US embassy cable - 05ANKARA1730

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 ANKARA 001730 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/19/2015 
TAGS: PREL, PGOV, PINS, MARR, TU 
SUBJECT: TURKEY ADRIFT 
 
REF: A. ANKARA 1074 
     B. ANKARA 1231 
     C. ANKARA 1275 
     D. ANKARA 1511 
     E. ANKARA 1342 
     F. ANKARA 944 
     G. ANKARA 1102 
 
(U) Classified by CDA Robert Deutsch; E.O. 12958, reasons 1.4 
(b) and (d). 
 
1. (C) Summary: Turkey is stuck in a domestic and foreign 
policy drift stemming from leadership and structural problems 
in ruling AKP.  A long-overdue healthy debate over Turkey's 
identity and AKP, including its handling of relations with 
the U.S., has started.  But AKP's policy muddle is leaving a 
vacuum that resurgent nationalism is seeking to fill.  This 
period of drift could be extended, making EU reforms and 
bilateral cooperation more difficult. The drift may well 
continue until the next crisis creates new political 
alternatives in a day of reckoning.  End Summary. 
 
AKP Government Adrift 
--------------------- 
 
2. (C) As the AKP government confronts the arduous task of EU 
harmonization, it is manifestly adrift on domestic political 
and economic reform.  Implementation of reform legislation 
passed in 2003-2004 is seriously deficient (refs A and B). 
The AKP government has a poor working relationship with the 
military, the Presidency and the largely-secular state 
bureaucracy.  It is failing to control corruption in the AK 
party.  It has been slow to introduce the banking, tax 
administration and social security legislation required by 
the IMF as a pre-condition for a new stand-by program.  It is 
neglecting relations with the EU.  Erdogan has delayed 
appointing a chief negotiator for EU accession negotiations; 
both Erdogan and FM Gul have made statements which have 
disturbed EU officials and politicians.  Erdogan has still 
not decided on a much-anticipated cabinet reshuffle. 
 
3. (C) AK party officials publicly deny the government's 
obvious drift and we see no sign it has yet begun to 
undermine Erdogan's voter base.  AKP's ability to get back on 
track is compromised by its Islamist/neo-Ottoman reflexes and 
single-party-state spoils system.  We doubt this government 
will be able to refocus or move our bilateral relationship -- 
which remains strong in some areas -- back to a more 
strategic level. 
 
4. (C)  PM Erdogan is isolated.  He has lost touch with his 
Cabinet and parliamentary group.  We hear MPs and Ministers 
alike, even Energy Minister Guler, who is close to Erdogan, 
complain they no longer have comfortable access, or feel 
obliged to kowtow for fear of incurring Erdogan's wrath. 
Business associations, strong advocates of AKP economic 
policies, tell us they feel they have lost the PM's ear. 
Erdogan has cut himself off from his closest spiritual 
advisors in the Iskender Pasa Naksibendi brotherhood in which 
he grew up, as we have heard directly from the brotherhood's 
number two leader. 
 
5.  (C) According to a broad range of our contacts, Erdogan 
reads minimally, mainly the Islamist-leaning press. 
According to others with broad and deep contacts throughout 
the establishment, Erdogan refuses to draw on the analyses of 
the MFA, and the military and National Intelligence 
Organization have cut him off from their reports.  He never 
had a realistic world view, but one key touchstone is a fear 
of being outmaneuvered on the Islamist side by "Hoca" 
Erbakan's Saadet Party.  Instead, he relies on his charisma, 
instincts, and the filterings of advisors who pull conspiracy 
theories off the Web or are lost in neo-Ottoman Islamist 
fantasies, e.g., Islamist foreign policy advisor and Gul ally 
Ahmet Davutoglu. 
 
6. (C) Inside the AKP, the more ideological Deputy PM/FonMin 
Gul continues behind-the-scenes machinations, especially 
during Erdogan's foreign junkets.  Gul seems to be trying to 
undermine Erdogan and take on more party control.  He may 
hope to reclaim the Prime Ministership, which he was forced 
to cede to Erdogan four months after AKP acceded to power. 
With his relatively good English, Gul works to project an 
image of being "moderate", or "modern".  In fact, Gul's peers 
say he has a far more ideologized anti-Western worldview than 
Erdogan.  Gul, reflecting his pragmatic streak, has made some 
constructive statements on bilateral relations and on 
Turkey's Iraq policy since the Iraqi elections.  However, we 
understand that Gul and a group of like-minded MPs and 
journalists continue to see fomenting anti-American attitudes 
as one way to get at Erdogan while also being moved by 
emotions of Islamic/Sunni solidarity. 
 
7. (C) AKP's disarray has generated significant internal 
unease from those who support Erdogan, but also from some of 
the other tendencies forming AK.  Energy Minister Guler and 
Finance Minister Unakitan have both relayed to us through a 
trusted intermediary that Erdogan does not know how to 
proceed, either on domestic policy or on rebuilding relations 
with the U.S.  Deputy PM Sener, a bellwether of Islamist 
sentiment, has told two of our insider contacts that he is 
about to resign in disgust at the party's rampant corruption. 
 Hasan Osman Celik, one of Erdogan's closest business and 
brotherhood friends and advisors from Istanbul, says he sees 
no future for this government and thinks it is time for a 
more flexible and open leader.  Leading member of the 
Fethullah Gulen lodge Abdurrahman Celik, who is said to have 
influence over 60 or more AKP MPs, has expressed to us the 
Gulenists' sense that Erdogan cannot hack it. 
Long Overdue Healthy Debate 
--------------------------- 
8. (C) The ferment is not all bad.  It is beginning to force 
some to question the real roots of inertia and stasis in a 
Turkey that needs to accelerate its transition.  We are 
encouraged by the determination of some to open a 
long-overdue, healthy debate on AKP and its handling of 
Turkey's relations with the U.S.  Secretary Rice's February 6 
visit and subsequent U.S. media coverage helped ignite the 
debate.  Another catalyst was Deputy CHOD Basbug's January 26 
press briefing, in which he coolly analyzed Turkish concerns 
about Iraq and repeatedly emphasized that one cannot reduce 
broad and comprehensive U.S.-Turkish relations to a single 
issue.  It was not until late February, that Erdogan -- 
albeit without conviction in his voice -- expressed anything 
similar to Basbug's assessment of the importance of bilateral 
relations. 
 
9.  (C) The debate has now produced some sustained trenchant 
criticism of AKP's domestic and foreign policies from several 
insightful mainstream commentators.  However, mainstream 
commentators are seen as too "pro-American" to be persuasive 
among AKP or its supporters.  Perhaps more important have 
been the decisions of some pro-AKP Islamist columnists to 
write unusually blunt warnings that the AKP government must 
pull itself together or risk a fall.  The Parliamentary 
opposition has continued its anti-American 60's leftist 
rhetoric as it winds its merry way to irrelevance. 
 
Resurgent Nationalism 
--------------------- 
 
10.  (C) There is a more disturbing consequence of AKP's 
weakness:  resurgent nationalism.  Two of the hottest selling 
books in Turkey are "Metal Storm", a conspiracy novel that 
feeds the worst instincts of Turks with its tale of a U.S. 
invasion of Turkey followed by Turkish nuclear counter-strike 
with the help of the Russians; and "Mein Kampf" (ref C). 
Under instructions from the Directorate of Religious Affairs, 
imams across Turkey delivered a March 11 sermon against 
Christian missionaries (ref D), claiming they aim to "steal 
the beliefs of our young people and children."  We are 
receiving increased reports of anti-Christian activity in 
different regions of Turkey (e.g., ref E).  The Central Bank 
Governor told us that nationalist/isolationist forces are 
behind the problems with the IMF (ref F).  An attempt to burn 
the Turkish flag during a Newroz celebration in Mersin has 
drawn strong nationalistic statements from across the 
spectrum, including a statement from the General Staff that 
"the Turkish nation and the Turkish armed forces are ready to 
sacrifice their blood to protect their country and their 
flag."  The decision to memorialize, after a 47-year hiatus, 
the killing by British forces of several Ottoman soldiers 
during the Allies' W.W.I occupation of Istanbul also bespeaks 
the national mood. 
 
11.  (U) The Turkish media have given prominent coverage to 
what appears to be a growth in street crime and to a parallel 
refusal of the police, angry at limitations on their 
operational abilities under the new EU-inspired criminal 
code, to patrol aggressively.  In a March 18 column, Ertugrul 
Ozkok, managing editor of Turkey's leading newspaper 
"Hurriyet" and one of the most authoritative press voices of 
the Establishment, noted that the Turkish public is deeply 
disturbed by what it perceives as a breakdown of law and 
order.  Ozkok, in what would appear to be an overstatement, 
closed with a warning to Erdogan that, when democratic forces 
cannot ensure safety in the streets (sic), then the public 
and political space is left to other forces. In a March 4 
column, Umit Ozdag, now in the running for chairmanship of 
the right-wing nationalist MHP, cited increased crime as one 
reason for the current popularity of "Mein Kampf." 
 
12.  (C) Resurgent nationalist feelings probably also played 
a role in the press and government reactions to comments from 
EU Ambassador Kretschmer about the government's loss of 
momentum and EU accession, to the EU Troika's worry about the 
police violence against a March 6 Istanbul demonstration, and 
the press feeding frenzy over Ambassador Edelman's innocent 
remarks on Syria. 
 
Comment 
------ 
 
13.  (C) Having reached one of its primary goals -- a date to 
begin EU accession negotiations -- Erdogan's AKP government 
is out of ideas and energy.  For now, EU- and IMF-required 
reforms will face tougher opposition from re-energized 
nationalists, the government will be tempted to delay 
difficult decisions in any realm, and resistance to change 
will be the default mode.  Bilateral cooperation will be more 
difficult, more vulnerable to characterization as 
unreasonable U.S. "demands" that infringe upon Turkish 
"sovereignty." 
 
14.  (C) This period of drift could last a long time.  AKP's 
Parliamentary majority is eroding, but only slowly (ref G). 
Despite the unhappiness inside AKP, there is currently no 
political alternative and there are risks to anyone who 
actually forces a split.  Erdogan still has a "nuclear" 
option in hand -- early elections.  The danger is that tough 
decisions and the settling out of the political system will 
be put off until a real new crisis emerges which will either 
energize the AKP or bring new political alternatives. 
Waiting bears a real cost, since Turkey needs to be more 
nimble in pursuing the political, economic, social and 
foreign policy agendas many Turks, the EU and the U.S., have 
been supporting, than this type of static drift will permit. 
DEUTSCH