US embassy cable - 03ANKARA1742

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 ANKARA 001742 
 
SIPDIS 
 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/28/2012 
TAGS: PGOV, PREL, TU 
SUBJECT: TURKEY: POLITICAL RETURN OF ISLAMIST LEADER 
ERBAKAN CAUSING HEARTBURN FOR RULING AK PARTY 
 
REF: A. ANKARA 1350 
     B. ANKARA 1624 
     C. ANKARA 1488 
     D. ANKARA 1410 
     E. ANKARA 1636 
 
 
(U) Classified by Political Counselor John Kunstadter. 
Reason: 1.5(b)(d) 
 
 
1. (C) Summary: Returning from the political wilderness, 
Islamist former Prime Minister Erbakan is bent on using 
Saadet Party and the Iraq issue to hammer the ruling AK Party 
and P.M. Erdogan, a former Erbakan protege.  It is unlikely 
the septuagenarian Erbakan can reclaim his once dominant 
place in a political movement now badly fractured and 
represented in part by both AK and Saadet.  But the wily 
Erbakan "Hoca" ("Teacher") is already causing problems for 
AK, and may eventually recruit enough disaffected AK M.P.s to 
form a parliamentary group and mount a vocal alternative for 
core AK supporters in Turkey's increasingly charged political 
environment.  How Saadet approaches Turkey's problematic 
relations with its own Kurdish citizens will be a key to 
success or failure.  End summary. 
 
 
----------- 
The Teacher 
----------- 
 
 
2. (C) Erbakan, founder of the Islamist "Milli Gorus" 
(National View) Movement, is just coming off a five year 
court ban from formal politics (February 1998-2003).  This 
resulted from what Turks call the military's "post-modern" 
coup d'etat against his Refah Party-led government in 1997 
and Refah's subsequent court-mandated closure.  Even so, 
Erbakan quietly continued to exert de facto control over both 
the now-banned Fazilet Party and, subsequently, Saadet. 
 
 
3. (C) Oguzhan Asilturk, Erbakan's right-hand man, asserted 
to us March 12 that Erbakan is preparing officially to join 
Saadet March 21, and to assume the leadership at the Party 
conference in May.  Nevertheless, Erbakan is not yet in the 
clear.  First, as Asilturk called it, the Turkish "Deep 
State" -- principally the military -- will try to keep 
Erbakan under tight control.  Second, Erbakan was separately 
convicted and banned for spreading religious hatred (Penal 
Code Art. 312) but never served his sentence, which 
complicates his situation.  Diyarbakir State Security Court 
No. 1 has denied Erbakan's petition to expunge his criminal 
record in the wake of constitutional amendments 
decriminalizing some of the provisions under which he was 
banned -- a step that Erdogan must complete in order to 
reassert fully his political rights.  In its holding 
published March 19, the court ruled pursuant to legal 
technicalities that Erbakan is ineligible to return until 
Jan. 3 2004.  Most observers expect Erbakan eventually will 
win on appeal. 
 
 
----------------- 
Opportunity: Iraq 
----------------- 
 
 
4. (C) Many Turkish pundits wrote off Saadet and its greying 
leadership as the younger, more dynamic Erdogan and his AK 
Party -- which emerged after Fazilet's banning as a breakaway 
faction eager to replace Erbakan at the top of the Islamist 
movement, not only for political reasons but also to take 
their share of the sizeable income stream that Erbakan 
benefits from -- headed for a big win in the November 2002 
national elections.  More recently, however, the Iraq debate 
has intensified ideological and personality strains within 
the AK parliamentary group.  With the AK government's March 1 
failure to pass a parliamentary resolution authorizing 
deployment of U.S. troops through Turkey (ref A) -- and with 
nearly 100 AK M.P.s voting against the government -- those 
internecine conflicts have become even more visible. 
According to several sources, a rejectionist appeal from 
Erbakan to his sympathizers in the AK group played a role in 
the resolution's defeat. 
 
 
5. (C) Saadet seeks to exploit AK's divisions by having 
Erbakan articulate his time-tested message, designed to: (1) 
appeal explicitly to the more radical Islamic sentiments in 
the AK group by declaring that a U.S.-led war against Iraq is 
merely the latest Western imperialist "Crusade" in the lands 
of Islam; and (2) implicitly suggest that those in AK who 
support the USG, including Erdogan, are "Americanists" and de 
facto religious apostates -- a serious charge among the 
religiously-inclined.  Some Erdogan supporters -- notably 
Korkut Ozal, who failed in his own bid to wrest the Islamist 
crown from Erbakan in the 1970s -- have downplayed to us 
Erbakan's return and his political prospects.  Nevertheless, 
they admit that the Hoca is by far Erdogan's superior both as 
a pragmatic tactician and in knowledge of how the Kemalist 
State works -- and that he thus "can cause problems" for AK. 
As one senior columnist asserted to us Mar. 19, "if Refah had 
been in AK's place the troop deployment issue would have been 
handled far more smoothly.  These AK guys are like political 
adolescents" compared to Erbakan. 
 
 
-- The overwhelming majority of AK M.P.s cut their political 
teeth in Erbakan's movement, on occasion still privately 
refer unapologetically to their past affiliation with the 
National View, and evince considerable sympathy for their 
former leader even though for tactical political reasons they 
have gravitated to Erdogan. 
 
 
-- After the March 1 debacle, mainstream "Hurriyet" columnist 
Cuneyt Ulsever confided to us that Erdogan is fearful of 
being outmaneuvered by Saadet on the Islamist flank.  AK M.P. 
Emin Sirin, deputy chairman of the Parliament's Foreign 
Affairs Committee and formerly Fazilet's public relations 
adviser, volunteered on March 4 that "up to 20" AK M.P.s 
might switch to Saadet, enough to constitute a formal 
parliamentary group.  "Sabah" trumpeted AK's "Fear of 
Erbakan" in its March 16 headlines, and reported former 
Foreign Minister Yasar Yakis' assertion that 15-20 AK M.P.s 
could resign from the party in the event the AK government 
submits another troop deployment resolution.  Ulsever and 
others privately put the potential figure in the 40-plus 
range and even higher. 
 
 
-- Asilturk told us March 12 that parties including the right 
of center True Path (DYP) of Mehmet Agar, with three seats in 
Parliament, are "secretly" negotiating with a number of AK 
M.P.s.  Saadet, Asilturk avowed, has no need to do any real 
advance work, but would be open to giving AK defectors a 
home.  His Saadet colleagues were even more assertive in 
meetings with us March 14.  They claimed erstwhile AKers will 
flock to Saadet "once the bombs start dropping." 
 
 
------------------------- 
Saadet, AK, and the Kurds 
------------------------- 
 
 
6. (C) Given the emphasis on war and Turkish fears of a 
possible independent Kurdish state in N. Iraq, how Saadet 
handles Turkey's own Kurdish problem will be key to whether 
Erbakan can reemerge as a strong political force.  Islamists 
have long criticized the Kemalist State for its "racist" 
policies (ref B) toward the Kurds.  In a bid to win Kurdish 
votes, Islamists have long justified expanding Kurdish 
cultural and regional rights, in part by reference to Quranic 
passages celebrating God-created differences among men and to 
what they boast was Ottoman-era political "decentralization." 
 At the same time, Erbakan and his crew have long been wary 
of nationalist ideologies, which they see as a challenge to 
an "Islamic" political identity.  As a result, the 
Turk-dominated Saadet, like its Fazilet and Refah 
predecessors, opposes the emergence of an independent Kurdish 
state as both a physical and ideological manifestation of 
Western imperialism -- and thereby defines the limit of its 
rapprochement with radical Kurdish nationalist elements. 
 
 
-- Erbakan's ideological focus on the "ummet" -- community of 
the Islamic faithful-- as opposed to ethnic nationalism has 
long appealed to Kurds and others who have yet to come to 
terms with Ataturk's secularist "Turkish" revolution. 
According to Abdurrahman Anik, formerly the Refah Mayor of 
Bingol and now an AK M.P., a basic respect for Erbakan is 
still evident among religious elements throughout the Kurdish 
southeast. 
 
 
-- While many Kurdish activists criticize Erbakan for failing 
to follow through on his commitments to the Kurds, they 
privately express their ideological preference for Erbakan 
over the more "Turkish nationalist" Erdogan. 
 
 
7. (C) Erdogan apparently is aware of this image and is 
taking steps to improve his position among Kurds and thus to 
head off Saadet's efforts to hive off M.P.s.  Two former 
Refah Kurds -- long-time contacts with impeccable Kurdish 
nationalist and Islamic credentials -- have separately told 
us that Erdogan has directly called them to solicit their 
views on the situation in Turkey's predominantly Kurdish 
Southeast and the impending conflict in Iraq.  One of these 
sources, who also has strong political ties to Barzani, 
speculated to us that Erdogan is also interested in using 
well-connected Turkish Kurds as Refah had -- as 
intermediaries to Barzani and others. (Note: In the March 18 
edition of pro-AK "Yeni Safak," columnist Ahmet Tasgetiren 
calls on Erdogan to push a package of pro-Kurdish reforms to 
end-run "international power centers" trying to play the 
"Iraq card against Turkey." End note.) 
 
 
-- The pro-Barzani Kurd noted that many of the AK members who 
voted against the Government's March 1 troop deployment 
resolution were Kurds worried that a war in Iraq would bring 
the Turkish State down on their heads -- echoing points made 
to us separately by Kurdish Saadet officials on March 14 (ref 
B).  Nevertheless, he said that most AK Kurds will stay put, 
knowing that Erdogan is their best chance politically. 
 
 
-- The source also asserted that prior to the special March 9 
elections in Siirt province that brought Erdogan to 
Parliament, AK cut a deal with the pro-Kurdish (and 
just-banned) HADEP for support against the opposition CHP, 
which resulted in Erdogan getting votes in Kurdish 
nationalist villages he otherwise would have had to write 
off.  In return, AK agreed: (1) to end Ocalan's recent lack 
of access to his lawyers; and (2) to prepare for a post-Iraq 
war wide-ranging amnesty for PKK fighters still hiding in the 
mountains.  (Note: As reported in ref C, HADEP formally 
boycotted the Siirt election; as reported ref D, however, 
HADEP admitted to us privately their preference for AK over 
CHP regarding Kurdish issues; ref. E notes the break in 
Ocalan's isolation.  Saadet and HADEP had briefly but 
seriously considered entering a de facto alliance for the 
November 2002 election.  End note.) 
 
 
------------ 
Implications 
------------ 
 
 
8. (C) Saadet is clearly enjoying AK's discomfort and appears 
energized and hopeful that, after four decades in politics 
and one stint as P.M., Erbakan will yet again make a mark on 
Turkey's fractious political system.  With talk of yet 
another parliamentary resolution in the air, we expect 
Erbakan to do everything he can to promote squabbling in the 
AK ranks and failure on the floor of parliament.  The 
benefits to Saadet from another such blow to AK would be 
considerable. 
PEARSON