has showed himself to be a corrupt 
lout.  Baykal's Hamlet-like half-rival Kemal Dervis appeals 
only to an elitist set. 
 
7. (C) Center-right DYP chairman Mehmet Agar, whose tenure as 
chief of the National Police in the early to mid-1990's is 
still connected in people's minds with extrajudicial killings 
and other activities of the "deep state", inspires almost no 
one.  Although right-nationalist MHP appears to have regained 
some momentum, it is encumbered by a politically bankrupt 
leadership.  Union of Chambers (TOBB) chairman Rifat 
Hisarciklioglu, seen by some as a stalking horse for 
Erdogan's chief internal rival, FonMin Abdullah Gul, has a 
war chest estimated at $300 million and a nationwide network 
of more than 350 chambers which he can use to promote his 
image.  However, as appealingly conservative as he appears 
across Anatolia, his caution makes any eventual candidacy 
problematic, and his position has not improved over several 
years despite his clear ambition.  Former Istanbul mayor 
Bedrettin Dalan is too encumbered by rumors of corruption and 
readiness to assert deep connections to the Turkish military 
to be an attractive alternative in Anatolia. 
 
8. (C) Our contacts do agree, however, that Mumcu's departure 
will encourage the broader opposition to think that the once 
seemingly invulnerable Erdogan is now no longer unassailable. 
 In this regard, two foci of opposition are key. 
 
9. (C) The first are core institutions of the Turkish state, 
especially the Presidency, the bureaucracy, and the military 
(active-duty, NOT retired).  We have seen these institutions 
use some "post-post modern" methods to try to check AKP: 
presidential vetoes of AKP-drafted laws and personnel 
appointments; regular, statesman-like press briefings by the 
Turkish General Staff.  We are likely to see more use of such 
methods, combined with feelers to potential rival politicians 
and broader use of a press which, vulnerable to tax audits, 
until now has been intimidated by AKP but which will be 
emboldened by Mumcu's move and by his willingness to leak 
details embarrassing to Erdogan or other members of the 
cabinet. 
 
10. (C) The second, more immediately powerful opposition to 
Erdogan lies within AKP itself.  FonMin Gul and parliamentary 
Speaker Bulent Arinc have separately used Erdogan's frequent 
absences on foreign trips and his dismissive treatment of 
cabinet members and MPs to woo disgruntled MPs and to try to 
consolidate their hold on AKP's provincial organizations. 
 
11. (C) For instance, Gul has quietly begun a series of 
dinners for MPs, five to ten at a time, to sound them out on 
where they would like to see the party go; this is an unusual 
activity for a Turkish FonMin to engage in.  Gul has taken 
more charge of the AKP parliamentary group, which two years 
ago he claimed to know only poorly, with only one out of five 
party whips (Faruk Celik) now firmly on Erdogan's side.  Gul 
has also often provoked Erdogan into a harsh escalation of 
rhetoric on foreign policy issues (e.g., criticizing Israel 
in April 2004 and U.S. Iraq policy end-January/beginning of 
February 2005) and then making a U-turn, leaving Erdogan 
appearing the intemperate one while he appeals to foreign 
leaders as the reasonable one.  Contacts such as AKP MP and 
Turkey's NATO Parliamentary Assembly chairman Vahit Erdem 
have characterized Gul's February 14 interview in center-left 
mass circulation "Milliyet", in which he lavishly praised 
Secretary Rice and Turkish-U.S. relations in the wake of his 
 
SIPDIS 
February 6 meeting and extended one-on-one conversation with 
the Secretary, as an attempt to portray himself as more 
capable and appealing than Erdogan. 
 
12. (C) Comment: We agree that by itself Mumcu's resignation 
will not split AKP.  However, his move has attracted 
heightened attention for two reasons.  First, because it 
comes after two months of inaction on Erdogan's and the GOT's 
part, inaction which has sparked press commentary from across 
the spectrum that Erdogan is an absentee PM and that AKP is 
adrift.  Outstanding examples of such commentary are Islamist 
Ahmet Tasgetiren's February 5 warning to AKP to face up to 
its responsibilities in pro-AKP "Yeni Safak" and leftist 
Meral Tamer's February 12 column on AKP's disarray and 
internal rivalries in "Milliyet".  Second, because Mumcu's 
timing has revived speculation about the effects on the core 
"secularist" structures of the state from Erdogan's 
mishandling of the headscarf issue in an ill-considered 
interview to "Welt am Sonntag" at the Davos Forum. 
 
13. (C) In this context, the next couple of weeks will 
determine whether Erdogan can re-set AKP on a sustainable 
course with himself firmly in charge, or whether he continues 
on a slow but discernible decline.  Key indicators will be 
(1) whether he chooses a chief negotiator for the EU 
accession process, and whom he chooses; (2) how he fills out 
or shuffles his cabinet; (3) whether he decides on reforms to 
high regulatory boards and whether these reforms credibly 
preserve the boards' autonomy; (4) whether he ensures that 
his government signs the new IMF stand-by, which has hung 
fire for two months; (5) how he handles relations with the 
U.S., especially given Gul's charm offensive; and (5) whether 
he gathers a new, more astute team of domestic and foreign 
policy advisors.  In this latter regard, we understand from 
Energy Minister Guler that Erdogan, mindful his current group 
of advisors has not served him well and worried by Gul's 
attempts to undercut him, has approved his close friend 
Guler's preliminary assembly of a team of advisors with deep 
experience in the Turkish bureaucracy. 
 
14. (C) If Erdogan is unable to right the ship, we foresee an 
extended period of relative drift, with an eventual split in 
AKP the most probable way to produce alternatives which would 
redefine the Turkish political scene. 
EDELMAN