US embassy cable - 03ANKARA830

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 ANKARA 000830 
 
SIPDIS 
 
 
CENTCOM AND EUCOM: PLEASE PASS TO POLAD AND J-5 
 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/28/2013 
TAGS: PGOV, PREL, TU, IZ 
SUBJECT: TURKEY: ANTI-AMERICAN MEDIA CAMPAIGN AND ITS 
IMPLICATIONS 
 
REF: A. ANKARA 549 
     B. ANKARA 618 
     C. ISTANBUL 127 
     D. 02 ANKARA 1204 
     E. 02 ANKARA 8994 
     F. 02 ANKARA 2431 
     G. ANKARA 745 
 
 
(U) Classified by Polcouns John Kunstadter; reasons: 1.5 (b,d) 
 
 
1. (C) Summary: Amid an edgy public mood over Iraq, a 
strident anti-American propaganda campaign is underway in 
Turkey, encouraged by various political and Turkish State 
actors.  According to our contacts, such rhetoric is 
resonating with the man on the street, who is (1) convinced 
that an operation will tank Turkey's already weak economy and 
(2) susceptible to arguments that the U.S.'s anti-Saddam 
policy is motivated by anti-Muslim feelings.  That the Kurds 
of Southeastern Turkey reportedly are less susceptible to 
"Turkish" propaganda is further feeding official and press 
paranoia about U.S. intentions.  End summary. 
 
 
---------------------------- 
Multiheaded Anti-Americanism 
---------------------------- 
 
 
2. (C) A number of actors, including politicians, media, and 
elements of the Turkish State, have a hand in the current 
anti-American propaganda effort. 
 
 
-- Ref (A) notes recent allegations in the press, including 
in media baron Aydin Dogan's mainstream daily "Milliyet", of 
USG support for the terrorist PKK/KADEK.  As reported in Ref 
(B), the MFA has strongly intimated to us that suspicions in 
the Turkish General Staff (TGS), reflected in a report leaked 
to the press alleging contact between DoD officials and the 
PKK, are driving the current press campaign.  Jan. 29 edition 
of "Hurriyet," another Dogan Group mass daily, ran a column 
asserting that Parliament's Human Rights committee recently 
met with incarcerated PKK Number Two man Semdin Sakik (aka 
Fingerless Zeki), captured in 1998.  According to "Hurriyet," 
Sakik claimed the PKK acquired U.S. weapons left behind after 
the first Gulf War -- and that the USG supports establishment 
of an independent Kurdish state in Iraq.  In a private 
meeting with us Jan. 29, Human Rights committee chairman 
Elkatmis (AK Party) portrayed himself as buying Sakik's 
remarks.  Continuing to play to latent anti-American 
instincts in his left-of-center CHP, main opposition leader 
Deniz Baykal also promoted the Sakik remarks in a CNN Turk 
interview on Feb. 2. 
 
 
-- Internet-based letter-writing protest campaigns are 
underway against the U.S. (ref G); we are charged with 
nefarious "plans" for Turkey.  One e-mail form letter 
admonishes the Embassy not to "take our hospitality for 
granted; we have other characteristics as a nation which you 
should certainly get a better grasp of (sic)."  Consular 
section has already received about 450 such e-mails. 
 
 
-- Ref (C) notes that the Genc (Youth) Party of Motorola 
deadbeat Cem Uzan is waging a virulent anti-American mass 
media campaign of its own.  Genc is using both the Uzan 
family's own extensive TV and newspaper resources and daily 
ads on page two of Dogan group papers (including "Milliyet," 
which gave front-page coverage and legitimacy to the U.S.-PKK 
story).  TV and print ads depict a devastated landscape, ask 
"who will America hit" -- the clear implication is that 
Turkey will suffer -- and assert that Turkey has no interest 
in being used by the U.S. to strike "another Muslim country." 
 
 
 
 
-- Recent protest marches in Istanbul and Ankara by an 
amalgam of left-right and Islamic activists featured 
diatribes against U.S. "imperialism" and chants proclaiming 
the greatness of God.  While expressing solidarity with the 
Iraqi people, demonstrators also waved posters portraying 
Saddam as a sympathetic hero.  Several contacts, including 
the Turkish correspondent for a British defense weekly and a 
former Turkish NSC staffer who has maintained close ties to 
the TGS, have drawn our attention to the fact that until the 
last month anti-American protest marches -- including a large 
one planned for Izmir -- had consistently been disallowed by 
the authorities.  Approval of marches now is an indirect way 
for the Turkish State to signal its criticism of U.S. policy, 
our contacts independently noted. 
 
 
3. (C) Contacts of all stripes and levels suggest to us that 
the campaign is feeding simmering perceptions and resentment: 
 
 
-- Ankara Mayor Melih Gokcek told us Jan. 27 that his own 
polls show Genc, which came out of nowhere before the Nov. 3 
elections and made a surprisingly strong run for Parliament, 
as Turkey's second most popular party, ahead of the 
opposition CHP though still behind the ruling AKP.  AK party 
vice chairman for political strategy echoed this view to us 
Jan. 29. 
 
 
-- Former P.M. Ecevit has been featured in the media 
reiterating blanket assertions that he has long been aware of 
U.S. support for the PKK. 
 
 
-- Picking up on similar allegations, Mumtaz Yavuz, Vice 
Chairman of right-of-center True Path Party (DYP) told us 
Jan. 28 that new DYP boss Mehmet Agar is charging that "there 
would not be 30 thousand (sic) PKK members in Northern Iraq 
without the support of the USG."  Yavuz also asserted that 
the USG is supporting a de facto Kurdish state in Iraq and 
admonished us to abide by a "Turkish State view" on Kurdish 
issues.  Agar, a former interior minister and senior police 
official and now the chairman of right-of-center DYP, is 
intimately familiar with the reality of USG support for 
Turkey against PKK/KADEK, but insists on perpetuating the 
myth of the U.S.-PKK connection.  Turks also label him as: 1) 
a symbol of what they call the "Deep State" owing to his 
implication in the notorious 1996 Susurluk scandal, which 
gave the Turkish public a penetrating -- if fleeting -- 
glimpse at the then-prevalent connections among the armed 
forces, security and intel services, extrajudicial hit 
squads, and groups like Turkish Hizbullah; and 2) a 
politician with particularly strong ties to organized crime 
hit squads (refs E,F). 
 
 
4. (C) Conversations with ordinary citizens bear out the 
success of the campaign.  In recent days, Turks on the street 
have: 1) accused us of threatening to "kill children" in 
Iraq; 2) charged that the USG agenda "is all about oil;" and 
3) asserted that we are hamstringing the AK Government by 
preventing it from focusing on the shaky Turkish economy.  A 
Fulbrighter reported to us receiving a death threat from a 
group of street toughs -- the target audience of the Genc 
campaign -- out seeking confrontation with Americans.  Other 
contacts, from tradesmen and taxi drivers to M.P.s, tell us 
the worst part is the uncertainty they see in U.S. policy, an 
uncertainty fueling continuing uncertainty at the retail 
level: "Just get it over with" is a common refrain. 
 
 
-------------------------------- 
"Aren't the Kurds Muslims, Too?" 
-------------------------------- 
 
 
5. (C) The one region of Turkey where anti-American 
sentiments appear to be minimal is the predominately Kurdish 
Southeast (ref D).  In recent days, Southeastern contacts 
including several CHP and AK M.P.s -- ethnic Turks and Kurds 
alike -- prominent figures in the nominally illegal 
Naksibendi tarikat (a sufi order particularly influential in 
the region), and NGO reps, have suggested to us that local 
Kurds support immediate USG intervention in Iraq.  Some of 
Turkey's Kurds, they note, also have close, even familial, 
ties to Masud Barzani and the KDP.  According to our 
contacts, Kurds are looking forward to the prospect of what 
they hope are thousands of American soldiers bringing 
economic benefits with them to the Southeast. 
 
 
6. (C) Above all, our contacts express hope that the presence 
of U.S. soldiers in Iraq and Southeastern Turkey would make 
it harder for the Turkish State to repress Kurds on either 
side of the border.  As one CHP M.P. from Diyarbakir told us 
Jan. 27, his constituents' primary concern is that the 
Turkish military might "precipitate a massacre" of Kurds to 
keep the lid on the region.  One Naksibendi Shaykh asked us 
rhetorically Jan. 24 if Embassy ever wonders why "they" -- 
meaning the Turks -- "have only enemies everywhere?"  Another 
Naksibendili, formerly an M.P. with the Islamist Refah party 
and affiliated with Saadet, told us recently that he and 
other Kurds had expressed their displeasure to AK with the 
recent visit to Iraq by AK Trade Minister Kursad Tuzmen, a 
nationalist formerly with the right-wing MHP.  "The Turks say 
we don't want to make war on Muslims," he said.  "We asked 
them (the GOT) 'aren't the Kurds Muslims, too?'" 
------- 
Comment 
------- 
 
 
7. (C) We have been vigorously rebutting the scurrilous 
U.S.-PKK accusations at all levels of the GOT and the 
political class.  In this context we note that, beyond the 
evident hardening of public attitudes as a result of the 
media campaign, several aspects of this story potentially 
have an even more profound impact on efforts to promote USG 
equities here.  One factor is the willing participation of 
mainstream press barons with close pecuniary and other ties 
to the Establishment.  Resorting to Sakik "confessions" is a 
tried and true tactic.  In 1998, the mainstream press 
highlighted alleged Sakik "confessions" to the security 
forces implicating numerous politicians and several 
journalists with a balanced view of the U.S., forcing at 
least one journalist, Cengiz Candar, to go into self-imposed 
exile in Washington for a time. 
 
 
PEARSON