Author: Andrei Boldyrev

Crimean factor in the Russia-Turkey relations

Ex: http://journal-neo.org

 

Until the Ukrainian crisis Turkey preferred to maintain a balanced approached to the Black Sea region without speeding up the process of accepting Georgia and Ukraine as NATO members up.

The Montreux Convention was of strategic importance for both Russia and Turkey since it suggested that in the nearest future the status quo between the two will remain unchanged. When Crimea joined the Russian Federation some analysts assumed that it can change the balance of forces in the region in favor of Russia, making a closed “Turkish- Russian pond” even more closed, leaving little place for Turkey to play the Black Sea – Caucasus card in NATO talks.

On the other hand, one cannot disregard Turkey’s own interests in the Ukrainian crisis. In the 90s and especially in the 2000s the political and economic ties between Ankara and Kiev evolved incrementally, reaching in this decade to a level of strategic partnership. Crimea occupied a special place in Turkish-Ukrainian relations, by being the first best bet for Turkish investors and by providing Turkey with a foothold in the region through the Crimean Tatars. Over the last two decades Ankara has provided them with substantial financial support, by promoting cultural and educational projects. Important role here was played by the Turkish International Cooperation Agency (TICA) .

The importance of the Crimean Tatar factor can hardly be overestimated. The reputation of the Crimean Tatars in Turkey is high, since the Turkic identity developed trough the famous Tatar thinkers such as Ismail Gasprinski and Yusuf Akchura, who are respected by not Turks alone, but well across the Turkic world . One can also name a lot of Crimean Tatar among the Turkish authorities. Finally, the very possibility of the creation of a geopolitical conflict zone near Turkey ‘s border is an extremely unpleasant surprise for Ankara, that is forcing Turkish authorities to seek ways to minimize the consequences of the “Crimean incident”. This was the thinking behind the negative attitude of Ankara towards the Crimean referendum and the loud statements made by the Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu in March in Kiev, when he promised to provide “political, international and economic support for the territorial integrity of Ukraine”.

It is doubtful, however, that anything of the above mentioned would have a negative impact on the Russian-Turkish relations, largely due to Turkey’s position that some foreign analysts qualify as “an observer’s”. The official Turkish standing is so indistinguishable due to the fact that Ankara is simply unable to take sides on the Crimean issue. Turkey’s role as a patron of the Crimean Tatar population along with NATO membership ticket implies that Ankara should hop aboard the anti-Russian sanctions ship. However, even before the referendum Erdogan received guarantees from Putin that the rights of the Tatar minority would be observed.

Turkey could express solidarity with the United States if it didn’t fear that the United States would use the Straits as a means of pressuring Russia, bringing naval forces on a “rotating basis” and thus creating a permanent grouping of NATO naval forces in the Black Sea region. In this sense, an example of the USS  ”Truxtun” that arrived in early March 2014 in the Black Sea for a one-day exercise with Bulgarian and Romanian ships and stayed there for an indefinite time can be demonstrative. According to the commander of  the USS “Truxtun”, its mission was extended due “to the situation in Crimea”. On April 10 the USS missile destroyer “Donald Cook” entered the Black Sea, on April 11 a French spy ship F.S. “Dupuy de Lome”. From late March to mid-April a French diving support ship FS “Alize” was stationed in the Black Sea and in the nearest future it is expected to be replaced by a French anti-submarine frigate F.S. Thus, we can talk about the fact of attempts to apply political pressure against Russia, however, it is unlikely for Turkey to support its allies in this matter as it provokes an unnecessary confrontation with Russia and reduces the value of Ankara as a regional military leader .

There’s a handful of different opinions in Turkey towards the Crimean situation. First of all, Turkish media outlets don’t see the joining of Crimea to Russia as an act of annexation . Turkish newspapers urged their government to properly evaluate the country’s capacities in determining its policy towards Russia , pointing out to the need to address the systemic crisis in the country firsthand. Foreign observers also note that the corruption scandals and failures of Turkey on the Syrian front dictate caution to Turkish diplomacy in relations with Russia.

Secondly (and most importantly), Turkish economists are predicting Turkey to suffer serious economic consequences, should Ankara join the pro-sanctions camp. Turkish economy is relying heavily on the supply of Russian hydrocarbons. Moreover Russian-Turkish turnover exceeds $33 billion annually, around 4 million of Russian tourists are visiting Turkey every year, leaving behind at least $4 billion. There’s little wonder that Turkish media outlets underline the fact that the value of Ukraine and Russia for Turkey’s foreign policy is not comparable .

Third, the pragmatists in the Turkish government warned the Turkish Foreign Ministry against any harsh actions and statements against Moscow. Turkish Minister for EU Affairs Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu has called the EU approach towards Ukraine a mistake, underling the fact that by presenting Ukrainians with a choice between Europe and Russia — Europe has committed a political mistake. Immediately after the visit of Ahmet Davutoğlu to Kiev, his deputy Feridun Sinirlioglu informed his Russian counterpart Grigory Karasin about the outcome of negotiations in Kiev. The parties stressed that they “will continue their joint efforts to normalize the socio-political situation in Ukraine.”

There is a reason to believe that Turkish analysis of the situation in Ukraine is pretty close to the Russian one. This conclusion can be drawn from from the words of Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, that accused Brussels of provoking a civil conflict in Ukraine. Thus, it is possible that Turkey itself tends to blame external forces of interfering in its internal affairs, fearing the execution of the Kiev scenario on its own land.

Thus we can conclude that Turkey will not join the anti-Russian sanctions. Under these circumstances, it is likely that Turkey will encourage the parties to engage in a dialogue and will be trying to maintain the integrity of Ukraine. It saves face for Turkey as a NATO member but will not spoil relations with Russia, as the latter itself is not interested in further disintegration of this country. Such balance between Russia and NATO is the most convenient option for Turkey, as its influence on the Crimean Tatars in any case remains unchanged, and its relations with Russia will be maintained at the same level. And since Crimea has now joined Russia, the role of Turkey in NATO as a regulator of the straits may increase, however, in this case Turkey, as it was during the Georgian-South Ossetian conflict in 2008, would have to “filter” the passage of NATO ships trough the Black Sea, in order to preserve the naval balance of forces in the region. While frequent visits of NATO warships in the Black Sea may complicate Russian-Turkish relations, the events of 2008 show, that such complications will not last for long.

Andrei Boldyrev , Ph.D, Research Fellow in the Turkish Department of the Institute of Oriental Studies RAS, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

Turkije geeft Al-Qaeda militaire- en luchtsteun

Ingrijpen Syrië nabij? Turkije geeft Al-Qaeda militaire- en luchtsteun

 

Ex: http://xandernieuws.punt.nl

Premier Erdogan zou invasie willen, maar felle tegenstand ondervinden van de legerleiding – Turkse generaals lekten gesprek over false-flag aanslag

Voor het eerst in de drie jaar durende burgeroorlog staat het Turkse leger de Syrische rebellen, inclusief Al Nusra/Al-Qaeda, toe om vanaf Turks grondgebied te opereren. Daarbij krijgen de islamisten wapens, voedsel en brandstof van Turkse troepen overhandigd. De Turken zetten tevens reparatieteams in en geven medische hulp. De Turkse luchtmacht voorziet de rebellen van luchtsteun, en de Turkse inlichtingendienst geeft Al-Qaeda informatie over de troepenbewegingen van het Syrische leger.

Het doel van het nieuwe islamistische offensief is Latakia, de stad in het noordwestelijke kustgebied van Syrië, waar de clan van president Assad vandaan komt.

Het Syrische gevechtsvliegtuig dat op 23 maart bij de Turkse grens werd neergehaald, was verwikkeld in een direct luchtgevecht met Turkse jagers. Het Syrische toestel wilde een rebellenkonvooi bombarderen toen het werd aangevallen door de Turken.

Directe Turkse militaire steun aan islamisten

De twee belangrijkste door Turkije gesteunde groepen zijn het Syrische Revolutionaire Front, dat bestaat uit de resten van het opgeheven Free Syrian Army, en het Islamitische Front, dat wordt aangestuurd door Saudi Arabië. Onder de 4000 strijders bevinden zich elementen van Al-Nusra/Al-Qaeda. Dankzij de Turkse steun heeft deze strijdmacht een kleine, maar strategische corridor in het noordwesten van Syrië weten te veroveren.

De Syrische strijdkrachten zetten de luchtmacht en zware artillerie tegen hen in, in de hoop de controle terug te krijgen over het Turks-Syrische grensgebied. Vandaag werd er zwaar gevochten rond het stadje Kasab.

De grote vraag is wat Turkije doet als de rebellen verslagen dreigen te worden door het superieure Syrische leger. Stuurt de regering Erdogan dan Turkse troepen de grens over? Dat zou de eerste directe inmenging van een NAVO-land in Syrië zijn.

Generaals lekten gesprek over false-flag aanslag

Bronnen in Ankara melden dat Erdogan inderdaad een invasie wil, maar dat de Turkse stafchef van de strijdkrachten hier fel op tegen is. Op de achtergrond speelt ook het onderschepte gesprek met onder andere minister van Buitenlandse Zaken Ahmet Davutoglu, waarin openlijk werd gediscussieerd over het opzetten van een false-flag aanval vanuit Syrië, waarna Turkije de aanval kan openen. (zie hyperlink onderaan)

Het gesprek zou bewust zijn gelekt door generaals die niet willen dat Turkije een oorlog begint tegen Syrië. Ondertussen stuurde Iran met spoed een militaire delegatie naar Ankara, om Erdogan ervan te overtuigen in geen geval in te grijpen in Syrië. Iran dreigt zelfs de oliekraan naar Turkije dicht te draaien als Erdogan zijn plannen toch doorzet.

Xander

(1) DEBKA

Israel and Turkey are Protecting Border Areas for Terrorist and Sectarian Forces in Syria

Israel and Turkey are Protecting Border Areas for Terrorist and Sectarian Forces in Syria

Murad Makhmudov and Noriko Watanabe

Ex: http://www.moderntokyotimes.com

The armed forces of Syria and various loyal defense forces are clearly inflicting heavy loses on an array of terrorist, sectarian, and mercenary forces. This factor is abundantly obvious just like the connivance of covert operatives from several nations are involved in the destabilization of Syria. Therefore, recent terrorist, sectarian, and mercenary setbacks, have witnessed the violation of Syria’s sovereignty by Israel and Turkey in order to buttress their meddling. In the meantime, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and other Gulf states, are involved in sponsoring various terrorist groups against the people of Syria. Not surprisingly, the recent advancement by the Syrian government is being met by Israel and Turkey based on bombing border areas. This reality confirms that Israel and Turkey are working in tandem in order to protect terrorists, covert operatives, mercenaries, and sectarians, along border areas. Of course, the mantra of international law by America and the European Union over Crimea is met by deadly silence when Israel and Turkey violate the sovereignty of Syria.

Lee Jay Walker at Modern Tokyo Times says: “Indeed, while Gulf and NATO powers have been plotting the demise of independent Syria since the crisis began; the remarkable thing is the bravery of the armed forces of Syria because they face the intrigues of so many nations. This reality is the reason why so many individuals have perished because Gulf and NATO powers refuse to accept defeat. Therefore, the media of the Gulf and West plays its role in inciting hatred towards the people of Syria. At the same time, vast resources are spent on spreading radical Salafism and creating new terrorist ratlines by many Gulf and NATO powers. However, the government of President Bashar al-Assad and the armed forces of Syria refuse to allow Syria to be taken over by outside powers despite overwhelming odds against the government of Syria.”

In recent months the tide is clearly turning in several parts of Syria towards the armed forces of Syria and various self-defense units. These self-defense units comprise of the mosaic of Syria, for example many loyal Sunni Muslims in Aleppo refuse to succumb to the sectarian rhetoric of Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey – and their loyal al-Qaeda and Salafi puppets. It is this tenaciousness that refuses to die despite all the odds that continues to enrage major Gulf and NATO powers.

The bravery of the Syrian pilot shot down inside Syria by Turkey says much about the spirit of the armed forces of Syria. It also says everything about the manipulation of international law by Gulf and NATO powers that are allowed to kill untold numbers based on their geopolitical and religious games.  This especially applies to Afghanistan, Iraq, Kosovo, Libya and Syria in recent times -alongside other intrigues over countless decades of bloodshed (Vietnam, El Salvador, Indonesia, Guatemala, Nicaragua – and so on).

Therefore, the shooting down of a Syrian jet fighter by Turkey wasn’t a coincidence just like the recent violation of Syria by Israel. In both circumstances the attacks were aimed by Israel to protect terrorists and mercenaries because of recent advancements by the armed forces of Syria. Similarly, the attack by Turkey happened while another sectarian and terrorist launch is underway based on utilizing border areas. Armenian Christians and Alawites during the latest terrorist infiltration once more face the wrath of Takfiri fanatics because of the connivance of major Gulf and NATO powers. At the same time, Prime Minister Erdogan, who recently highlighted his disdain towards Shia Muslims, is now pandering to Turkish nationalism by outwardly trying to utilize the situation for political gains. Equally ironic, while Israel and Turkey outwardly have major issues, it is clear that American arm twisting doesn’t need to be pushed hard in order for both nations to work in tandem. Turkey is the main culprit but Israel is playing its part in order to appease Washington and Riyadh.

Lee Jay Walker says: “The simple reality is that all religious communities reside in government held areas in Syria. However, in Gulf and NATO areas being ruled by various sectarian, terrorist, and mercenary groups, then all minorities reside in fear and the same applies to Sunni Muslims that are loyal to the government of Syria. This brutal reality means that Christians in Syria are now joining their co-religionists in Iraq and Kosovo because they are being cleansed on the watch of NATO and Gulf powers. In the meantime, the armed forces of Syria and various national self-defense forces are all fighting on the side of the mosaic in order to preserve the richness of the Levant.”

Recent images in Takfiri Islamist areas show a man being crucified after being shot in the head – aka Taliban barbarity in Afghanistan. This is the barbaric year zero civilization that is being supported by Gulf and NATO powers in order to destabilize Syria. The same year zero Islamist sectarians were sponsored by Gulf and Western powers in the 1980s and early 1990s along with Pakistan against the people of Afghanistan. Just like 8,000 to 10,000 international jihadists fought on the side of NATO and Gulf powers in Bosnia and this was replicated in Libya. Therefore, the crisis in Syria is based on outside meddling whereby Gulf petrodollars and the whims of Washington, London, and Paris, entice Israel and Turkey to support “year zero Islamists” in order to destabilize the last bastion of independence throughout the Middle East.

Lee Jay Walker gave guidance to both main writers

[e-mail]

http://moderntokyotimes.com

VS steunt Erdogans misbruik van NAVO voor herstel Ottomaans Rijk

VS steunt Erdogans misbruik van NAVO voor herstel Ottomaans Rijk

 

Ex: http://xandernieuws.punt.nl

Vanuit Turkije zal het nieuwe Islamitische Kalifaat worden opgericht

De verwezenlijking van Erdogans imperialistische visioen van een hersteld Turks-Ottomaanse Rijk komt met hulp van de VS en de NAVO steeds dichterbij.

Van alle 28 NAVO-landen is er slechts één land dat profiteert van het pro-islamistische Midden-Oostenbeleid van de Amerikaanse president Obama: Turkije. Premier Erdogan, wiens AK Partij vandaag de hoogstwaarschijnlijk zwaar gemanipuleerde lokale verkiezingen in Turkije zal winnen*, was in 2011 één van de grootste voorstanders van de NAVO bombardementen op Libië, dat volgens de recent afgezette premier Ali Zeidan binnenkort in een Al-Qaeda terreurbasis voor aanslagen in Europa zal zijn veranderd. 27 NAVO-landen, waaronder Nederland, zetten daarmee hun eigen nationale veiligheid op het spel, ten gunste Turkije.

* Al Jazeera berichtte dat het aantal stembiljetten bijna drie keer hoger is dan het aantal geregistreerde kiezers (3).

Libië dankzij NAVO een Al-Qaeda basis

Volgens de Engelse versie van Al-Akhbar zat de Libische tak van de Moslim Broederschap achter het afzetten van premier Zeidan. Het waren de Amerikaanse en Turkse regeringen die na het vermoorden van Gadaffi de Moslim Broederschap naar voren schoven om het machtsvacuüm op te vullen. Uit officiële documenten uit 2011 blijkt dat Al-Qaedalid Abdel Hakim Belhaj de leiding kreeg over ‘alle internationale ambassades’, inclusief de Amerikaanse.

Lawrence Freeman van het Executive Intelligence Review stelde onlangs dat Al-Qaeda inderdaad de macht heeft overgenomen in Libië, en dat in Syrië hetzelfde dreigt te gebeuren, wederom met steun van de NAVO. Freeman wees de voormalige Britse premier Tony Blair aan als de grote promotor van dit beleid in Europa. Waar of niet, Blair zorgde ervoor dat zijn land de grenzen wagenwijd opende voor grote aantallen moslimimmigranten.

Islamisering Europa door Turks lidmaatschap EU

Het snel toenemende aantal moslims in Europa is een bedreiging voor de stabiliteit en vrijheid van alle NAVO-landen, op één na: Turkije. Hoge AKP-politici en officials verklaarden enkele jaren geleden al dat de islamisering van heel Europa het belangrijkste doel van het nog altijd geplande Turkse lidmaatschap van de EU is. Sommigen spraken zelfs letterlijk van wraak voor de nederlagen bij Wenen in 1529 en 1683, toen beide Turkse pogingen Europa te veroveren, mislukten.

Moslim Broederschap welkom in Istanbul

Het afzetten van de Egyptische Moslim Broederschap president Mohamed Morsi was een lelijke streep door de rekening van Erdogan en Obama. Erdogan huilde zelfs op de nationale televisie, en de regering Obama eiste dat de Broederschapleiders onmiddellijk zouden worden vrijgelaten. De VS en Turkije, samen goed voor meer dan 50% van de NAVO-strijdkrachten, streven in het Midden Oosten dan ook dezelfde belangen na, die echter diametraal staan tegenover die van de andere NAVO-bondgenoten in Europa.

Turkije laat het er echter niet bij zitten. Gevluchte leiders van de Broederschap vonden een welkom (tijdelijk) thuis in Istanbul. Wat Erdogan van plan is heeft zelfs belangrijke profetische implicaties:

‘En hij (de Antichrist uit Turkije) zal zijn hand uitstrekken tegen de landen, en het land Egypte zal niet ontkomen, maar hij zal de schatten bemachtigen van goud en zilver en alle kostbaarheden van Egypte; en Libiërs en Ethiopiërs zullen in zijn gevolg zijn.’ (Dan.11:42-43)

In 2011 zei Erdogan in een interview met TIME Magazine dat ‘er geen sprake van kan zijn de (Turkse) erfenis van het Ottomaanse Rijk te ontkennen’. Tegelijkertijd ontkent Erdogan ten stelligste de Turks-Ottomaanse genocide op de Armenen.

NAVO behartigt Turkse belangen

Anno 2014 is Turkije feitelijk een vijand van de NAVO geworden. Ondanks het openlijke streven van de Turkse leiders het Ottomaanse Rijk te herstellen, weigert het Westen dit in te zien, en blijft het de Turken ten koste van zijn eigen belangen steunen.

Zo kozen de NAVO, Europa en de VS in het conflict in Syrië de kant van Turkije, dat de islamistische rebellen –inclusief leden en groepen van de Moslim Broederschap en Al-Nusra/Al-Qaeda- steunt met onder andere wapens, voorraden, luchtdekking en medische hulp. Dat is tevens de reden waarom het Westen de talloze gruweldaden van de rebellen, waarvan met name christenen het slachtoffer zijn, doodzwijgt.

False-flag om invasie van Syrië te rechtvaardigen

Turkse generaals die fel tegen Erdogans imperialistische veroveringsplannen gekant zijn, lekten enkele dagen geleden een gesprek met minister van Buitenlandse Zaken Ahmet Davutoglu, waarin openlijk een mogelijke false-flag aanval op Turkije werd geopperd, die als voorwendsel moet dienen voor een Turkse invasie van Syrië. Het ligt in de lijn der verwachtingen dat zowel Obama, de EU als de NAVO zich dan vierkant achter Turkije zullen opstellen.

‘Turken zullen ongelovigen op de knieën dwingen’

Het is Turkije dat de overige 27 NAVO-landen, inclusief Nederland, om zijn vinger heeft gewonden en met impliciete chantage en dreigementen in bedwang houdt. Het uiteindelijke doel werd jaren geleden openlijk gefilmd voor wie het maar wilde weten – en dat zijn er in het Westen helaas nog altijd zeer weinigen. Kijk naar deze video, waarin Erdogan op de eerste rij zit bij een toespraak van de hoog in aanzien staande soefistische leider Nazeem Kibrisi, die beloofde dat de Turken het Ottomaanse Rijk zullen herstellen, en alle ongelovigen –de niet-moslims in Europa en Amerika- op hun knieën zullen dwingen. (1)(2)

‘Gul’ betekent ‘beest’

Mocht Erdogan vanwege alle schandalen toch vervangen worden, dan is er nog altijd president Abullah Gul, die onder het valse voorwendsel van vrede en samenwerking met het Westen exact dezelfde doelen nastreeft. Merk op dat Gul in het Arabisch ‘beest’ of ‘monster’ betekent, wat christenen onmiddellijk zal doen denken aan ‘het beest uit de afgrond’ uit Openbaring. Sommigen zullen zeggen dat Gul een Turk is, maar zijn overgrootvader was een uit Siirt afkomstige Arabier. Ook Erdogans vrouw Emine is afkomstig uit een Arabische familie uit Siirt.

Islamitisch Kalifaat

Vanuit Turkije zal er een nieuw Islamitisch Kalifaat worden opgericht. De leider (‘Gog’ in de Bijbel) van Turkije zal zich afschilderen als de reïncarnatie van Mohammed, Saladin en de Ottomaanse heerser Suleiman Al-Qanuni. Het Westen zal zich laten misleiden door de zogenaamd ‘gematigde’ Turkse versie van de islam – totdat het er te laat achter komt dat het moslimfundamentalisme en de ‘gemoderniseerde’ islam twee kanten van dezelfde munt zijn.

Bijbel: ‘Troon van satan’ in Turkije

‘De Antichrist’ komt volgens de Bijbel dan ook uit Turkije, dat in Openbaring 2:2 de ‘troon van Satan’ wordt genoemd (Pergamum ligt in Turkije). Onlangs wezen we opnieuw op het grote aantal historische bewijzen dat met ‘Gog uit Magog’, dat in de eindtijd frontaal de aanval op Israël zal openen en de laatste Wereldoorlog zal ontketenen, Turkije wordt bedoeld, en niet Rusland, zoals veel christenen nog steeds denken.

Xander

(1) Shoebat
(2) YouTube
(3) Al Jazeera
(4) Shoebat

Zie ook o.a.:

07-03: De sleutelrol van Rusland en Turkije in de eindtijd (2)
28-02: De sleutelrol van Rusland en Turkije in de eindtijd (deel 1)

Syrie-Turquie : les guerres d'Erdogan

Syrie-Turquie: les guerres d'Erdogan

 

Les autres municipales qui peuvent sanctionner un pouvoir contesté

Jean Bonnevey
Ex: http://metamag.fr

 

Erdogan peut prendre le risque d’une guerre contre la Syrie et la provoquer artificiellement pour faire oublier les scandales et une contestation de sa politique dans la rue et dans les urnes. Face à la fuite en avant du premier ministre islamiste et la radicalisation d’un régime de plus en plus aventuriste on aimerait rappeler certaines analyses.

Erdogan, c’était dans le monde musulman la preuve qu’une démocratie islamiste était possible comme il y avait une démocratie chrétienne. L’islam modéré, nous disait-on, pouvait être conforme à la démocratie et un modèle pour les autres pays arabo-musulmans, avec un rôle de modération. Encore une fois, les benêts de la démocratie et leurs idiots utiles des médias se sont trompés.

Empêtré dans des scandales à répétition, Erdogan tord le cou aux dernières libertés turques et semble préparer une guerre de diversion en Syrie. Face aux scandales, Recep Erdogan joue sa survie et entraîne la Turquie dans sa dérive. L’instabilité et la violence politique ressurgissent. La mise au pas de l’armée a laissé les coudées franches à Erdogan qui a éliminé les derniers contre-pouvoirs. Ses adversaires, le parti kémaliste en tête, ont dénoncé « un coup d’Etat civil ». Cette manœuvre consacrée par le référendum de 2011 a permis au gouvernement de réformer partiellement la Constitution et de prendre le contrôle des hautes cours de justice, notamment pour neutraliser la Cour constitutionnelle qui avait failli dissoudre l’AKP, accusé d’« activités antilaïques » en 2008. De nombreux officiers impliqués  sont sortis de prison  et ont promis de poursuivre leur combat contre Erdogan. Un retour des militaires dans le jeu politique n’est plus à exclure

L’AKP aborde les scrutins électoraux à venir en position de favori. Les municipales du 30 mars seront suivies d’une présidentielle, en août, puis de législatives, d’ici à 2015, et l’opposition, fractionnée et prisonnière de ses propres luttes internes, ne semble pas en mesure de proposer une alternative. Le principal adversaire de M. Erdogan est le mouvement du prédicateur Fethullah Gülen, exilé aux Etats-Unis depuis 1999, qui après dix ans d’étroite collaboration, souhaite en finir avec l’ère Erdogan. Il serait temps.

La tension est montée d'un cran en Turquie avec le muselage des libertés et la révélation de nouvelles écoutes de membres du gouvernement. Selon le quotidien kémaliste Cumhuriyet, il s'agit d'une "bombe", d'un "scandale historique". 

En effet, le contenu des conversations qui ont eu lieu le 13 mars dernier au plus niveau concernant l'engagement de la Turquie dans le conflit syrien a été diffusé sur YouTube. Selon ces enregistrements qui révèlent la faiblesse de l'État mis sur écoute, le ministre des Affaires étrangères, le chef des services secrets et le numéro deux de l'état-major de l'armée turque auraient discuté d'un plan visant à provoquer une intervention militaire turque en Syrie, au besoin en créant des prétextes pour intervenir.

 

Le prétexte serait la menace qui pèse sur le mausolée ottoman de Suleyman Shah située dans le nord du pays, non loin d'Alep, considéré selon le droit international comme territoire turc et qui est sous la menace de radicaux islamistes de l'État islamique en Irak et au Levant (EIIL).

 

Une bonne guerre bien morale pour faire oublier ses échecs…. Ils sont incroyables ces Turcs !

Gelekt gesprek op YouTube: Turken plannen false-flag aanslag om Syrië aan te vallen

Gelekt gesprek op YouTube: Turken plannen false-flag aanslag om Syrië aan te vallen

 

Ex: http://xandernieuws.punt.nl

De Turkse premier Erdogan probeert al sinds het begin van de Syrische crisis een voorwendsel voor een oorlog te creëren.

Uit een gelekt gesprek tussen hoge Turkse militaire- en politiek leiders blijkt dat de regering Erdogan een false-flag terreuraanslag wil plegen, die als voorwendsel moet dienen voor een aanval op Syrië. Het gelekte gesprek is op YouTube te beluisteren, wat dan ook de echte reden was waarom Erdogan onmiddellijk de toegang tot YouTube en Twitter in Turkije liet blokkeren.

Enkele passages uit het onthutsende gesprek:

Minister Ahmet Davutoglu: ‘De premier heeft gezegd dat deze aanval (op de Suleiman Sah Tombe) in de huidige samenloop van omstandigheden als een goede gelegenheid voor ons moet worden gezien.’

Hakan Fidan: ‘Ik stuur vier van mijn mannen uit Syrië, als dat voldoende is. Ik zet een reden voor een oorlog in scene door bevel te geven voor een raketaanval op Turkije. We kunnen ook een aanval op de Suleiman Shah Tombe voorbereiden, als dat nodig is.’

Feridun Sinirolu: ‘Onze nationale veiligheid is een ordinair en goedkoop binnenlands beleidsinstrument geworden.’

Yacar Güler: ‘Het is een directe reden voor oorlog. Ik bedoel, wat ze gaan doen is een directe reden voor oorlog.’

Feridun Sinirolu: ‘Er zijn een aantal grote veranderingen in de wereldwijde en regionale geopolitiek. Het kan zich nu naar andere plaatsen verspreiden... We krijgen nu een ander spel... ISIL (islamisten in de Levant) en al die organisaties zijn extreem gevoelig voor manipulatie. Als de regio bestaat uit vergelijkbare organisaties, houdt dat een vitaal veiligheidsrisico voor ons in. Toen wij als eerste Noord Irak binnen vielen, was er altijd het risico dat de (Koerdische) PKK de boel opblies... Als we de risico’s grondig overwegen en onderbouwen... zoals de generaal zojuist heeft gezegd...’

Yacar Güler: ‘Meneer... daar hebben we het net over gehad. Openlijk. Ik bedoel dat de gewapende strijdkrachten bij iedere verandering een noodzakelijk ‘werktuig’ voor u zijn.’

Davutoglu: ‘Natuurlijk. Bij uw afwezigheid zeg ik altijd tegen de premier... dat je in die gebieden niet zonder harde kracht kunt blijven. Zonder harde kracht kan er geen zachte kracht (diplomatie) zijn.’

Kortom: NAVO-lid Turkije zoekt naar alle waarschijnlijkheid met medeweten en instemming van de Amerikaanse regering Obama naar een excuus, een false-flag aanslag of operatie, om een oorlog tegen Syrië te beginnen.

Premier Erdogan noemde het lekken van de ‘vergadering over de nationale veiligheid’ op YouTube ‘oneerlijk’ en ‘schurkachtig’, en liet de toegang tot de videosite blokkeren.

Enkele dagen geleden zocht Turkije ook al een excuus voor een invasie door een Syrisch toestel neer te halen en vervolgens te hopen op een escalatie. De Syrische president Bashar Assad trapte daar echter niet in. Het lijkt echter een kwestie van tijd voordat Turkije, de NAVO en de VS voor een false-flag operatie zorgen, en dit in de Westerse media zullen verkopen als ‘onaanvaardbare Syrische agressie’.

Xander

(1) Zero Hedge / Infowars

Turkey and Crimea

Nikolai BOBKIN

Ex: http://www.strategic-culture.org

On 16 March, the people of Crimea will independently determine their own future. Opinion polls show that the overwhelming majority of Crimeans (75-80 percent) have already decided in favour of becoming part of the Russian Federation. Crimea is being given a unique opportunity to reunite with its historic homeland. Several days ago, Barak Obama called the overthrow of the legitimate authorities in Kiev a triumph of democracy. Now Crimea will give President Obama a lesson in democracy... 

By supporting the coup, the US has laid the foundations for a broad restructuring process of the Ukrainian state into a looser confederation of regions. The principle of self-determination, to which the people of Crimea are adhering, is enshrined in international law, while non-recognition of the results of the people’s will would be the latest evidence of the American establishment’s commitment to the project of creating a ‘Ukrainian Reich’ within former Ukraine. The Western media are lying when they talk about the so-called full solidarity of all NATO countries with the American position. In truth, Washington’s position is not supported by many of those with a special interest in Crimea and these include Turkey, since Crimea is home to Crimean Tatars, who are ethnically close to Turks.

Ankara is worried about the risk of deepening the political crisis in Ukraine. While offering to accept the preservation of Ukraine’s territorial integrity as a basis for resolving the conflict, the Turkish Foreign Ministry is nevertheless warning Kiev against creating military tension in Crimea, where «our kinsmen – the Crimean Tatars» live. In the past, Ankara has done much for Crimea to become the Tatars’ homeland again. Kiev, however, has never given the development of Crimea much attention, removing up to 80 percent of the autonomous republic’s revenue and giving nothing back in return. For Turkey, with its highly-developed tourism industry, the deplorable state of tourism in Crimea, as well as the peninsula’s infrastructure, which has fallen into complete disrepair and has not been modernised since Soviet times, are compelling evidence of Kiev’s disdain for the fate of the Crimean people. Many in Turkey well understand why Crimea becoming part of Russia is the natural desire of the overwhelming majority of those living on the peninsula. Turkey’s Foreign Affairs Minister, Ahmet Davutoğlu, believes that «Crimea should not be an area of military tension; it should be a centre of prosperity, tourism, and intercultural relations».

At the same time, the Turkish government is being forced to consider its own position with regard to Crimea, and the internal forces that adhere to the opposite point of view. In some parts of the country, the compatriots of Crimean Tatars are organising demonstrations against Crimea becoming part of Russia. Zafer Karatay, a Tatar member of the Turkish Assembly, is calling for Ankara to intervene in Crimea and a confrontation with Russia. His opponents respond: «What business do we have in Crimea? Why is Crimea so important?» Well, the Kiev scenario of the illegal overthrow of President Yanukovych may well be used by the Americans to change the leadership in Turkey. In this regard, Prime Minister Erdoğan has clearly stated that it is not a case of Turkey choosing between Moscow and Washington or Ukraine and Russia, it is a case of choosing between a tool of destabilisation like the pro-American Maidan protests and adhering to the fundamental principles of international law. 

Many Turkish politicians disliked Davutoğlu’s hasty trip to Kiev immediately following the coup. Given that Ankara does not have an answer to the question «What should Turkey do now?», such a visit is definitely cause for bewilderment. Davutoğlu’s statement, meanwhile, «that Crimean Tatars are currently the main apologists for Ukraine’s territorial integrity» shocked many observers. They reminded the minister of the number of Turkish compatriots in the 46-million strong Ukraine, as well as the fact that Turkey had a strategic partnership with the previous legitimate authorities in Kiev to which neither Turchynov nor Yatsenyuk are able to add anything except a hatred of Russia. Davutoğlu’s assurances regarding the fact that the new regime in Kiev «will take all necessary measures to protect the rights of Turks living in Crimea» has also given rise to scepticism. It is unlikely that the fascist authorities in Kiev currently threatening Ukraine’s multimillion Russian population are going to concern themselves with the fate of the relatively small Crimean Tatar community. Pragmatists in the Turkish government have warned the head of the Turkish Foreign Ministry, who has promised Kiev «political, international and economic support to protect Ukraine’s territorial integrity», against any hasty actions and even statements towards Moscow. 

Commenting on events in Kiev, the Turkish Minister for EU affairs, Mevlut Çavuşoğlu, referred to the European’s approach towards Ukraine as completely wrong, and that asking Ukrainians to choose between Europe and Russia was a grave political mistake. «Russia»,Çavuşoğlu pointed out, «is part of the European continent.» Turkey still does not understand why Brussels, which thinks that Turkey does not meet its high democratic standards and for many years has refused Turkey’s accession to the EU, has decided that the new Ukraine is more democratic than Turkey – and that is even after the bloody coup carried out by Western stooges. There is the feeling that supporting the new regime in Kiev could cost Erdogan’s government dearly.

Should Turkey join sanctions against Moscow, the country’s economists are predicting the collapse of the national economy, which is closely tied to Russian hydrocarbon supplies. They consider energy exports from Russia to be «a national security issue» and are warning that even Europe, which is also dependent on Russian gas, has not allowed itself to cross the line of open hostility to Moscow, despite unprecedented pressure from Washington. Turkey is still a growing market for Russia, and its gas supplies to the country increase by 4-5 percent annually and exceed 30 billion cubic metres. There is a desire to diversify Ankara’s sources, but there is no real alternative to Russian blue-sky fuel. America’s promises to replace Russian gas with its own shale surrogate in connection with calls to support anti-Russian sanctions are eliciting a smile from Turkish experts. The infrastructure needed for the supply of liquefied fuel would be more expensive than the cost of Russian supplies for the next 5-7 years. And it is not just Turkey’s energy economy that will lose out. Trade between Russia and Turkey exceeds 33 billion dollars, and nearly four million Russians visit Turkey every year, leaving behind at least USD 4 billion. 

The Turkish media has also made explicit references to the fact that the significance of Ukraine and Russia for Turkey’s foreign policy is incomparable. Turkish political observer Fuat Kozluklu, meanwhile, writes that Russia’s decision to use force if necessary to protect Ukraine’s Russian and Russian-speaking population was a good deterrent to the Ukrainian radicals and the Western politicians watching over them. Putin’s determination to stand up for the interests of Russians in his neighbouring country has revealed Russia’s real strength, while Moscow’s actions have the sole intention of preventing the further escalation of tensions in Ukraine. It is also from this point of view that many Turkish analysts are regarding the forthcoming referendum in Crimea.

Ära Erdogan brachte der Türkei 400 Milliarden Euro an Schulden

Ex: http://www.unzensuriert.at

Auch wenn sich in der Türkei seit des Amtsantritts der Regierung Erdogan im Jahr 2003 die Einkommen um 40 Prozent erhöht haben, wuchs mit dem vermeintlichen Wohlstand auch der Schuldenberg gigantisch. Laut Informationen des Finanzministeriums hat die Türkei derzeit eine Schuldenlast von 561,5 Milliarden Dollar (416,08 Milliarden Euro) zu bewältigen. Im Vergleich zu 2002 hat sich die Verschuldung 2013 weit mehr als verdoppelt. Ein Jahr vor Antritt der regierenden AKP betrug die Verschuldung noch 221,3 Milliarden Dollar.

Der Verschuldungsgrad des einzelnen Bürgers in der Türkei ist in Folge mit 15.631 Lira (5.166 Euro) auf beinahe das Dreifache gegenüber dem Vergleichszeitraum 2002 angewachsen. Auch wenn Erdogan seinen Bürgern inflationsbereinigt ein um 40 Prozent höheres Einkommen brachte, gab es tatsächlich keinen Vorteil, da auch das Leben teurer wurde. So etwa Nahrungsmittel. Gerade für ärmere Schichten sind die massiven Preisschwankungen bei Obst, Gemüse und Grundnahrungsmitteln eine enorme Belastung. So sind etwa die Kartoffelpreise im Jänner gegenüber dem Vorjahr von über einer Lira auf bis zu 7,5 Lira (2,50 Euro) pro Kilo angestiegen.

Weil die türkische Zentralbank den Leitzins von 4,5 auf 10 mehr als verdoppelt hat, sind Kredite massiv teurer geworden, was türkische Schuldner noch weiter in die Krise treibt. Gesamt gesehen hat die Regierung Erdogan seinen Bürgern keinen Wohlstand geschaffen, sondern eher Armut. Wie mag es wohl enden, wenn die Türkei auch als Mitglied der EU ihren Kurs weiterfährt?

Turkey and Iran: The Ties That Bind

Turkey and Iran: The Ties That Bind

By Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya

 

Ex: http://www.globalresearch.ca

As Turkey works for harmonization with Iran and Russia, an internal struggle has developed between the PM and the Gulenists that may threaten the process. If the leadership of the AKP is to be believed, it’s part of a foreign conspiracy to remove them.

Regarding the conflict in Syria, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s AKP (Justice and Development Party) government in Ankara might be on the opposite side of the fence from both Tehran and Moscow, but the depth of Turkish ties with Iran and Russia go beyond this.

Turkey is not only tied to both Iran and Russia through geography and centuries of common history, it also shares the bonds of mutual trade, culture, linguistics, and ethnic composition. Although Turkish policies and political relations with Iran and Russia are subject to fluctuation, the many links tying Turkish society to both cannot be undone, including the economic reality of their ties.

Tehran and Moscow are two of Turkey’s most important trading partners and sources of energy. Aside from Germany, in terms of Turkish exports and imports, the combined volume of Turkish trade with both Iran and Russia outflanks, by way of comparison, any bilateral trade relations Ankara has with other countries.

Realizing the importance of Turkish economic ties to Iran, it is important to note that the unilateral US and European Union sanctions set up against Iran have hurt the Turkish economy. The Turks need Iranian energy in the form of natural gas and oil. When the US government asked Ankara to cut back on Iranian energy imports, it basically expected the Turkish government to knowingly handicap the Turkish economy in order to serve Washington’s agenda.

Even under the US-led sanctions regime directed against Iran as a form of economic manipulation and warfare, Turkish businesses and the AKP government have tried their best to maintain their economic and energy ties with Iran. This has been done both openly and covertly. Turkey has even acted as a covert channel for Iran to evade the US and EU sanctions.

Among other things, the corruption scandal involving the head of the state-owned Halk Bankasi (People’s Bank), or Halkbank for short, that emerged on December 17, 2013, is a reflection of the continuation of business and trade between Turkey and Iran. Sales from Iran were silently facilitated by the Turkish bank through the purchasing of gold that was given to Tehran as payment, instead of a currency, after Tehran was blocked from using the SWIFT international money-transfer system in March 2012. Halkbank maintains that the transactions were legal and that no rules prevented trading precious metals with Iran until July 2013 and that it ceased doing so on June 10, 2013.

An internal power struggle has emerged in Turkey. The Halkbank scandal is really a sub-plot and symptom of this. Not only do the recent graft probes reflect widespread government corruption in Turkey, but it puts the spotlight on an inner tussle within the AKP and, more broadly, within the Turkish elite managing the affairs of the Republic of Turkey.

Neo-Ottomanism: Winter in Turkish foreign politics

Since 2011, the economic damage on Turkey caused by the sanctions regime against Iran has been aggravated through an aggregate of Turkish miscalculations and domestic incidents. In large part, these miscalculations are the result of the metamorphosis of Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu’s business-friendly ‘zero problems’ foreign policy into the much more aggressive ‘neo-Ottoman’ foreign policy.

Senior Turkish politicians believed that the so-called Arab Spring would elevate Ankara as an indisputable regional powerhouse from the borders of Morocco to Iraq. These Turkish views were also encouraged by the US and from inside the EU, with the promotion of the so-called ‘Turkish model’ for the Arabs, which buoyed the AKP government to diverge from its ‘zero problems’ policy in pursuit of neo-Ottoman dreams of unchallenged Turkish economic and political supremacy in the Arab World.

Through its neo-Ottoman enterprise, Ankara walked away from the Ankara-Damascus-Tehran axis that appeared to be forming and all the advances it had made with Libya, Syria, Iraq and Lebanon. A winter of sorts had arrived for Ankara in the field of foreign affairs. Turkish relations eventually soured, with almost all the countries on its borders and a chilling of relations began to emerge with Tehran and the Kremlin.

Neo-Ottoman foreign policy was initiated through the Turkish government’s support for the NATO war and regime change operations in Tripoli that ultimately disrupted Turkish trade with the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya. Although the Turkish government pretended it was against the war, Ankara did not veto any of NATO’s war plans at the North Atlantic Council in Brussels. Instead Turkey supported the NATO-imposed no-fly zone, actively took part in the naval embargo around the Libyan coast, manned the airport in Benghazi as the NATO provisional authority there, and facilitated the Libyan anti-government forces in multiple ways.

As a result of the Turkish government’s own actions, the intensity of Turkish business ties and trade with Libya has not recovered since the NATO war in 2011 due to the damage and instability inflected on the Libyan economy.

 

Gulf of Izmir, formerly known as the Gulf of Smyrna, on the Aegean Sea in the Turkish city of Izmir (AFP Photo)

The events in Libya were followed by the eventual suspension of Turkish trade with Syria, another important Turkish trading partner. The discontinuation of legal trade with Syria resulted as a consequence of Erdogan’s reckless support for regime change in Damascus.

All the while, Turkey’s relations with Iraq, another major Turkish trading partner, were degenerating due to the arrogance and hubris of Erdogan and the AKP. Ankara believed that Iranian influence in the Levant and Mesopotamia would be replaced with Turkish influence and kept pushing for its affiliates to supplant the governments in Damascus and Baghdad.

Even when the AKP government saw that a formidable Eurasian alliance formed by Russia, Iran and China would not let Damascus collapse to the anti-government insurgency supported by Turkey and its NATO and GCC allies, Erdogan opted to stay the course against Damascus instead of trying to reverse Ankara’s disastrous Syria policy.

Aside from the economic damage the AKP was inflicting on Turkey, the instability that Ankara was helping support in Syria through the training, arming, and financing of insurgents in Syria began to have political and security consequences on Turkish soil too.

As the Turkish economy began to hurt, domestic political tensions began to build, the disparity caused by the AKP’s neoliberal economic policies began to hurt more, and the AKP began to act more authoritarian so as to protect its authority.

To an extent, the Gezi Park protests that spread from Istanbul across Turkey in 2013 are a reflection of the ignition of these domestic tensions.

This article was originally published by Russia Today on January 20, 2014.

A worker walks past the pumping station on the border between Iran and Turkey (Reuters)

 

 

Articles by: Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya

About the author:

An award-winning author and geopolitical analyst, Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya is the author of The Globalization of NATO (Clarity Press) and a forthcoming book The War on Libya and the Re-Colonization of Africa. He has also contributed to several other books ranging from cultural critique to international relations. He is a Sociologist and Research Associate at the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), a contributor at the Strategic Culture Foundation (SCF), Moscow, and a member of the Scientific Committee of Geopolitica, Italy.

 

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Erdogan in Trouble but Gulen and CIA Intrigues need containing

Turkey in crisis: Erdogan in Trouble but Gulen and CIA Intrigues need containing 

Nuray Lydia Oglu and Lee Jay Walker 

Ex: http://www.moderntokyotimes.com - Modern Tokyo Times

The grand ambitions of Recep Tayyip Erdogan are unraveling in many directions because the Prime Minister of Turkey is suffering from many internal convulsions which are rocking this nation.  Several years ago it appeared that Erdogan could continue to abuse many excesses based on the strength of the Justice and Development Party (AKP). Therefore, Erdogan’s Islamist dream and “Ottoman mirror” had a powerful swagger, whereby he perceived himself to be the “new father of Turkey” providing nationals followed his conservative and Islamist agenda. Yet now, the AKP is starting to look fragile and increasingly authoritarian under Erdogan.

In saying this, it is clear that Fethullah Gulen is no savior because just like Erdogan he also wants to pull the strings. Equally important, both individuals share the Islamist dream of crushing progressive forces in Turkey. Indeed, in the past Erdogan and Gulen were playing the same tune.

Regionally, the grand designs of Erdogan have literally bitten the dust because of the meddling of Turkey. After all, only Erdogan could disillusion Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Israel, Syria, and other nations. Also, with Erdogan being determined to overthrow the government of Syria, then not only did he turn a blind eye towards international jihadists and covert operatives; but, more alarmingly, he avidly tolerates and encourages brutal sectarian and terrorist forces against secular Syria. Therefore, the image of Turkey is suffering greatly throughout the entire region because Erdogan can’t stop meddling and upsetting regional nations.

Re-focusing on the current scandal in Turkey then clearly the Erdogan boat is rocking. Baha Gungor, Deutsche Welle, says: “Erdogan has made the same mistakes as many autocrats before him. He has come to see himself as infallible, tolerating criticism of his policies less and less. Journalists, intellectuals and politicians who see things differently have been locked up. Large swaths of the army’s former leadership were handed harsh jail sentences for allegedly planning a coup.”

Indeed, it is clear that 2013 witnessed many shortcomings for the leader of Turkey because Erdogan kept on piling on more judgments of errors. This was clearly apparent during the Taksim Square crisis because Erdogan issued harsh statements about the demonstrators. Also, excessive force against demonstrators and his unapologetic stance meant that Turkey was becoming even more divided.

Serious allegations by the end of 2013 related to money laundering, the smuggling of gold, major bribes – and other areas related to corruption – equated to a huge downturn in the domestic fortunes of Erdogan. Not only this, the ramifications for the economy is now being felt. This is clearly apparent because now the Turkish lira is fairing miserably with the US dollar and the Euro.

Yet the current internal struggle of Islamist powerbrokers between Erdogan and Gulen is alarming. After all, under the Obama administration in America it is clear that a pro-Muslim Brotherhood agenda existed whereby Egypt was going to be the grand experiment. Luckily, the masses in Egypt rose up against the Muslim Brotherhood putsch for usurping state institutions in order to turn the clock back. However, the dream is still alive and kicking and not surprisingly Gulen is based in America just like the leading Islamist in Tunisia resided in the United Kingdom prior to returning. Therefore, the erratic behaviour of Erdogan must have set off some alarm bells in Washington and it would appear that Gulen is now being readied for the next stage in the unraveling of secularism in Turkey.

It must be remembered, that Afghanistan and Iraq had secular governments prior to America and the United Kingdom meddling into their respective internal affairs. Indeed, America also welcomed Sharia law in Sudan in the early 1980s despite the outcome of this policy being detrimental for Animists and Christians in Sudan. Likewise, Sharia law and the jihadist threat followed on the coattails of America, France, the United Kingdom and several Gulf powers in Libya. In other words, a natural reality is emerging whereby Western powers are siding with the Islamist agenda. This can also be witnessed in Syria whereby the usual players in the Gulf and West are siding with sectarian and terrorist forces. The knock on effect is also the crushing of Christianity in Syria just like what happened in Iraq and Kosovo. Similarly, Coptic Christians were expendable in Egypt because of the intrigues of Washington and London. However, just like the crisis in Iraq it is clear that Saudi Arabia doesn’t want the Muslim Brotherhood too close to home just like this nation didn’t welcome the loss of Sunni power in Iraq.

Family Security Matters says: “Osman Nori, the retired head of Turkish intelligence, recently alleged that the Gulen movement has served as a front for US intelligence by sheltering 130 CIA agents in its schools throughout Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan.”

“This claim collaborates the testimony of Sybil Edmonds, a former FBI translator and celebrated whistleblower. Ms. Edmonds says that Gulen and his movement began to receive vast sums of money from the CIA in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union, when US officials realized that they could not obtain control of the massive energy resources of the newly created Russian republics because of a deep-seated suspicion of American motives.”

“The CIA, Ms. Edmonds maintains, came to view Turkey as a perfect “proxy” for US interests since it was a NATO ally that shared the same language, culture, and religion as the other Central Asian countries. But centralized control of these republics, she points out, could only be actualized by the creation of the Pan-Turkish nationalism and religion, envisioned by Gulen and his followers. And so, according to Ms. Edmonds, the CIA became Gulen’s partner in the creation of the New Islamic World Order. The money for the pasha’s schools and settlements, she says, came not from congressionally-approved funding but rather from covert CIA operations, including narcotics trafficking, nuclear black market, weapons smuggling, and terrorist activities.”

In other words, if Turkey is left to the geopolitical whims of America and the United Kingdom alongside the Islamist dreams of Gulen, then Turkey will lose its secular and modernist approach. Of course, the same applies to the initial gambit of America, the United Kingdom and Gulen utilizing Erdogan – and other Islamists in Turkey, prior to the ongoing internal struggle between Erdogan and Gulen – after the applecart began to lose balance. Therefore, is essential that secular forces wake-up in Turkey and the same applies to all independent forces, which don’t rely on Western and Islamist intrigues.

Erdogan is undermining secularism in Turkey therefore his authoritarian nature is worrying vast numbers of Turkish citizens. Yet, the intrigues of Gulen aren’t the answer and the same applies to CIA shadows and the usual role of the United Kingdom. The Russian Federation must also focus on events in Turkey because Chechen Islamists and others in the Caucasus have been given havens by Turkey and the same applies to Georgia. Likewise, the Erdogan government is undermining secular Syria by supporting sectarian and terrorist forces against the people of this nation.

Turkey like Egypt is facing an internal clash of civilization and currently the intrigues of America and the United Kingdom are favoring the Islamist agenda. Ironically, in Turkey the power play between Erdogan and Gulen is between two individuals who share much in common. It is hoped that both negative forces will devour each other in order for secular and other political forces in Turkey to return the nation back to its modernization path. Therefore, political parties who oppose Erdogan should not rush into the arms of “the Gulen shadow.”

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/more-dangerous-than-bin-laden-protestors-to-descend-on-gulens-mountain-fortress-in-pennsylvania#ixzz2qRaPXtVm  Family Security Matters

http://www.dw.de/opinion-erdogan-is-on-course-to-self-destruct/a-17327807 Deutsche Welle

[e-mail]

http://moderntokyotimes.com

Politics behind Turkey graft probe

Politics behind Turkey graft probe
By Omer Aslan

Ex: http://www.atimes.com

Speaking Freely is an Asia Times Online feature that allows guest writers to have their say. Please click here if you are interested in contributing.

[As Asia Times Online was going to press, Turkey's ruling party ordered purges of police chiefs and moved to tighten control of the judiciary, as a top official said there's no chance of a truce in the struggle with prosecutors leading a corruption probe, Bloomberg reported.

The government will keep firing those leading the investigation and then seek to prosecute them for attempting a coup, Osman Can, a member of the central committee of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Justice and Development Party, or Ak Party, said in a January 6 interview in Istanbul.

Tayyip Erdogan's Justice and Development Party, or Ak Party, said in a January 6 interview in Istanbul.

The government has reassigned prosecutors leading the investigations and dismissed almost 2,000 police officers since news of the 15-month secret investigations broke on December 17, Bloomberg cited Hurriyet newspaper as reporting.]

Six months after the Gezi Parki protests in Istanbul, Turkey is going through tumultuous times once again. To those observing Turkey from outside, it may seem a non-stable and highly polarized country. If lack of understanding on fine details of democracy and abuse of loopholes that exist in a democratic system is part of the answer for such turbulence and unpredictability, I argue that the main reason is the vibrancy of Turkish politics. That is to say, politics is alive in Turkey; social groups have causes to mobilize around for.

There are alternative visions of Turkish society represented by different groups as well as political parties. The dominant discourse around "old Turkey versus new Turkey" is a testimony to this feature of Turkish politics.

For this reason, it may be particularly hard to grasp Turkish politics from North America and Europe where "in the era of neoliberalism, the ruling elite has hollowed out democracy and ensured that whoever you vote for you get the same." The absence of alternative visions of American or European societies runs as "stability".

These reasons behind passionate political activity in Turkey are in fact interrelated. Groups that have different visions of Turkish society and public interest sometimes exploit the loopholes in the system either deliberately or because of a failure to grasp democracy fully. The most recent political battle between the Gulen movement and the Justice and Development Party (AKP), close allies for the past decade, exemplifies this well.

The Gulen movement
What exactly is the Gulen movement? Are they an international civil society group involved in education activities and promoting global peace and interfaith dialogue? Amid this heated controversy, members of the movement argued that they are a civil society organization. They point out that "democracy allows civil society groups to pursue their interests through democratic means. Besides, theory and practice of civil society also allow such groups to use all means of communication and interaction including media outlets for [the] public interest." Is this what the Gulen movement really does?

We may take our clues from the criticisms against the Israeli Lobby in the United States to make sense of what the Gulen movement does and why it is criticized in Turkey nowadays. The concerns John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, the authors of the Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy, raised with the Israeli lobby was that it shaped American policy towards the Middle East in such a way that US policy served Israeli, not American, interests. The political clout that the lobby has had over primarily the US Congress forced US administrations to appoint pro-Israeli figures to critical positions, block anything in the United Nations that may be against Israel, and continue to support Israel in diverse ways that in the end ensured automatic American support for Israel.

The Gulen movement seeks to be Turkey's Israel Lobby. It would like Turkey's domestic and foreign policies to serve the movement's narrow interests. The movement has been so enmeshed in the international arena for the past decade that it now has its own interests independent of Turkey or the Muslim ummah, or community.

Some pillars of the movement's policies are maintaining good relations with Israel, avoiding any serious fall-out with the United States, where the movement's founder, Muhammed Fethullah Gulen, has resided since 1999 anyway, and never opting for an aggressive response when it comes to any type of assault on Muslims.

For example, it was for this reason that the movement and the AK Party were at loggerheads after the 2010 Mavi Marmara incident, when Israeli commandos boarded the vessel as it tried to breach Israel's blockade of Gaza. Gulen's followers were angry with the government because the break-up in ties between Turkey and Israel that followed gave the Gulen movement a headache in its dealings in the United States.

The recent political battle between the Gulen movement and the AKP is therefore more about "political deviance" of the government than the government's decision to close prep schools, a significant number of which are owned by the movement, or financial corruption charges against some prominent members inside the AKP.

For Gulen, the AKP government has lately been too critical of the West, too supportive of popular revolts in Egypt and Syria, and continues its economic dealings with Iran. In a relatively recent interview with the Atlantic, Gulen said that he did not think Turkey is having good diplomatic relations in the region and that it protects its reputation based on love, respect, and good will and collaborate around mutually agreeable goals.

A columnist at Zaman newspaper, Huseyin Gulerce, expressed the real reason behind the split: "It was the Mavi Marmara crisis that created the first cracks ... Mr Gulen's attitude was very clear, as he always suggested that Turkey should not be adventurous in its foreign policy and stay oriented to the West, and that it should resolve its foreign policy issues through dialogue."

In domestic policy too, the Gulen movement wants the government not to violate certain parameters. They do not want the government to take the PKK - the Kurdistan Workers' Party - as its negotiating partner even to resolve the Kurdish issue.

With a different vision of Turkish society and what Turkey should do in domestic arena and international politics, the Gulen movement exploited the legal cover provided by the system to start political operations on the government.

"The rule of law" and separation of three branches of government are indivisible parts of a democratic system. Prosecutors in Turkey are given an almost untouchable status so that they may prosecute without fear any holder of political power. However, while these rights and privileges are given to prosecutors, the law gives them certain responsibilities and puts certain limits on them. It is assumed and expected that prosecutors will not abuse their power and act as a supporting cast in political operations conducted on the executive branch.

However, the judiciary is treated as if they only need to be independent in Turkey; the fact that they also are expected to remain impartial is forgotten. Betraying these expectations, prosecutors suspected of links to the Gulen movement started the recent corruption probe in Turkey. The fact that three independent probes are combined for no understandable reason and that the suspects, including well-known figures, have been taken into custody to create noise and then released one by one led to the suspicion that the probes were politically motivated.

The content of the ongoing graft probe was somehow leaked to opposition newspapers, mainly to the Gulenist media outlets in Turkey.

Besides, the subjects of the probes somehow came to be published in Today's Zaman, a Gulenist mouthpiece, some days before the operation started. Some columnists at Today's Zaman later put great effort in relating the AKP to both Al-Qaeda and Iran (at the same time!) on social media.

Here is the dilemma in a democracy: how can a democratic government protect itself when unaccountable prosecutors conduct politically motivated operations to bring down a government and to arrest the prime minister under the legal cover of principles of rule of law and independent judiciary? Can a government subject to a politically motivated judiciary operating under the cover of independence and unaccountability save itself by remaining within the remit of law?

Anything but an NGO
Any civil society organization may criticize any government for its foreign and domestic policies on various scores. Civil society organizations, nevertheless, do not raise their own agents and penetrate state organs (the police, judiciary and so forth) through them so that, regardless of the identity of the government, they will set the parameters or red lines within which government policies will have to remain.

Here we have another fine line; any public employee has the constitutional right to belong to any sect/voluntary association as long as they do not confuse their duties to the state and their membership in such an association outside their job. This means that even when a public employee thinks his sect/tariqah may benefit from the classified information he has access to, he cannot leak any documents to his "brothers".

Nor may he legally eliminate his colleagues in his department or bureau so that he may replace them with his "brothers" to control the institution. There are credible doubts as to whether Gulenists respect such distinctions.

What is more, civil society organizations are transparent entities; they are accountable; those outside such organizations more or less know who belongs and who does not. They also declare their sources of income and the amount of money that they collect.

The Gulen movement does neither; no one knows the amount of money they control, the number of private schools, prep schools, other charities, print and visual media outlets, and number of members they have. Nobody exactly knows the hierarchy within the movement, or even whether there is one, and the chain of authority in it.

In that respect, the Gulen movement is the exact opposite of a civil society organization. It is rather a ghostly presence; everyone knows it exists, you feel its influence, people talk about it, certain figures are known to have ties to it, but you do not really see the whole or can put your finger on it.

But why is this movement so different from others? After all, the tradition of tariqahs in Turkey and other Muslim countries is centuries old. Yet, the Gulen movement differs from the rest as a messianic organization. They believe that "the destiny gave them a mission".

In practice, this means that they are the God's chosen flock, and have a particular program and method on Earth that they think will make only them reach their desired end. Those who stand in their way, who oppose the sacred program/roadmap, are shirkers, and thus deserve to be crushed.

In their mind, the AKP government that defends ousted Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi at the expense of antagonizing the junta administration in Egypt, or that protects Palestinians at the cost of eliciting Israeli fury, acts shortsightedly. Yet, the movement makes long-term projections; even if they may consciously refuse to speak against cruelties done to their fellow Muslims today, they are so sure that the movement will be so powerful in the year, say, 2150 that they will be able to appoint a governor to, say, Yakutia Republic in today's Russia.

They will not act or speak against the massacred members of the Ikhwan, or Muslim Brotherhood, because the Ikhwan chose the method of defiance and opposed the junta administration instead of reconciling with it and searching for ways of dialogue.

Such a messianic zeal combined with the idea of sacred chosen-ness justifies any means and acting against anyone as long as the means serve the ultimate purpose of Earthly glory promised to this movement. It is such heterodoxy that separates the Gulen movement from the corpus of tariqahs in and outside Turkey.

Political suicide
The Gulen movement has been interested and involved in politics for a long time. However, they did not out come out in the open until recently. It appears that open political engagement in front of cameras and the public eye proved to be tough for the movement. It is therefore no surprise that Gulen's explosive curses, perceived by the wider public as against the AKP government, in a video recently released by the movement backfired.

The public outrage ran so high that perhaps for the first time since 2002 Gulen had to immediately release another video to retract and reframe what he said. The video went viral and became subject of pranks.

The recent row also widened the distance between the Gulen movement and the rest of the tariqahs in Turkey. Other tariqahs threw their open support behind the government after the battle broke out. To make things worse for the Gulen movement, the rest of the Nurcu (or Nursu)? community, with which the Gulen movement is related, took a stance against them as well.

A cursory skim of discussions on social media demonstrates the widening rift within the Nurcus now, so much so that many Nurcu groups including Said Nursi's students accuse Gulen betraying the true, non-political ideals of Bediuzzaman Said Nursi.

Perhaps the most important outcome of the recent controversy will be that Gulen movement was stripped of its immunity from criticism. The conservatives and Islamists have now joined the Kemalists, leftists, liberals, nationalists of all hues who had already been criticizing Gulen and doubting his real intentions for a long time.

Today therefore the Gulen movement is on the table and Turkey's conservatives, Islamists of all stripes sit around the table discussing what it is that they have on the table, what is its nature, why it wants to conquer the state, which actors it cooperates with outside Turkey, how consistent Gulen's words are and how Islamic what he preaches, his methods and goals are.

Moreover, Turkey's dominant conservative public may not buy the support that the CHP - or Republican People's Party - in any case a strange bedfellow for the movement, is giving the Gulen movement.

Such an odd alliance between the CHP and the Gulen movement may be deceptive for two reasons. First, the movement will find it very hard to convince its grassroots to vote for the Kemalist CHP, which for decades had been for them the chief evil. Secondly, since all political actors will know the role of the movement in case the AKP government falls, no political party will ever trust the Gulen movement from now on.

It is unlikely that any government will forget for a moment what Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan says so often these days: "The parallel state". For all these reasons, the question that begs an answer is not, as some assume, whether the Gulen movement or the AKP will win this war; the question is, why has such a powerful movement as Gulen's attempted something that is akin to political suicide?

And unfortunately also just that for the concept of civil society in this part of the world; in our region, either states control civil society organizations for exerting social control or those who claim to be civil society organizations, such as the Gulen movement, try to capture the state.

Speaking Freely is an Asia Times Online feature that allows guest writers to have their say. Please click here if you are interested in contributing. Articles submitted for this section allow our readers to express their opinions and do not necessarily meet the same editorial standards of Asia Times Online's regular contributors.

Omer Aslan is a PhD candidate in political science at Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey, and may be contacted at [e-mail].

(Copyright 2014 Omer Aslan)

Mikhail AGHAJANYAN
Ex: http://www.strategic-culture.org

Turkey Caught Up in a Storm

A corruption scandal has broken out in Turkey. At the epicenter of the scandal is the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). Over 50 people have been detained on suspicion of exceeding official authority, taking bribes, and merging authority and business (according to various data, between 52 and 84 people). The greatest resonance in the Turkish media was caused by the arrests of the sons of cabinet members. The hidden political motives for the revelations of corruption in the ranks of the ruling party are intriguing as well...

The scandal poses the greatest threat to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan, the leader of the AKP. He has always taken the position of an uncompromising fighter against corruption within the government system and outside of it, and now he himself has been affected by the corruption investigations. 

Commentators have proposed various explanations for the surfacing of a topic which compromises Erdogan and his party. They name a flare-up in the relations between two old friends (or rather, former friends) as the most likely detonator for the scandal. This refers to Erdogan and Fetullah Gulen, a Muslim cleric and founder of the Hizmet movement. The latter now lives in the American state of Pennsylvania, from which he continues to rule his «mini-empire», which includes media outlets and educational institutions (1), and influence social and political processes in Turkey. 

At the dawn of Erdogan's political career, as he was just starting to ascend the Olympus of power, there was complete harmony between him and Gulen. Gulen is an advocate of the systematic Islamicization of Turkey. His theological views combined with the ambitions of a political leader appealed to Erdogan. Gulen supported Erdogan in all the previous national elections. The flare-up in relations, Turkish commentators note, became noticeable in the first few months of 2012, when Erdogan and Gulen disagreed over several issues at once. The most sensitive among these for the «Gulenites» was the government's intention to close private schools. Approximately a quarter of such educational institutions in Turkey are closely tied with the Hizmet movement (they are often called «Gulen schools»). By autumn 2013 things had come to the point of direct confrontation. The Erdogan government moved from words to actions; several schools were forced to close their doors. This was a direct challenge to Erdogan's former ally. In response, the «Pennsylvania exile» brought all his influence to bear. Warnings to those in power appeared on the pages of Zaman, one of the most-read newspapers in Turkey, which is under Gulen's control. 

There are plenty of Gulen supporters in the ruling party, the corridors of power, and especially in the judicial and law enforcement systems of Turkey. If one is to believe Turkish journalists, it was pro-Gulen public prosecutors who initiated the corruption investigation. After Erdogan came to power in 2003, he promoted an entire cohort of personnel to responsible posts, including in the law enforcement system.  For all these years Erdogan's appointees have given no cause to doubt their loyalty to him. However, the flare-up between the prime minister and the influential Islamic authority figure has shown that the vector of loyalty can change.

At the same time, the agitation in the system of power built by Erdogan cannot be explained only by the conflict between Erdogan and Gulen. On the lower levels of the AKP there are growing sentiments in favor of a generational change in party leaders. In addition, some party members support the nomination of Abdullah Gul, the current president of Turkey, for another presidential term next year. The coming elections are to be held by direct voting for the first time (previously the president of Turkey was elected by the parliament). This part of the political elite sees Gul as a more level-headed statesman than the impulsive Erdogan, whose emotional disposition has recently led to several incidents in Turkey's relations with foreign partners.

The nascent opposition to Erdogan and his circle has become especially difficult to restrain since summer 2013, when a wave of protests swept across the largest Turkish cities. The trigger was the clearing of Istanbul's Gezi Park and the building of a new shopping center on its territory. The authorities were able to localize the protests and prevent them from expanding beyond large cities. However, the demonstrations had deeper causes than environmental protection. Amid the complete removal of the Turkish army from positions of power and a series of prosecutions against senior generals, forces for which Erdogan's name was associated with total control over the media, a simulation of democratic reforms, and most importantly, the creeping Islamicization of Turkey, the aims and implementation of which has caused sharp disagreement even in the ranks of the ruling AKP, have become more active. 

The army returned to its barracks, and civilian activists took to the streets; fertile ground appeared for all the conflicts in society and the government to come to the surface. Up until then Gulen and his followers had been opposing Erdogan tacitly; the corruption scandal essentially was the first real manifestation of this group's capabilities. They sent Erdogan the signal that if he wants a «smear war», he'll get it. But first, let him think about what he will bring to the new elections next year (municipal and presidential). This is the somewhat simplified, but enlightening leitmotif of the current conflict between the prime minister and the preacher. The opinion of Turkish analyst Murat Yetkin is also worthy of attention: Gulen's supporters in the AKP are irritated by Erdogan's claims to ideological monopoly in the party and sole authority in the country.  

Erdogan reacted to the attacks on him and his team in his typical harsh style. The wave of arrests initiated by pro-Gulen public prosecutors was followed by a counter-wave of indictments. Now the public prosecutors and policemen themselves have fallen afoul of Turkish justice. Five Istanbul police officials were relieved of their duties a day after their subordinates made arrests on suspicion of corruption. Something similar could be observed in the «challenge-response» actions of Erdogan and his cabinet at the very beginning of the demonstrations in defense of Gezi Park in Istanbul. First Erdogan brought down the full force of Istanbul's police on the demonstrators, but then moved away from repressions. He started to hold a dialog with the protestors, albeit only in the intervals between firing water cannons at them and attacking them with tear gas. Something tells me that this time, too, after the energy of the conflict has dropped off, the various groups in power will start to resolve the conflicts through negotiation. Essentially, Erdogan has no other option, considering the upcoming elections; escalation of the conflict is not in his interests. 

Much will become clearer closer to the elections for the head of Turkey's largest city in March 2014. The country's main financial streams are concentrated in Istanbul, and over 18% of Turkey's 75 million people live there. Along with other metropolises of Western Turkey, the city has become a hotbed for protest sentiments with an anti-Erdogan tone. Victory in the Istanbul elections would serve as a stimulus for the current prime minister and his team to strengthen their power in the country. And then Gulen and his mudslinging will move to the ranks of less dangerous opponents to the impulsive yet charismatic Erdogan. 

(1) According to Turkish sources, Gulen's «mini-empire» includes 18 places of worship, 89 specialized religious schools, 207 trading companies, 373 teacher's colleges and around 500 dormitories in Turkey. Outside of Turkey there are 6 religious universities, 236 high schools, 2 elementary schools, 2 Turkish language study centers, 6 university preparation courses and 21 dormitories operating under the auspices of Gulen and his movement. They also publish 14 journals and broadcast on 2 national radio stations and the satellite television channel Samanyolu TV.

Republishing is welcomed with reference to Strategic Culture Foundation on-line journal www.strategic-culture.org.

Turquie: un triste spectacle

Ex: http://www.europesolidaire.eu

par Jean-Paul BAQUIAST

Vue de l'extérieur et malgré les efforts d'explication de la presse européenne, la Turquie paraît s'enfoncer dans une crise incompréhensible. Depuis quelques jours maintenant, les déclarations abruptes du Premier ministre Recep Tayyip Erdogan se succèdent, accusant des manipulations politiques destinées à déstabiliser son gouvernement, dit islamo-conservateur, et son parti l'AKP.

Dans le même temps, la justice et la police mènent depuis le 17 décembre une vaste opération dite anti-corruption. Cinquante et une personnes étaient toujours en garde à vue, mercredi soir, soupçonnées de malversations, de fraudes et de blanchiment d'argent. Parmi les placés en garde à vue figurent le maire (AKP) du quartier central de Fatih à Istanbul, les fils de trois ministres parmi les plus proches du chef du gouvernement, le cousin d'un responsable du bureau national de l'AKP, des bureaucrates de premier plan mais aussi des hommes d'affaires liés au secteur de la construction et de la promotion immobilière.. .

La justice enquête en particulier sur l'Administration de développement de l'habitat collectif (TOKI), qui a réalisé au cours de la dernière décennie des bénéfices considérables en revendant à des promoteurs immobiliers amis du pouvoir des terrains publics, tout en réalisant ses propres projets de logements collectifs. Cette entreprise parapublique est au cœur de la politique de transformation urbaine initiée par Erdogan à Istanbul et tant décriée au printemps au moment des manifestations de la place Taksim. Ceux-ci protestaient notamment contre la destruction envisagée par le pouvoir du parc de la place Taksim, le seul ou presque espace vert demeurant dans la capitale.

L'opposition menée par le CHP (Parti républicain du peuple), exige la démission du gouvernement et la création par l'Assemblée nationale d'une commission d'enquête. Mais la justice et l'opposition peuvent-elle se présenter comme neutres dans cette offensive de vertu? Malheureusement non. Il apparaît de plus en plus qu'elles sont instrumentalisées par une secte ou confrérie très puissante qui, un peu comme les frères musulmans dans d'autres Etats islamiques, a pris en mains une partie de la police, de la justice et des cercles économiques.

Bien qu'elle s'en défende, la confrérie, née dans les années 1970 autour des prêches de l'imam turc Fethullah Gülen, issue du courant Nourdjou et inspirées par les idées du penseur Said Nursi, prospère depuis vingt ans dans les coulisses du pouvoir politique. L'Etat turc, quelle que soit la couleur du parti majoritaire, a utilisé, dès le début des années 1990, les réseaux de ces "missionnaires de la turcité", actifs dans les pays d'Asie centrale nouvellement indépendants.

Une véritable guerre

Or longtemps alliés, la secte et l'AKP s'opposent aujourd'hui dans une véritable guerre. Les partisans du premier ministre Erdogan affrontent désormais ceux de Fethullah Gülen, exilé depuis 1999 aux Etats-Unis à la suite d'enquêtes menées à l'époque par les militaires alors très présents au gouvernement avant d'en être chassés par Recep Tayyip Erdogan. L'instruction contre l'entourage de ce dernier est conduite par le procureur Zekriya Öz, proche des gülénistes, et qui avait dirigé l'enquête dans l'affaire Ergenekon, un réseau militaro-nationaliste démantelé après 2008.

Pourquoi les deux pouvoirs, précédemment alliés, non seulement contre les militaires mais contre l'opposition réputée démocratique, sont-ils entrés en guerre? Les raisons n'en sont guère glorieuses. La secte reproche désormais au gouvernement la fermeture des dershane – un réseau de cours privés de soutien scolaire dans lesquels elle a massivement investi. Plus généralement, l'enjeu est la conquête du patronat, notamment de province. Depuis 2004, la forte croissance turque a largement profité aux petits patrons qui forment le tissu du mouvement religieux et financent ses écoles dans le monde entier. Depuis 2005, les gülénistes ont formé leur propre patronat : la confédération des entrepreneurs turcs (Tüskon). Elle compte 30 000 membres, dont 30 des 200 plus grandes entreprises du pays, et les réseaux commerciaux de ses hommes d'affaires sont incontournables.

Mais pourquoi l'AKP a-t-elle décidé d'affronter la secte en organisant la fermeture de ses écoles privées? D'une part pour prendre de l'influence dans les esprits des très nombreux milieux sociaux fréquentant ces écoles, et d'autre part pour récupérer une partie des revenus en découlant.

Tout ceci ressemble fort à une guerre entre mafias. L'actuel visage de la Turquie la rend plus mal fondée que jamais à poursuivre une entrée dans l'Union européenne, quels que soient les soutiens qu'elle avait reçus pour cela de l'Amérique. Certes les intérêts de beaucoup d'entreprises européennes sont très liés aux intérêts turcs dont nous venons de voir la complexité. Mais les Européens doivent cependant sauver les apparences. Ajoutons que les louvoiements de la diplomatie turque dans le conflit syrien augmentent encore les méfiances qu'elle inspire.

La conclusion de ces péripéties pourrait être, non une montée sérieuse de l'opposition libérale toujours faible et divisée, mais un certain retour en grâce des militaires. Ils ont été chassés du pouvoir par Erdogan, à la suite d'accusations apparaissant aujourd'hui injustes. En fait, dans la tradition du kémalisme, ils incarnaient un gouvernement se voulant aussi laïc et intègre que souhaitent l'être beaucoup d'Etats européens. Dans une certaine mesure, ils ressemblaient aux militaires égyptiens revenus récemment au pouvoir à la suite du « coup d'état » du général Abd el Sissi.

N'idéalisons pas ici les militaires turques ou ce qu'il en reste, mais bornons nous à retenir, en attendant la suite des évènements, que Recep Tayyip Erdogan et l'AKP ne donnent pas une image très attrayante de la politique islam-conservatrice modérée qu'ils prétendaient incarner. La place de la Turquie en Europe est moins souhaitable que jamais.

 

Jean Paul Baquiast

20/12/2013

Ukraine, Turkey and America’s Selective Human Rights Rhetoric

Chad NAGLE

Ex: http://www.strategic-culture.org

The US government was quick to condemn its Ukrainian counterpart for the brutality of police in Kiev against pro-European Union demonstrators after the Ukrainian government’s suspension of negotiations on closer association with the EU. According to the website of the US Embassy in Ukraine, Washington «condemns the violence against protesters on Independence Square», and «urge(s) the government of Ukraine to respect the rights of civil society and the principles of freedom of speech and freedom of assembly… « The «spirit of the principles embodied by the OSCE» is cited as the basis for the statement.

Flash back to May and June in Turkey, which, like Ukraine, is also a member of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). Over a period of several weeks, police cracked down on crowds of demonstrators many times the size of those in Kiev, using truncheons, water cannon and tear gas, injuring hundreds and ultimately killing half a dozen. A small group of environmentalists had staged a sit-in in central Istanbul to protest the uprooting of trees and the planned paving of a park to build another shopping mall. Social media and blogs took the lead in capturing Turkish police brutality sparked by defenseless tree-huggers, because almost no international news outlets covered the upheaval in any depth for the better part of a week. When international media did start covering the Turkish disturbances properly, Western governments were largely silent. The White House and State Department never criticized the Turkish government for heavy-handedness. The only sharply worded criticism came from non-governmental entities like the Council of Europe, a human rights body.

The current regime in Turkey has arrested and imprisoned hundreds of suspected opponents: journalists, lawyers and military officers. Many are held without charge, qualifying them as political prisoners. Ukraine has one high-profile political prisoner, former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, jailed under vague «abuse of power» charges but undeniably involved in high-level corruption dating back to the 1990s, when the patronage of then-Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko (now in prison in California) allowed her to corner the domestic natural gas market. Tymoshenko is certainly a political rival of President Viktor Yanukovych, and yet Western governments and the international human rights community have singled out Tymoshenko’s detention as evidence of «selective justice» in Ukraine. No such demonization of Erdogan’s Turkey has occurred, despite mass arrests and jailing of suspected conspirators.

This is interesting in part because the two countries’ domestic politics parallel each other in many ways. Both countries «straddle» east and west, with markedly different populations characterizing extreme eastern and western regions. The opponents of the current authorities in both states are largely «urban liberals», who see themselves confronting an «eastern mentality» and provincial social forces. In Ukraine, Yanukovych and his Party of the Regions come from the Russian-speaking east and southeast, and many in Kiev and the Ukrainian-speaking west of the country despise them for not viewing Russia and its president as enemies. In Turkey, urban, secular Turks perceive Prime Minster Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) government as bigoted and male chauvinist, and fear that the AKP seeks to impose traditional Islamic morality on all of Turkish society.

But for all this, Ukraine comes in for harsh criticism; Turkey does not. This may be because Turkey’s government employs powerful lobbyists like Patton Boggs to enforce its interests on Capitol Hill., and US investment in Turkey – including the US military presence – is substantial. Whenever a Congressional resolution on recognizing the Armenian Genocide comes up for a vote, a few intimidating phone calls to the White House and members of the House and Senate quickly and quietly sink it, leaving America quivering on one side of the historical debate, while Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Russia and a host of other major powers appear unafraid to take an official stand.

Meanwhile, Ukraine languishes across the Black Sea, its naïve government coming away disappointed and empty-handed from talks with more «civilized» EU leaders, and its opposition crying that the government has «stolen» the people’s «European dream». But Yanukovich and the other Ukrainian leaders must have thought their country of 45 million – with a territory the size of France and the most fertile soil in Europe – was worth more than Brussels’ paltry offer. No doubt it was. It’s just that the EU, beset by huge problems of unemployment, recession and social malaise, can’t possibly afford to pay for Ukraine’s overhaul and integration into the economic bloc right now. So Ukraine is naturally turning back to Russia, a vast country representing the historical and present-day lifeblood of its economy, for better trade benefits and debt relief.

That it has taken the Ukrainians years of negotiations and ultimate humiliation to reach this decision probably has much to do with the global economic downturn of the last five years. The vocal negative reaction of the US and EU is almost certainly attributable to geopolitical perceptions still rooted in the outdated mentality of the Cold War. But one thing should be certain: in the wake of the Turkish upheaval of 2013, Washington’s indignation over police brutality – such as what has occurred over the last few days in Kiev – is hollow and phony. It is truly selective, and has nothing to do with human rights…

Chad Nagle lives in Washington, DC. He has lived and worked in Ukraine and Turkey as a human rights monitor, lawyer and teacher.

El sueño de Turquía de islamizar la basílica de Hagia Sophia

El sueño de Turquía de islamizar la basílica de Hagia Sophia

Ex: http://europauniversal.blogspot.com.es

El viceprimer ministro Bulent Arinc, quiere convertir la famosa basílica-museo en una mezquita.

El viceprimer ministro turco aprovechó la apertura de un museo en el histórico distrito de Sultanahmet, para expresar su deseo de ver la basílica de Hagia Sophia, que está justo al lado, convertido en un lugar de culto musulmán. "La mezquita de Santa Sofía, Bulent Arinc espera ver, sonriendo" según informes de prensa. La declaración se produjo en un contexto de tensión en el que el Partido de la Justicia y el Desarrollo en el poder (AKP) se encarga de islamizar la sociedad y el espacio público turco multiplicando las reformas en favor de una determinada concepción de la religión.

Para apoyar su argumento, el número dos del gobierno criticó el estado actual del edificio religioso, convertido en museo por un decreto de 1934. Según él, "un lugar de culto no puede ser utilizado para cualquier función que no sea la inicial." Y para su gran satisfacción, es a causa de este precepto que dos iglesias-museos también llamada Santa Sofía, una en Trabzon, a orillas del Mar Negro y la otra en Iznik en los países occidentales se registraron como mezquitas en los últimos meses.

La atracción turística emblemática de Estambul, Santa Sofía es una joya arquitectónica con su enorme cúpula de diez metros de diámetro y mosaicos cubiertos con hojas de oro. Construido en el siglo VI por el emperador Justiniano I, el edificio, que fue la sede del patriarca ortodoxo de Constantinopla fue saqueada durante la cuarta cruzada y más tarde transformada en mezquita durante la toma de la ciudad por los otomanos en 1453.

Las solicitudes de conversión de Hagia Sophia en una mezquita se multiplican.

Su conversión en mezquita es una vieja reivindicación de la extrema derecha e islamistas turcos. El año pasado en octubre, el día de la fiesta del sacrificio, un centenar de miembros del Partido de la gran unidad (BBP), los islamo-nacionalista, oraron delante del muso-basílica. ero en los últimos meses, las demandas están aumentando. Una petición de particulares reclaman una transformación que está siendo bien estudiada por un comité parlamentario desde febrero. La edición de agosto de Skylife, la revista de la compañía aérea Turkish Airlines, cuyo accionista mayoritario es el estado turco, dedicaba su portada a "La mezquita de los sultanes". Sin hacer referencia al origen cristiano de "este legado otomano en gran parte", el expediente pone en duda la legalidad de la situación del museo. ¿Mezquita Santa Sofía?. ¿Como suena el nombre en sus oídos?, pretende examinar el columnista Nurak Bekdil en el Hürriyet Daily News. ¿Qué significaría la sinagoga al-Aqsa o la iglesia en Sultanahmet para los musulmanes?. Derrota y la injusticia, ¿no es así? Eso sería lo correcto".

Las declaraciones de Bülent Arinc sobre el futuro de la iglesia de Santa Sofía se realizaron pocos días después de su oposición a un proyecto del primer ministro. A principios de noviembre, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, se había quejado de los dormitorios mixtos para los estudiantes  ya que algunos "estilos de vida" no son "legítimos". Las redadas policiales se hicieron en pisos compartidos habían seguido a los edificios de las principales ciudades de Turquía. Esta postura moral, fue vista como una violación de la privacidad por una gran parte de la población,siendo también criticada por el vice primer ministro. Pero el estado de Santa Sofía se agrega a una lista, que sigue creciendo en los últimos meses, con medidas a favor de una presencia más visible del Islam o con las restricciones de venta de alcohol y la introducción de cursos adicionales en la religión sunita en el plan escolar. 

Le Figaro

Syria, Egypt Reveal Erdogan’s Hidden “Neo-Ottoman Agenda”

Syria, Egypt Reveal Erdogan’s Hidden “Neo-Ottoman Agenda”

By Nicola Nasser

 

Global Research, November 20, 2013

Url of this article:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/syria-egypt-reveal-erdogans-hidden-neo-ottoman-agenda/5358781

The eruption of the Syrian conflict early in 2011 heralded the demise of Turkey ’s officially pronounced strategy of “Zero Problems with Neighbors,” but more importantly, it revealed a “hidden agenda” in Turkish foreign policy under the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

What Sreeram Chaulia, the Dean of the Jindal School of International Affairs in India ’s Sonipat, described as a “creeping hidden agenda” (http://rt.com on Sept. 15, 2013) is covered up ideologically as “Islamist.”

But in a more in-depth insight it is unfolding as neo-Ottomanism that is pragmatically using “Islamization,” both of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk’s legacy internally and Turkey ’s foreign policy regionally, as a tool to revive the Ottoman Empire that once was.

Invoking his country’s former imperial grandeur, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davotoglu had written: “As in the sixteenth century … we will once again make the Balkans, the Caucasus, and the Middle East, together with Turkey , the center of world politics in the future. That is the goal of Turkish foreign policy and we will achieve it.” (Emphasis added)

Quoted by Hillel Fradkin and Lewis Libby, writing in last March/April edition of www.worldaffairsjournal.org, the goal of Erdogan’s AKP ruling party for 2023, as proclaimed by its recent Fourth General Congress, is: “A great nation, a great power.” Erdogan urged the youth of Turkey to look not only to 2023, but to 2071 as well when Turkey “will reach the level of our Ottoman and Seljuk ancestors by the year 2071” as he said in December last year.

“2071 will mark one thousand years since the Battle of Manzikert,” when the Seljuk Turks defeated the Byzantine Empire and heralded the advent of the Ottoman one, according to Fradkin and Libby.

Some six months ago, Davotoglu felt so confident and optimistic to assess that “it was now finally possible to revise the order imposed” by the British – French Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916 to divide the Arab legacy of the Ottoman Empire between them.

Davotoglu knows very well that Pan-Arabs have been ever since struggling unsuccessfully so far to unite as a nation and discard the legacy of the Sykes-Picot Agreement, but not to recur to the Ottoman status quo ante, but he knows as well that Islamist political movements like the Muslim Brotherhood International (MBI) and the Hizb ut-Tahrir al-Islami (Islamic Party of Liberation) were originally founded in Egypt and Palestine respectively in response to the collapse of the Ottoman Islamic caliphate.

However, Erdogan’s Islamist credentials cannot be excluded as simply a sham; his background, his practices in office since 2002 as well as his regional policies since the eruption of the Syrian conflict less than three years ago all reveal that he does believe in his version of Islam per se as the right tool to pursue his Ottoman not so-“hidden agenda.”

Erdogan obviously is seeking to recruit Muslims as merely “soldiers” who will fight not for Islam per se, but for his neo-Ottomanism ambitions. Early enough in December 1997, he was given a 10-month prison sentence for voicing a poem that read: “The mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets and the faithful our soldiers;” the poem was considered a violation of Kemalism by the secular judiciary.

Deceiving ‘Window of Opportunity ’

However, Erdogan’s Machiavellianism finds no contradiction between his Islamist outreach and his promotion of the “Turkish model,” which sells what is termed as the “moderate” Sunni Islam within the context of Ataturk’s secular and liberal state as both an alternative to the conservative tribal-religious states in the Arabian Peninsula and to the sectarian rival of the conservative Shiite theocracy in Iran.

He perceived in the latest US withdrawal of focus from the Middle East towards the Pacific Ocean a resulting regional power vacuum providing him with an historic window of opportunity to fill the perceived vacuum.

“Weakening of Europe and the US’ waning influence in the Middle East” were seen by the leadership of Erdogan’s ruling party “as a new chance to establish Turkey as an influential player in the region,” Günter Seufert wrote in the German Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP) on last October 14.

The US and Israel , in earnest to recruit Turkey against Iran , nurtured Erdogan’s illusion of regional leadership. He deluded himself with the unrealistic belief that Turkey could stand up to and sidestep the rising stars of the emerging Russian international polar, the emerging Iranian regional polar and the traditional regional players of Egypt and Saudi Arabia , let alone Iraq and Syria should they survive their current internal strife.

For sure, his allies in the Muslim Brotherhood International (MBI) and his thinly veiled Machiavellian logistical support of al-Qaeda – linked terrorist organizations are not and will not be a counter balance.

He first focused his Arab outreach on promoting the “Turkish model,” especially during the early months of the so-called “Arab Spring,” as the example he hoped will be followed by the revolting masses, which would have positioned him in the place of the regional mentor and leader.

But while the eruption of the Syrian conflict compelled him to reveal his Islamist “hidden agenda” and his alliance with the MBI, the removal of MBI last July from power in Egypt with all its geopolitical weight, supported by the other regional Arab heavy weight of Saudi Arabia, took him off guard and dispelled his ambitions for regional leadership, but more importantly revealed more his neo-Ottoman “hidden agenda” and pushed him to drop all the secular and liberal pretensions of his “Turkish model” rhetoric.

‘Arab Idol’ No More 

Erdogan and his foreign policy engineer Davotoglu tried as well to exploit the Arab and Muslim adoption of the Palestine Question as the central item on their foreign policy agendas.

Since Erdogan’s encounter with the Israeli President Shimon Peres at the Economic Summit in Davos in January 2009, the Israeli attack on the Turkish humanitarian aid boat to Gaza, Mavi Marmara, the next year and Turkey’s courting of the Islamic Resistance Movement “Hamas,” the de facto rulers of the Israeli besieged Palestinian Gaza Strip, at the same time Gaza was targeted by the Israeli Operation Cast Lead in 2008-2009 then targeted again in the Israeli Operation Pillar of Defense in 2012, Turkey’s premier became the Arab idol who was invited to attend Arab Leage summit and ministerial meetings.

However, in interviews with ResearchTurkey, CNN Turk and other media outlets, Abdullatif Sener, a founder of Erdogan’s AKP party who served as deputy prime minister and minister of finance in successive AKP governments for about seven years before he broke out with Erdogan in 2008, highlighted Erdogan’s Machiavellianism and questioned the sincerity and credibility of his Islamic, Palestinian and Arab public posturing.

“Erdogan acts without considering religion even at some basic issues but he hands down sharp religious messages … I consider the AK Party not as an Islamic party but as a party which collect votes by using Islamic discourses,” Sener said, adding that, “the role in Middle East was assigned to him” and “the strongest logistic support” to Islamists who have “been carrying out terrorist activities” in Syria “is provided by Turkey” of Erdogan.

In an interview with CNN Turk, Sener dropped a bombshell when he pointed out that the AKP’s spat with Israel was “controlled.” During the diplomatic boycott of Israel many tenders were granted to Israeli companies and Turkey has agreed to grant partner status to Israel in NATO: “If the concern of the AKP is to confront Israel then why do they serve to the benefit of Israel ?” In another interview he said that the NATO radar systems installed in Malatya are there to protect Israel against Iran .

Sener argued that the biggest winner of the collapse of the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad would be Israel because it will weaken Lebanon ’s Hizbullah and Iran , yet Erdogan’s Turkey is the most ardent supporter of a regime change in Syria , he said.

Erdogan’s Syrian policy was the death knell to his strategy of “Zero Problems with Neighbors;” the bloody terrorist swamp of the Syrian conflict has drowned it in its quicksand.

Liz Sly’s story in the Washington Post on this November 17 highlighted how his Syrian policies “have gone awry” and counterproductive by “putting al-Qaeda on NATO’s (Turkish) borders for the first time.”

With his MBI alliance, he alienated Egypt , Saudi Arabia and the UAE, in addition to the other Arab heavy weights of Syria , Iraq and Algeria and was left with “zero friends” in the region.

According to Günter Seufert, Turkey ’s overall foreign policy, not only with regards to Syria , “has hit the brick wall” because the leadership of Erdogan’s ruling party “has viewed global political shifts through an ideologically (i.e. Islamist) tinted lens.”

Backpedaling too late

Now it seems Erdogan’s “ Turkey is already carefully backpedaling” on its foreign policy,” said Seufert. It “wants to reconnect” with Iran and “ Washington ’s request to end support for radical groups in Syria did not fall on deaf Turkish ears.”

“Reconnecting” with Iran and its Iraqi ruling sectarian brethren will alienate further the Saudis who could not tolerate similar reconnection by their historical and strategic US ally and who were already furious over Erdogan’s alliance with the Qatari financed and US sponsored Muslim Brotherhood and did not hesitate to publicly risk a rift with their US ally over the removal of the MBI from power in Egypt five months ago.

Within this context came Davotoglu’s recent visit to Baghdad , which “highlighted the need for great cooperation between Turkey and Iraq against the Sunni-Shiite conflict,” according to www.turkishweekly.net on this November 13. Moreover, he “personally” wanted “to spend the month of Muharram every year in (the Iraqi Shiite holy places of) Karbala and Najaf with our (Shiite) brothers there.”

Within the same “backpedaling” context came Erdogan’s playing the host last week to the president of the Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government, Massoud Barzani, not in Ankara , but in Diyarbakir , which Turkish Kurds cherish as their capital in the same way Iraqi Kurds cherish Kirkuk .

However, on the same day of Barzani’s visit Erdogan ruled out the possibility of granting Turkish Kurds their universal right of self-determination when he announced “Islamic brotherhood” as the solution for the Kurdish ethnic conflict in Turkey , while his deputy, Bulent Arinc, announced that “a general amnesty” for Kurdish detainees “is not on today’s agenda.” Three days earlier, on this November 15, Turkish President Abdullah Gul said, “Turkey cannot permit (the) fait accompli” of declaring a Kurdish provisional self-rule along its southern borders in Syria which his prime minister’s counterproductive policies created together with an al-Qaeda-dominated northeastern strip of Syrian land.

Erdogan’s neo-Ottomanism charged by his Islamist sectarian ideology as a tool has backfired to alienate both Sunni and Shiite regional environment, the Syrian, Iraqi, Egyptian, Emirati, Saudi and Lebanese Arabs, Kurds, Armenians, Israelis and Iranians as well as Turkish and regional liberals and secularists. His foreign policy is in shambles with a heavy economic price as shown by the recent 13.2% devaluation of the Turkish lira against the US dollar.

“Backpedaling” might be too late to get Erdogan and his party through the upcoming local elections next March and the presidential elections which will follow in August next year.

Nicola Nasser is a veteran Arab journalist based in Birzeit, West Bank of the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories. [e-mail]

Copyright © 2013 Global Research

Le « mur de la honte » et la défaite turque en Syrie….

De Léon Camus

Global Research

Url de l'article:
http://www.mondialisation.ca/le-mur-de-la-honte-et-la-defaite-turque-en-syrie/5358217

La Turquie, à l’heure présente, édifie un « mur de la honte » sur sa frontière sud pour empêcher que ne débordent sur son propre sol les affrontements faisant rage en territoire syrien entre Kurdes et djihadistes internationalistes en lutte contre les forces régulières de Damas. Une construction donnant lieu à des émeutes de la part des communautés kurdes qui vont se trouver séparées de part et d’autre de la barrière. Colère faisant suite à celle des turcs alévis qui se sont soulevés dans les zones où affluent les réfugiés syriens, rebelles à l’autorité du régime baasiste de Damas… C’était à l’heure où les révoltes du Printemps arabes semblaient ouvrir la voie à l’instauration au sud de la Méditerranée d’une chaine de gouvernements islamistes tous issus de la matrice des Frères musulman. Une perspective qui encouragea la Turquie dans des ambitions néo-ottomanes soutenues par une réussite économique exemplaire. Las, le pouvoir alaouite ne s’est pas effondré, la guerre est devenue sans issue. L’Amérique s’est alors résignée à renoncer, pour l’heure, à toute intervention directe alors qu’elle engageait des négociations quasi bilatérales avec l’Iran, allié stratégique de la Syrie. Un fait totalement inédit au bout de trois décennies de déni. Mais à présent l’économie turque pâtit durement de l’effort de guerre et du fléchissement de sa croissance – 5% en 20113 soit une perte de quatre points en deux ans et demi de guerre – tout comme elle souffre de l’afflux des réfugiés sur son territoire national. Aujourd’hui contestations et émeutes se multiplient. Dernièrement, après les manifestations massive du mois de juin à Istanbul, l’agitation a gagné dans la capitale Ankara, fragilisant un pouvoir islamiste pourtant réputé modéré mais qui peu à peu se démasque en limitant les libertés publiques ou en répudiant la laïcité héritée du kémalisme et en imposant par la loi des normes chariatiques. Malgré son dynamisme économique, la Turquie tend à redevenir « l’homme malade de l’Europe »… Une Europe qui, comme par miracle, vient de reprendre avec Ankara des négociations d’adhésion laissées au point mort depuis plusieurs années. Peut-être une façon de dédommager Ankara de la peine prise à tenter de renverser Assad, une compensation pour les débours liés à la guerre et pour les bénéfices perdus en renonçant à voir s’installer à Damas un gouvernement sunnite islamiste modéré, clone de celui d’Ankara.

Si le président Français, moins habile à l’esquive que les gens de Washington, s’est ridiculisé dans l’affaire syrienne – mais aux yeux de qui ? – la Turquie y a, elle, laissé des plumes… Si Tarik Ramadan, petit fils du fondateur des Frères musulmans dont la chaire d’islamologie à d’Oxford est financée par Doha, pouvait écrire en septembre 2011 que « la visite du Premier Ministre Erdogan Afrique du Nord avait été un immense succès populaire »… « Car depuis trois ans celui-ci est devenu plus populaire et plus respecté pour plusieurs raisons : il a été élu et réélu, et tous, même ses opposants ont reconnu sa compétence et l’efficacité de son gouvernement. La Turquie s’améliore de l’intérieur comme à l’extérieur : moins de corruption, une meilleure gestion, moins de conflit… » [tariqramadan.com20spt11]. Un jugement très laudateur vite cependant démenti par les faits. Si en effet la Turquie a été putativement « du bon côté de l’Histoire » au début des Printemps arabes, il lui a fallu rapidement déchanter son économie ayant subi un sévère coup d’arrêt avec une guerre qui a sonné le glas de ses exportations vers le voisin syrien, et avec la multiplication de camps de réfugiés fort mal tolérés par des populations locales dont certaines s’y sont montrées hostiles.

En 2010, les exportations turques vers la Syrie s’élevaient à 1 845 milliards de dollars. À la fin de l’année 2011 elles étaient descendues à 1 611 milliards… sur un volume total, il est vrai, de 137 mds de $. Mais c’est sans compter les 800 000 Syriens qui – en dépit de la rude dictature assadienne ! – se rendaient chaque année en Turquie pour y faire du tourisme… De plus « depuis que la Syrie est à feu et à sang, les entreprises turques ne peuvent plus y faire transiter leurs marchandises à destination des pays du Golfe et du Machrek” [ceri/fr25oct12]. Alors quoiqu’en disent les experts, même si les échanges avec Damas ne représentaient qu’une une part mineure des échanges commerciaux turcs, les incidences de la guerre sont multiples et toutes ne sont pas encore visibles. En 2012 un net ralentissement de l’économie a commencé à se fait sentir et tend à s’accentuer avec la prolongation de la guerre : la Turquie cumulerait ainsi des pertes économiques se montant à quelque cinq milliards de $ depuis l’éviction en Égypte des Frères musulmans en juillet dernier [Irib2spt13] !

Au chapitre des réfugiés “leur nombre dépasserait les 600.000 personnes, dont plus de 400.000 vivant hors des camps d’accueil installés le long de la frontière” [lesechos.fr21oct13]. Vingt et un camps abritent environ 200.000 réfugiés, or « la Turquie entendant conserver sa politique de « porte ouverte » pour les civils fuyant la guerre en Syrie malgré des fermetures temporaires de la frontière en raison de violences localisées”. À ce sujet le Premier ministre Erdogan avait indiqué en août que son pays avait déjà consacré près de deux milliards de dollars pour abriter les réfugiés [Ibidem]. Un afflux incontrôlable qui a donné lieu en 2012 à de dures émeutes de la part des populations locales… Sur les centaines de milliers de syriens arrivés en Turquie depuis le printemps 2011, seulement deux cent mille – avons-nous dit – on trouvé refuge dans des camps, des dizaines de milliers d’autres s’étant dispersés au milieu des populations urbaines où leur présence est une cause permanente de troubles, principalement ment dans la province de Hatay-Alexandrette, Sandjak arraché à la Syrie en 1938, et dans laquelle cohabitaient jusqu’à présent Alaouites turcisés, Turcs et Kurdes sunnites, Chrétiens et Alévis… “des heurts entre communautés et des manifestations anti-Erdoğan ont déjà eu lieu à Antioche” [lesechos.f16spt13].

Et parce que la Turquie et la Syrie partagent 900 kilomètres de frontières communes le long desquels se déroulent d’intenses combats – particulièrement dans la province d’Idlib où des affrontements opposent tribus kurdes et arabes aux mercenaires du Front al-Nosra – Ankara a décidé de construire un mur de sécurité… en principe pour interdire les entrées clandestines et la contrebande, en réalité pour empêcher les combats opposant Kurdes et insurgés salafistes de s’étendre en territoire turc [Reuters7oct13]. Barrière pour l’heure de quelques kilomètres mais aussitôt qualifiée de « Mur de la honte » par référence au mur de séparation érigé par les autorités israéliennes pour isoler des terres palestiniennes pourtant placées sous le statut de zone d’occupation.

Le gouvernement de l’AKP plombe désormais la Turquie

De ce seul point de vue, il faut insister sur l’épuisement du crédit moral dont bénéficiait jusqu’en 2011 un pouvoir qui, croyant l’heure d’un triomphe islamiste arrivée, s’est fort maladroitement démasqué. Un pouvoir qui s’est montré tel qu’il est, à savoir une démo-théocratie tatillonne et tracassière s’ingérant dans la vie quotidienne d’un peuple dont les pratiques religieuses sont loin d’être homogènes à l’image de la diversité ethnique de la nation turque. Pensons aux dix à vingt pour cent d’Alévis composant la Turquie actuelle, de six à dix millions ! Ces « Têtes rouges » [Qizilbash], turkmènes ou kurdes, insoumises depuis des siècles aux normes d’un sunnisme rarement tolérant voire parfois éradicateur, ne tolérerons pas le durcissement islamiste en cours, le dépérissement de la laïcité qui garantissait peu ou prou leurs libertés religieuses, le retour du foulard, la confessionnalisation des institutions et celle de la vie quotidienne…

Dans le même ordre d’idée, en réponse aux mesures restrictives prises par le gouvernement Erdogan – renforcement de dispositions légales inspirées de la charia, la loi islamique – les étudiants manifestaient hier encore violemment à Ankara faisant écho aux grandes mobilisations de juin, en particulier à Istambul, lesquelles avaient eu des motivations similaires sinon identiques. C’est dire que le gouvernement turc, présenté lors de son élection comme “islamique modéré”, évolue dans le même sens que celui, éphémère des Frères musulmans égyptiens – ou tunisiens – que leur idéologie islamiste ont conduit rapidement à compromettre leurs chances, puis les conduire vers la sortie.

Ainsi donc des choix sociaux, idéologiques et géopolitiques profondément erronés combinés à une inféodation atlantiste sans mesure ni discernement, ont conduit la Turquie prospère a connaître à la fois un affaiblissement économique durable, une notable déstabilisation intérieure, la montée d’une large contestation que la reprise des négociations d’adhésion à l’Union européenne – encalminée ces dernières années avant l’ouverture le 5 novembre du chapitre 22 « Politique régionale et coordination des instruments structurels » – ne sauvera peut-être pas d’un fiasco économique et sociétale qui commence à se profiler à moyen terme. De nombreux facteurs sont réunis qui autorisent en effet un certain pessimisme quant à l’avenir d’un pays qui ne devra peut-être son salut qu’à une entrée tardive dans une Europe en crise mais empressée d’associer à ses propres impuissances les frontières de guerre de la Turquie, sa vocation à l’islamisme rampant et son écrasant poids démographiques. C’est bien entendu faire fi de l’histoire du siècle passée et des leçons qui eussent dû en être tiré depuis la dernière confrontation avec les ambitions turques, lesquelles se sont encore bellement manifestées en juillet et août 1974 et les quelques milliers de morts et de disparus de l’Opération Attila [Cf. note5].

Léon Camus

La Turquie déjà en Europe grâce au Kosovo

La Turquie déjà en Europe grâce au Kosovo

 

Erdogan jette le masque

Jean Bonnevey
Ex: http://metamag.fr

Les turcs ne se sentent certes pas européens mais ils sont en Europe physiquement déjà et de plus en plus. L’Europe s’est laissée entraîner par les Usa et l’Otan dans une guerre stupide contre la Serbie, contre le dictateur Milosevic pour les gentils kosovars.

C’était objectivement faire le jeu des musulmans contre les chrétiens dans une région d’affrontement historique entre la civilisation helléno- judéo-chrétienne et la civilisation arabo musulmane. Le perdre de vue était totalement stupide. La reconquête de la quasi-totalité des Balkans sur les turcs qui ont achevé contre l’empire romain d’orient ce que les arabes avaient commencé, est comparable à la reconquista espagnole.

 

Le Kosovo, patrie d’origine des Serbes, devenu un état musulman kosovar, c’est une chose terrible et parlante au niveau du poids de la démographie et des migrations de remplacement. La revendication de cette terre, au nom d’un passé commun, par la Turquie est plus terrifiante encore et rappellera, à certains démocrates sourcilleux, des thèses de l’époque la plus sombre de notre histoire.

En visite officielle au Kosovo à l’occasion de l’inauguration de l’aéroport de Pristina, le Premier ministre turc Recep Tayyip Erdogan a lâché une petite bombe en déclarant : « la Turquie, c’est le Kosovo, et le Kosovo, c’est la Turquie ». Le chef du gouvernement turc a déclaré que les citoyens du Kosovo et de Turquie faisaient toujours partie d’un même pays. « Chers frères et amis, nous partageons la même histoire culturelle et la même civilisation. N’oubliez pas que la Turquie, c’est le Kosovo et que le Kosovo, c’est la Turquie. Nous sommes à ce point proches que l’auteur de l’hymne turque, Mehmet Akif Ersoj, est originaire du Kosovo, de la ville d’Ipek-Peć-Peja », s’est exclamé Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. 

 

Hashim Thaçi, le Premier ministre du Kosovo, a remercié son homologue turc de la qualité de la coopération entre les deux pays et a rappelé que la Turquie était le premier pays à avoir reconnu l’indépendance du Kosovo. Le Premier ministre albanais, Edi Rama a, quant à lui, déclaré que les citoyens du Kosovo et de la Turquie, Albanais et Turques, étaient des peuples frères, qui devaient travailler ensemble à construire un avenir meilleur. Banques, autoroutes, aéroport de Pristina : la Turquie est le premier investisseur étranger au Kosovo. Cette présence économique massive alimente toutes les théories du complot. Le Kosovo serait-il, comme certains le prétendent, le « point d’ancrage » dans les Balkans d’une Turquie, qui aurait retrouvé ses ambitions impériales ?

Du côté de Belgrade, les propos de Recep Tayyip Erdoğan ont provoqué de très vives réactions. « Je considère ces déclarations scandaleuses  et j’attends des excuses rapides de la Turquie et de son Premier ministre. Ce comportement est inacceptable et incompatible avec de bonnes relations diplomatiques », a déclaré jeudi 24 octobre le vice-Premier ministre Aleksandar Vučić, avant d’ajouter que la Turquie savait très bien que le Kosovo n’était plus turc « depuis les Guerres balkaniques ».

Ce que semble oublier ce premier ministre très pro-occidental, c’est que les guerres balkaniques ont repris, menées par l’occident contre la Serbie et apparemment au profit de l’ottoman. Détruire la grande Serbie pour instaurera au cœur de l’Europe une nouvelle grande Turquie, ça c’est bien joué !

Revolten in der islamischen Welt – Türkei, Syrien und Ägypten – Endstation arabischer Frühling?

Ex: http://www.andreas-moelzer.at

Gut drei Jahre nach Beginn der Welle von Protesten, Aufständen und Revolutionen gegen die autoritär herrschenden Regimes etlicher Staaten im Nahen Osten und Nordafrika ist Ernüchterung eingekehrt. Die erwartete Demokratie und den erträumten Wohlstand hat der „Arabische Frühling“ keinem Land gebracht. Ganz im Gegenteil: Die islamische Welt scheint sich schwer zu tun mit der Demokratisierung, daran können auch Abermillionen an Subventionen aus dem Westen nichts ändern. Und auch die sogenannte „islamisch geprägte Demokratie“ des Musterknaben Türkei hat jüngst gezeigt, wie weit man tatsächlich vom westlichen Demokratieverständnis entfernt ist.

Der Preis der Arabellion – Teures Öl

Aus Angst vor politischen Umstürzen halten die Regierungen ölreicher Länder ihre Bevölkerung mit Vergünstigungen bei Laune, dafür verzichten die Bürger auf ihr Recht auf politische Partizipation. Die dafür anfallenden erhöhten Ausgaben belasten die Budgets der Ölförderländer. Und das wiederum treibt den Ölpreis in die Höhe. Ebenso wie die finanziellen Unterstützungen der Ölstaaten für die syrischen Rebellen und das ägyptische Militär finanziert werden müssen. Auch die Syrien-Krise und die Spannungen im Sudan wirken sich negativ auf die Ölversorgung aus. Ein Präventivkrieg Israels und der USA gegen den Iran (um die Anlagen des iranischen Atomprogramms zu zerstören) würde den Ölpreis gar in lichte Höhen katapultieren.

Türkische Schein-Demokratie

Gewiss, verglichen mit den Diktaturen und Mullah-Regimes anderer Länder mag das Land am Bosporus mit seiner islamisch geprägten Demokratie tatsächlich ein Fortschritt sein. Allerdings hat Premier Erdogan jüngst sein wahres Gesicht derart gezeigt, sodass selbst die größten EUphoriker in Brüssel nicht länger schönreden können, dass Ankara sich kaum in Richtung Europäische Union bewegt und es hinsichtlich der Grund- und Menschenrechte, die laut den Kopenhagener Kriterien Grundvoraussetzung für einen EU-Beitritt sind, große Mankos gibt.

Schon der Prozess gegen die angeblichen „Ergenekon-Verschwörer“ mit einer ganzen Reihe von Missachtungen rechtsstaatlicher Prinzipien hat gezeigt, wie ernst es Erdogan mit der Demokratie wirklich ist. Ergenekon wurde als Freibrief missbraucht, gegen all jene vorzugehen, die sich der Ideologie der Regierung widersetzten. Nach wie vor ist die Türkei hinsichtlich Meinungs- und Pressefreiheit eher mit einem Dritte-Welt-Staat als mit einem europäischen Land zu vergleichen. Seit dem dritten Wahlsieg der AKP vor zwei Jahren braucht Erdogan die Medien nicht länger mit einer Klageflut einzudecken. Aus Angst, keine staatlichen Inseratenaufträge mehr zu erhalten, oder wirtschaftlich ruiniert zu werden, wagt keiner mehr auch nur die leiseste Regierungskritik. Als die Mehrheit der türkischen Presse die Proteste um den Istanbuler Gezi-Park im Mai einfach ignorierte und die Behörden brutal gegen die Demonstranten vorgingen, da konnte selbst Brüssel nicht länger so tun, als wäre alles eitle Wonne. Auch der Friedensprozess, den Ankara und die kurdische PKK gerade erst im Frühjahr vereinbarten, scheint gescheitert. Bestenfalls gibt es Alibi-Zugeständnisse an die Kurden. Und anders als die Bürokraten im fernen Brüssel, welche Reformen auf dem Papier oft für bare Münze nehmen, ließen sich die Kurden nicht mit leeren Worten abspeisen. Die Christen werden weiter diskriminiert, der Armenier-Genozid wird geleugnet, das Zypernproblem ist völlig ungelöst, und natürlich ist die Türkei auch ein Frontstaat zu Syrien, was für Europa auch ungeahnte Probleme brächte, wenn sie Mitglied wäre.

Die Lira-Flaute

Mit seinem Vorgehen gegenüber den Demonstranten hat Erdogan viel an internationalem Vertrauen verspielt. Dabei ist die Türkei auf den kontinuierlichen Kapitalstrom aus dem Ausland angewiesen. Hinzu kommt, dass die Lira seit langem unter enormen Abwertungsdruck steht. Außerdem ist das Land stark von Energieimporten abhängig, was angesichts steigender Erdölpreise zusätzlich auf die Lira drückt.

Nachdem die Kombination aus kränkelnder Währung und tiefen Zinsen keine neuen Investoren lockt und in den letzten Jahren notwendige Reformen verabsäumt wurden, wird es wohl auch mit der Türkei wirtschaftlich bergab gehen. Gerade dem (durch EU-Vorbeitritts-hilfen mitfinanzierten) steigenden Wohlstand hat Erdogan indes seinen Aufstieg zu verdanken. Und wie wird er dann erst mit den zu erwartenden sozialen Unruhen und Protesten umgehen?

Unregierbares Ägypten

Nach dem Militärputsch gegen Mursi, der zwar auf demokratischen Wege zum Präsidenten gewählt wurde, indes undemokratisch regierte und es verabsäumte, sich um die strukturellen Probleme zu kümmern, war das Land in zwei unversöhnliche Lager gespaltet. Die USA waren mehr um die Entwicklung des ägyptischen Militärs besorgt, das sie seit Jahren großzügig unterstützten, und multilaterale Kreditgeber verlangten Finanzreformen, während die Unterstützung der ohnedies bereits angeschlagenen Wirtschaft in den Hintergrund geriet. Die politischen und wirtschaftlichen Probleme des Landes schaukeln sich seitdem gegenseitig hoch. Damit mutierte Ägypten zu einem weitgehend unregierbaren Land, das nach wie vor auf großzügige Spenden aus dem Ausland angewiesen ist. Jener Demokratisierungsprozess, der einst als Vorbild für andere arabische Länder galt, liegt nun also in Scherben.

Ratloser Westen

Der demokratisch gewählte Muslim-Präsident Mursi in Haft während der Ex-Diktator entlassen wurde – das gilt als symbolisches Ende der Demokratie-bestrebungen Ägyptens. Unterdessen werden die Muslimbrüder immer mehr niedergeschlagen und in die Illegalität getrieben. Damit wiederum steigt die Gefahr der Radikalisierung.

Als Reaktion auf die anhaltende Gewalt in Ägypten hat die EU ihre Waffenlieferungen ausgesetzt. Drohungen, den Geldhahn zuzusperren, verpuffen erfolglos. Denn die Muslimbrüderschaft, die mit Mursi vorübergehend an der Macht war, wird seitens der arabischen Monarchen als Bedrohung für den eigenen Herrschaftsanspruch angesehen. Solange jedoch das ägyptische Militär von den arabischen Ölstaaten finanziert wird, bleibt der Westen ohnmächtig.

Blutiger Bürgerkrieg in Syrien

Als er im Vorjahr eine „rote Linie“ definierte – dem Einsatz von Chemiewaffen – ließ US-Präsident Obama in dem seit mehr als zwei Jahren tobenden syrischen Bürgerkrieg nur eine Option für einen Militäreinsatz offen. Da es indes in Syrien nichts zu gewinnen gibt und sich das Chaos im Falle einer Intervention nur vergrößern (schlimmstenfalls sogar die ganze Region destabilisieren) könnte, wurde weltweit nach Auswegen gesucht, um dem mit dem Giftgas-Angriff (bei dem es noch dazu jede Menge Ungereimtheiten gibt) unter Zugzwang stehenden Obama eine Möglichkeit zu bieten, sich aus dieser Sackgasse wieder heraus zu manövrieren. Schließlich hat niemand Interesse dran, dass der Westen auch Kämpfern al-Quaida-naher Gruppen, die ja im syrischen Bürgerkrieg eine große Rolle spielen, quasi Feuerschutz gibt.

Christenverfolgung

Christen sind nachweislich die weltweit am meisten verfolgte Gruppe. Immer mehr werden Christen zur Zielscheibe der Rebellen in Syrien. Oft werden sie entführt - mit hohen Lösegeldforderungen. Wie Ägypten und Libyen zeigen, steht auf Sicht in Syrien keine Demokratie im westlichen Sinne zu erwarten. Die EU darf sich jedenfalls nicht in den Syrien-Konflikt hineinziehen lassen und muss eine Strategie für ein Post-Assad-Syrien mit Schwerpunkt auf eine Verbesserung der Lage der Christen entwickeln.

Ist Demokratie in arabischen Ländern möglich?

All diese Beispiele führen deutlich vor Augen: Weder Millionen-Subventionen noch der sogenannte Annäherungsprozess an die EU bringen zwangsläufig mehr Demokratie in ein Land. Das sind Werte, für die die Bürger selbst kämpfen müssen, demokratische Prinzipien müssen von einer Gesellschaft getragen werden, die sich für die Einhaltung dieser Spielregeln auch einsetzt. Und Demokratie sowie Verbesserungen der Lebensbedingungen brauchen Zeit. Die Geduld dafür haben aber die wütenden Menschen in den arabischen Staaten nicht. Manche Experten sind der Ansicht, dass die Trennung von Staat und Religion, wie sie sich in Europa mühsam entwickelte, das Fundament ist, auf dem eine Demokratie erst gebaut werden kann. Und genau gegen diese Trennung in der Türkei, den sogenannten Laizismus, ist Erdogan unter dem Vorwand der Demokratisierung und des EU-Beitrittes vorgegangen, indem er das Militär, traditioneller Hüter der türkischen Laizität, unter zustimmenden Jubel der Brüsseler Granden aus den Machtpositionen hievte. Die Türkei betreibt durch ihre Regierung eine Politik der Islamisierung im Inneren und nach außen hin eine neo-osmanische Machtpolitik. Wir müssen uns also klar sein, dass diese Beitrittsverhandlungen im Grunde ein Hohn sind, der schnellstmöglich abzubrechen ist. Wir müssen uns klar sein, dass die Türkei natürlich ein wichtiger Partner für die EU ist, aber sicher kein europäisches Land. Sie wird es auch nicht werden.

Erdogan y el TSK

Ex: http://www.elespiadigital.com

Por Germán Gorraiz Lopez

Erdogan proseguiría con su estrategia de implementar el Estado Erdoganista, (socavando los pilares del Estado Secular que en 1923 implantó el Padre de la Turquía Moderna, Mustafa Kemal)  y que se plasmarían en pinceladas como la implantación de la enseñanza del Corán en la escuela Primaria, restricciones a la libertad de expresión en forma de encarcelación de periodistas opositores, la polémica restricción de venta de alcohol y el anunciado despliegue de la policía en los campus y residencias universitarias que podría desencadenar un nuevo Mayo del 68. Recordar que Kemal creía que “el secularismo y la europeización de Turquía eran los medios más aptos para transformar su país en una nación industrial moderna”, pero el kemalismo dejó como herencia una crisis de identidad en la sociedad turca, europeizada pero no integrada en las instituciones europeas y musulmana pero extraña al mundo islámico.

Erdogan y Egipto

El primer ministro turco, Recep Tayip Erdogan, ha acusado al Gobierno en funciones de Egipto de terrorismo de Estado y ha comparado al jefe del Ejército, Abdel Fatá al Sisi, con el presidente sirio, Bashar al Assad. Igualmente, acusó a los medios de comunicación occidentales que transmitieron en directo  las protestas violentas de las calles de Estambul, “como BBC y CNN” de “no mirar ni escuchar lo que ocurre en Egipto”, según  el diario ‘Hurriyet’.

El propio Erdogan ha reiterado que Turquía no reconoce al Gobierno interino egipcio y que sigue considerando al depuesto y encarcelado mandatario, Mohamed Morsi, como único presidente legal del país árabe, con lo que la tensión entre ambos Gobiernos ha ido “in crescendo” y tras el baño de sangre producido por la represión del ejército egipcio, ambos países habrían llamado a consultas a sus respectivos embajadores y Egipto habría cancelado las maniobras militares marítimas conjuntas que tenía previsto realizar con Turquía el próximo mes de octubre , debido “ a la injerencia flagrante de Ankara en los asuntos egipcios”, por lo que Erdogan se  habría granjeado la enemistad de EEUU.

Pulso Erdogan-TSK

El Ejército turco (TSK) desempeña un importante papel político en la sombra,  puesto que se consideran los guardianes de la naturaleza secular y unitaria de la República  siguiendo los postulados kemalistas y los partidos políticos juzgados como anti-seculares o separatistas por el Poder Judicial Turco (a instancias del estamento militar), pueden ser declarados ilegales.Ya en vísperas de la elección de Abdullah Gül como Presidente de Turquía ( agosto del 2007), las Fuerzas Armadas  afirmaron que “intervendrán decisivamente en la defensa del laicismo ante los esfuerzos de determinados círculos de socavar los valores fundamentales de la república  que han aumentado claramente en tiempos recientes”, advertencia próxima a la retórica del Golpe Militar de 1.980 y que podría extrapolarse a la situación política actual.

En los últimos años , Erdogan ha asestado varios golpes a la cúpula militar turca, del que sería paradigma la decisión de Erdogan de relegar de su cargo a tres oficiales de alto rango acusados de formar parte de la trama “Ergenekon”, una agrupación ultra-nacionalista compuesta por militares y activistas de marcado carácter laicista, pero también por segmentos de la esfera política, mediática, intelectual y educativa del país y cuyo supuesto cometido habría sido deponer al actual ejecutivo islamista de Erdogan y el pulso Erdogan-TSK habría llegado a su paroxismo con las sentencias condenatorias del caso Erdegon, destacando la dureza de las penas impuestas a 250 de los implicados, 12 de los cuales habrían sido condenados a cadena perpetua.

¿Hacia el golpe de mano?

El mandato de Erdogan como primer ministro finiquita en el 2015 sin posibilidad de reelección,por lo que es previsible que abandone el puesto de Primer Ministro para competir por la presidencia en las elecciones presidenciales de septiembre.

Dicho cargo sería meramente simbólico pero podría asumir poderes ejecutivos si prospera la reforma constitucional que el propio Erdogan propone con el objetivo inequívoco de implantar la nueva República Islámica de Turquía en el horizonte del 2016, con lo que Turquía se convertiría en un régimen indefinido en el que la lealtad a los intereses occidentales en Oriente Próximo estaría en entredicho.

Ante esta situación, tras conocerse las condenas del mediático affaire Ergenekon, (de las que sería paradigma el general retirado Ilker Basbug, antiguo Jefe de Estado Mayor del TSK, condenado a cadena perpetua y su frase premonitoria “La Nación tendrá la última palabra”) y sin el paraguas protector de la UE (al posponer “sine die” la incorporación de Turquía miembro de pleno de derecho de la UE), no sería descartable que el ejército turco (TSK) protagonice un nuevo golpe “virtual” o “posmoderno” que acabaría con el mandato del Primer Ministro Erdogan, (rememorando el ‘golpe blando’ de 1997, cuando los generales kemalistas arrebataron el poder al Gobierno del presidente Necmettin Erbakanpor, quien lideraba una coalición islamista).

Dicho golpe contaría con las bendiciones de Washington al haber dejado Erdogan de ser un peón útil para la estrategia geopolítica de EEUU en Oriente Próximo y significaría el ocaso de la primavera árabe del arco mediterráneo y la posterior inmersión en el llamado otoño árabe, fruto de la nueva estrategia de EEUU para la zona tras el evidente fracaso para sus intereses del experimento de exportación del otrora régimen islamista moderado y pro-occidental de Erdogan a todos los países que componen el tablero gigante del mundo árabe-mediterráneo.

La nueva estrategia de EEUU consistirá en la implementación de “golpes virtuales o postmodernos“ en los países de la zona con el objetivo inequívoco de sustituir a los regímenes islamistas surgidos de las urnas por regímenes militares presidencialistas en el marco del nuevo escenario geopolítico mundial surgido tras el retorno al endemismo recurrente de la Guerra Fría entre EEUU y Rusia, quedando Siria y Marruecos como portaaviones continentales de Rusia y EEUU respectivamente.

* Analista

L’Alevismo Turco

L’Alevismo Turco

Ex: http://www.statopotenza.eu

L’Alevismo nella odierna Turchia è un elemento religioso molto interessante che si è sviluppato nei secoli, attualmente vivono in Turchia più di 10 milioni di Aleviti che non sono da confondere con gli Alawiti che vivono in Siria e Libano, discendono entrambi però da gruppi sciiti che vedremo nello specifico, nel  mondo islamico la divisione  tra sunniti e sciiti,  risale agli avvenimenti seguiti alla morte del profeta Muhammad (pace su di lui), la questione della successione, di chi prenderà il suo posto, la lotta per il Califfato. Per i sunniti il successore doveva essere Abu Baker, per gli sciiti invece Ali (sas) marito di Fatima (sas) la figlia di Muhammad (pace su di lui), è destinato a prendere il posto del Profeta. Tra gli sciiti, come tra i sunniti, ci sono poi correnti diverse. Gli Aleviti non rientrano in nessuna di queste correnti.

L’Alevismo è una setta unica  si pensa che le tribù turche e iraniche e azere del nord dell’Iran e dell’Anatolia Orientale furono convertite allo Sciismo durante l’Ikhanato Mongolo che dominava la Persia e l’Iraq all’epoca e parte dell’Anatolia. Il poeta Yunus Emre e il santo Hajji Bektash furono i primi santi di quel periodo e più tardi vennero associati con l’Alevismo. Gli Aleviti emersero in questo contesto come un ordine sufi militante con base ad Ardabil nell’odierno Iraq, il cui leader Shah Ismail riuscì a conquistare la Persia e dare vita alla dinastia Safavide. Ora nell’ambito dell’Islam sciita duodecimano, dal momento che gli Aleviti accettano si  il credo sciita riguardo Ali (as) e i dodici Imam (as), ci sono dei distinguo, alcuni Aleviti non vogliono essere descritti come Sciiti ortodossi, a causa di grosse differenze nella filosofia, abitudini e rituali rispetto alle forme prevalenti dello Sciismo dell’Iraq e del moderno Iran nonostante questo, l’Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (r.a.) nel 1970 ha dichiarato gli Aleviti parte della linea tradizionale sciita.

Gli  Aleviti credono e professano i dodici imam come discendenti del Profeta, Imam che torneranno un giorno a portare pace e giustizia nel mondo, elementi che avvicinano gli Aleviti agli Sciiti. Nella teologia e nella pratica ci sono però molte differenze e vedremo quali, per esempio la ritualità Alevita non prevede le cinque preghiere quotidiane, non c’è il mese del digiuno (il Ramadan) e neppure il pellegrinaggio alla Mecca. La credenza nella uguaglianza tra uomini e donne che condividono lo stesso spazio nella preghiera, l’esistenza di un semah, cioè un rituale sufi che consiste in una danza esoterica e gnostica detta “dei pianeti” l’uso della musica, l’uso degli alcolici nelle cerimonie, sono tutti elementi che mostrano quanto gli Aleviti siano lontani dalla Tradizione Sciita. Nelle cerimonie Alevite si parla molto dei fatti di Karbala nell’odierno Iraq, città dove nel 680 d.C. l’esercito Omayyade di Yazid l’usurpatore assassinò Hussein nipote di Muhammad (pace su di lui). Il ruolo della sofferenza, del martirio sono importanti così come nella tradizione sciita. L’ingiustizia patita a Karbala da Ali nel corso della lotta per la successione, l’avvelenamento di suo figlio Hasan (as) e l’uccisione del fratello Hussein (as) sono elementi importanti tra gli Aleviti ma anche qui ci sono differenze rilevanti soprattutto per quanto riguarda il dolore e la sua manifestazione. La questione del lutto e del Martirio  tra gli sciiti è molto importante, durante il periodo del Muharram e di Ashura cioè le cerimonie di lutto che si celebrano in questo mese ,  si possono  vedere queste differenze. Ferirsi, tagliarsi, colpirsi con delle catene, anche se si tratta di tradizioni che stanno perdendo la loro forza e per inciso in Iran sono vietate ma il folklore popolare a volte si manifesta in questi atti  sono elementi caratteristici del mondo sciita.

Tra gli Aleviti queste tradizioni sono completamente assenti. Il ricordo dei fatti di Karbala avviene durante le cerimonie chiamate “Cem” dentro le Cemevi che sono case assemblative  in luogo delle moschee che non esistono nell’Alevismo, attraverso orazioni funebri, con una modalità poetica ed artistica queste cerimonie vengono celebrate senza le tradizionali letture coraniche o formule di richiesta a Dio, questa è una differenza importante. Un’altra differenza è che nella cerimonia del Cem il momento in cui si ricorda l’ascensione di Muhammad  (pace su di lui) al fianco d Allah (SwT)  e chiamato “miraclama”,  in questa fase assistiamo anche alla divinizzazione della figura di Ali, questa una differenza fondamentale e importante rispetto a gran parte del mondo Sciita. Una nota a parte merita la confraternita “Sciita” dei Bektashi ancora oggi presente nei Balcani, Albania, Grecia e Turchia. I Bektashi sono una confraternita e quindi chiunque può diventare Bektashi, certo, ma l’Alevismo è qualcosa che passa attraverso di essa, il padre e la madre, i bektashi eleggono i loro “dede” cioè i loro maestri , i loro leader spirituali mentre per gli Aleviti il dede è una carica che si trasmette tra le generazioni, da padre in figlio. La confraternita dei bektashi è stata considerata il braccio spirituale dei giannizzeri, il corpo militare d’élite dello stato ottomano. Con le riforme del Sultano Mahmut II, la modernizzazione ottomana ha soppresso i giannizzeri ed allo stesso tempo la confraternita poiché visti come sciiti e quindi sospettati di cospirazione con l’Impero Persiano Safavide sciita, in epoca ottomana ogni professione, gruppo o corporazione, aveva legami privilegiati con una confraternita religiosa, molto fiorenti in Turchia e tra le migliori come quella dei Mevlevi di Rumi o i Jerrahi-Halveti. I giannizzeri erano legati ai Bektashi i quali erano spesso legati agli Aleviti , il  problema è guardare l’Impero Ottomano come uno stato nazionale moderno e in questa prospettiva vedere le relazioni tra confraternite e il centro come unidimensionali. Molti intellettuali Aleviti vedevano  di cattivo occhio una relazione tra i Bektashi ed il potere ottomano.

Nel mondo Turco c’erano diversi rapporti di forza e i Bektashi possono aver avuto una relazione privilegiata con i giannizzeri, del resto molti esponenti di spicco dei giannizzeri erano Bektashi e gli stessi erano cristiani convertiti all’Islam, perché era  particolare il  carattere dei giannizzeri formati da bambini cristiani, reclutati secondo il sistema della devsirme, ovvero  venivano rapiti dalle famiglie di origine e poi spesso affidati a famiglie Alevite-bektashi poiché gli Aleviti non facevano discriminazioni rispetto ai loro figli naturali, quindi le famiglie Alevite rappresentavano un ambiente ideale per crescere i futuri soldati. La religione nel mondo ottomano non aveva però un carattere così conservatore come vorrebbero gli islamisti odierni, difatti il Salafismo è una ideologia moderna come lo sono i Fratelli Musulmani nati negli anni 20′ del ’900, i Sunniti non avevano una posizione così predominante e il potere ottomano intrecciava relazioni coi differenti gruppi religiosi in modo pragmatico, strumentale a seconda delle circostanze, si può dire che almeno fino al XVI secolo nell’Islam sia impossibile parlare di una ortodossia consolidata. Quindi possiamo dire che in questo contesto non è possibile parlare neanche di eterodossia.

Dopo il XVI  secolo si può parlare tuttavia  di una ortodossia Sunnita Hanafita cioè una delle 4 scuole teologiche che preferisce l’intelletto e la moderazione , ora bisogna vedere se possibile parlare di ortodossia nella Turchia contemporanea che oggi è un paese laico ma probabilmente esiste ancora una ortodossia ufficiosa di origine sufi , come lo sono Gul o Erdogan per esempio di  scuola Naqsbanhdi .Il carattere “moderato” turco non sempre è stato manifestato dagli stessi…anzi per esempio  nel 1993 , il 2 luglio precisamente ci fu il triste massacro di Sivas dove morirono degli Aleviti per mano dei Sunniti , quel giorno cantanti, scrittori e filosofi Aleviti si riunirono per celebrare la festa di Pir Sultan Abdal, una loro  importante figura storico culturale nell’ambito musicale Alevita , la festa venne  celebrata nell’hotel Madimak e poco dopo una folla di 20.000 sunniti si riuni’ e circondò l’edificio, dandolo alle fiamme, bersagliandolo con pietre mentre intonavano slogan anti-Alevismo e pro-Sharia. Il massacro durò diverse ore durante nei quali ne i pompieri, la polizia e la gendarmeria fecero nulla  per fermare il massacro, alcuni filmati mostreranno come le richieste d’aiuto furono respinte, alla fine della strage si conteranno 33 morti, tutti Aleviti., nel 1997 la polizia arrestò 31 presunti responsabili e li condanno a morte, ma poi la pena di morte venne  trasformato in carcere a vita. Altro episodio nel 1995 dove questa volta ci  fu  una sparatoria da un’auto nel quartiere Gazi di Istanbul che causò la morte di alcuni Aleviti. Durante le  manifestazioni di protesta, la polizia aprì più volte il fuoco contro i dimostranti che abbatterono altri 15 Aleviti.

Oggi gli Aleviti politicamente sono contrapposti al fondamentalismo Sunnita e al Salafismo con le sue ramificazioni, assicurando  la continuazione del secolarismo turco Kemalista. sono i principali alleati delle forze secolari e alla sinistra, cercano anche l’alleanza dei Sunniti moderati contro gli estremisti. Richiedono che lo stato riconosca l’Alevismo come una comunità ufficiale islamica, con gli stessi diritti del, ma diversa dal, Sunnismo interessante è il pensiero Alevita secondo cui tutti gli sviluppi negativi dell’Islam sono visti come un fallimento della società e delle caratteristiche Arabe. Il Sunnismo, secondo gli Aleviti, non è vero Islam, ma un’aberrazione il cui stretto legalismo si oppone al pensiero libero e indipendente ed è visto come reazionario, bigotto, fanatico e antidemocratico. Gli Aleviti credono che il nazionalismo Sunnita sia intollerante, dominatore e settario credono fermamente che il Sunnismo sia una propria peculiarità araba e fallimentare come i loro popoli e strutture governative e l’Alevismo sia la vera Tradizione Religiosa Turca e Anatolica.

Mustafà

Il Processo Ergenekon: Un’analisi giuridica e politica in ordine cronologico

Il Processo Ergenekon: Un’analisi giuridica e politica in ordine cronologico

Aytekin Kaan Kurtul

Ex: http://www.statopotenza.eu

Il 5 agosto ha avuto luogo l’ultima udienza del processo Ergenekon che si trattava della “formazione di un’organizzazione terrorista” che “ha tentato ad organizzare un colpo di stato contro il Governo attuale (Erdoğan)”. L’inchiesta era stata iniziata nel 2007, con la “scoperta” delle armi “segrete” e dei “diari del golpe” dalla polizia, i quali erano stati “forniti” nel dipartimento della polizia secondo i video fatti da parte della polizia (gia’ qui si capisce come si e’ svolto il processo) .

Dopo il consolidamento del potere della “nuova oligarchia islamica” (ovvero dopo le elezioni generali e l’elezione presidenziale del 2007, con le quali il partito di Erdoğan ha praticamente “nominato” il Presidente)  il processo e’ stato portato davanti alla Corte dove sono state scritte le accuse. I soggetti in questione venivano accusati di far parte di un’organizzazione terrorista, chiamata Ergenekon, che mirava ad organizzare un colpe di stato contro il Governo Erdoğan. Anche se le accuse venivano considerate dentro il quadro di un tentato colpo di stato, i primi ad essere arrestati erano civili. Il piu’ noto di questi, Ergun Poyraz, era un ricercatore e uno scrittore indipendente che aveva scritto libri sulle relazioni “intime” tra le sette mafiose in Turchia (come la setta Gülen) , “gli stati religiosi” (il Vaticano e l’Israele) e i capitalisti finanziari d’Occidente. Il libro che veniva considerato come “una prova di delitto” s’intitolava “Erdoğan e Gül: I Figli d’Israele“, tanto per mostrare la liberta’ di espressione in Turchia.

Un altro personaggio noto tra i primi ad essere arrestati era l’imprenditore Kuddusi Okkır. Egli era il fondatore di un’impresa di informatica che cercava di sviluppare tecnologie nazionali per non dipendere totalmente dal rete statiunitense. Okkır e’ stato arrestato il 20 giugno 2007 ed e’ morto in carcere (presumabilmente a causa della tortura) prima della prima udienza del processo Ergenekon, nella data del 6 giugno 2008. Il 22 gennaio 2008, e’ stata iniziata la seconda onda di arresti. Questa volta i bersagli erano prevalentemente militari, con alcune eccezioni. Due di queste erano l’avvocato Kemal Kerinçsiz e la portavoce della Chiesa Ortodossa Turca, Sevgi Erenerol. Kemal Kerinçsiz era noto per aver impugnato scrittori liberali come Orhan Pamuk per “aver incitato odio razziale, aver insultato la nazione turca e aver incitato una guerra contro i confinanti della Repubblica” (artt. 301, 304 del Codice Penale). Sevgi Erenerol, invece, era una sacerdotessa cristiana e una scrittrice nota per le sue idee patriottiche.

Il 21 marzo 2008 era la data dell’inizio della onda piu’ grande. Personaggi noti dell’opposizione legale in Turchia come il Presidente del Partito dei Lavoratori (noto per essere uno dei primi due partiti comunisti a difendere il socialismo eurasiatista), il Dottor Doğu Perinçek; il giornalista socialista noto per essere torturato durante il regime della giunta del ’71, İlhan Selçuk; il Vice Presidente del Partito dei Lavoratori, Ferit İlsever; il Vice Presidente del Partito dei Lavoratori, Nusret Senem; il fondatore della Fondazione del Pensiero Kemalista, Şener Eruygur; l’ex generale e personaggio kemalista Hurşit Tolon; giornalista socialdemocratico e deputato del Partito Repubblicano del Popolo, Mustafa Balbay; il tenente noto per aver provato ad arrestare i soldati statiunitensi ad İncirlik, Hasan Atilla Uğur e l’accademico Erol Mütercimler sono stati detenuti dalla polizia e la maggior parte e’ stata arrestata.
L’1 luglio 2008 ha testimoniato l’espansione dell’onda precedente ed e’ stato arrestato il Presidente Fondatore dell’Unione Giovanile di Turchia (l’Unione della Gioventu’ di Turchia), Adnan Türkkan. L’Unione Giovanile di Turchia (l’Unione della Gioventu’ di Turchia) e’ stata definita come “l’ala giovanile dell’organizzazione terrorista Ergenekon” dalla stampa liberale (conosciuta come “la stampa dei pinguini” dopo la Sollevazione di Giugno), anche se non era definita cosi neanche nelle accuse. L’arresto e’ stato seguito da repressioni nelle universita’ e tanti studenti hanno dovuto lottare per praticare il loro diritto allo studio.

La prima udienza e lo “schema” dell’organizzazione

La prima udienza ha avuto luogo nel comune di Silivri nella provincia di İstanbul (il quale e’ abbastanza lontano dal centro) il 20 ottobre 2008 ed e’ stato dichiarato lo “schema” dell’organizzazione. Secondo lo “schema”, non c’era una gerarchia o qualsiasi struttura organizzativa – c’era solo un “gruppo” di leader composto prevalentemente da militari. Tra questi leader, c’erano due personaggi noti: il Generale Martire Eşref Bitlis e l’ex generale Hurşit Tolon.

Il Generale Martire Eşref Bitlis era stato assassinato misteriosamente il 17 febbraio 1993. Egli era noto per aver promosso il dialogo con i contadini curdi per risolvere la questione curda. Il 7 febbraio 1993, il Generale Bitlis aveva dichiarato che “gli aerei statunitensi che partono da İncirlik portano armi e forniture ai terroristi del PKK nell’Iraq settentrionale e gli israeliani gli offrono informazioni vitali riguardo le nostre posizioni nella regione“. Era stato assassinato 10 giorni dopo.

L’ex generale Hurşit Tolon, invece, era uno dei primi militari a dichiarare il fatto che “far parte della NATO e’ una minaccia per l’esistenza della Repubblica“. Egli aveva promosso un’alleanza con “l’altro polo che sta crescendo, cioe’ quello guidato oggi dalla Cina, dalla Russia, dall’India e dall’Iran. In questo quadro l’Iran e’ il nostro alleato naturale per il fatto che abbiamo legami sociali e nemici in comune – a prescindere dalle nostre differenze ideologiche“.

Gli avvocati dei prigionieri hanno obiettato l’intero processo citando la mancanza delle prove concrete, l’illegalita’ dell’invasione della sfera privata durante l’inchiesta e il fatto che il Generale Bitlis era gia’ morto nel 1993 e quindi non era fisicamente capace di fare un colpo di stato nel 2008. Le loro obiezioni non sono state prese in considerazione.

L’aggiunta dell’attacco al Consiglio di Stato e il salafita Osman Yıldırım

Il 3 agosto 2009, il caso che riguarda l’attacco al Consiglio di Stato perpetuato da un salafita che si chiama Osman Yıldırım e’ stato aggiunto al caso Ergenekon, rendendo la cosidetta “organizzazione terrorista” in questione “un’organizzazione terrorista attiva”. Osman Yıldırım era stato condannato precedentemente per “aver commesso matricidio” e “aver venduto la propria nipote” (artt. 81, 227 del Codice Penale). Nelle prime udienze nel processo riguardo all’attaco al Consiglio di Stato, egli aveva affermato che mirava a “distruggere il regime laico infedele e costruire il Sacro Califfato. Io sono un cittadino dello Stato Islamico dell’Asia Minore  e un nemico del bastardo europeo che ha fondato il regime“, riferendosi al fondatore della Repubblica, il comandante antimperialista Mustafa Kemal Atatürk che era nato a Salonica. Per di piu’ ha ammesso che egli aveva perpetuato l’attacco. Nonostante il fatto che egli ha commesso i crimini “mirando a distruggere l’ordine repubblicano e l’unione nazionale” ed “essersi opposto all’ordine costituzionale” (artt. 302, 309 del Codice Penale), e’ stato rilasciato dopo l’ultima udienza (per aver collaborato con la corte) mentre decine di giornalisti, accademici e politici e anche l’ex Comandante in Capo delle Forze Armate Turche con il quale lo stesso Governo Erdoğan aveva collaborato sono stati simbolicamente condannati all’ergastolo.

La durata della reclusione e le sentenze della Corte Costituzionale e della CEDU

La maggior parte dei prigionieri e’ stata in carcere per piu’ di cinque anni senza una sentenza definitiva, una situazione che era stata legittimizzata con l’ultima riforma del Codice di Procedura Penale che aveva prolungato la durata massima di reclusione a 10 anni. La riforma, comunque, e’ stata dichiarata incostituzionale da parte della Corte Costituzionale con la sentenza 07/2013 pubblicata il 2 agosto 2013 sulla Gazzetta Ufficiale. Secondo la Corte, siccome la norma presente e’ stata annullata, dovrebbe essere applicata la norma precedente che aveva fissato la durata massima a 5 anni.

La sentenza e’ stata emessa parzialmente in conformita’ con le ultime sentenze della CEDU riguardo alla massima durata di reclusione. La CEDU, infatti, nella sentenza Vaccaro v. la Repubblica Italiana, aveva deciso che sei anni di reclusione era inaccettabile in un caso piu’ “leggero” rispetto al processo Ergenekon. Nonostante le sentenze della CEDU (le cui massime dovrebbero essere applicate nelle corte nazionali siccome la Turchia e’ una firmataria della Convenzione) e l’ultima sentenza della Corte Costituzionale della Repubblica di Turchia, la corte penale ha deciso di non rilasciare i prigionieri mentre uno che doveva essere condannato all’ergastolo secondo il Codice Penale vigente e’ stato rilasciato.

Una sintesi

Come avete visto, il processo Ergenekon e’ stato un processo illegale, incostituzionale e disumano sia nel senso giuridico che nel senso morale. L’Associazione degli Avvocati ha dichiarato che essa non riconosce le sentenze e giornalisti comunisti come Jürgen Elsasser e partiti comunisti come il Partito Comunista della Federazione Russa hanno espresso solidarieta’ ai prigioneri politici in Turchia. Gli antimperialisti nel mondo hanno visto che personaggi come l’ex Comandante in Capo delle Forze Armate Turche sono stati arrestati “simbolicamente”, ovvero per rendere piu’ “credibile” il processo che era totalmente politico e mirava a reprimere l’opposizione legale in Turchia. E ultimamente il Primo Ministro Erdoğan ha affermato che “non riconoscere le sentenze Ergenekon e’ un delitto“. Le sue parole contraddicono le norme del Codice Penale ma se esse valgono piu’ del diritto nazionale e della Costituzione, possiamo parlare di uno stato di diritto?
Scusate la mia liberta’ di espressione.

Le sentenze

Adnan Türkkan, membro fondatore dell’Unione Giovanile di Turchia (l’Unione della Gioventu’ di Turchia): 10 anni e 6 mesi in carcere
Tunç Akkoç, membro fondatore dell’Unione Giovanile di Turchia (l’Unione della Gioventu’ di Turchia), membro del Comitato Centrale del Partito dei Lavoratori: 11 anni in carcere
Doğu Perinçek, Presidente del Partito dei Lavoratori: Ergastolo + 117 anni in carcere
Ferit İlsever, Vice Presidente del Partito dei Lavoratori: 15 anni in carcere
Nusret Senem, Vice Presidente del Partito dei Lavoratori: 20 anni, 3 mesi in carcere
Mehmet Bedri Gültekin, Vice Presidente del Partito dei Lavoratori: 10 anni, 6 mesi in carcere
Zafer Şen, membro del Comitato Centrale del Partito dei Lavoratori: 8 anni, 9 mesi in carcere
Erkan Önsel, membro del Comitato Centrale del Partito dei Lavoratori: 9 anni in carcere
Mustafa Balbay, Deputato del Partito Repubblicano del Popolo: 34 anni e 8 mesi in carcere
Tuncay Özkan, giornalista socialdemocratico: Ergastolo aggravato
Yalçın Küçük, accademico marxista: Ergastolo aggravato
İlker Başbuğ, Ex Comandante in Capo delle Forze Armate Turche: Due ergastoli aggravati seguenti + 4 anni, 2 mesi in carcere
Hikmet Çiçek, giornalista comunista: 21 anni in carcere
Sevgi Erenerol, Portavoce della Chiesa Ortodossa Turca: Ergastolo
Şener Eruygur, Fondatore della Fondazione del Pensiero Kemalista: Ergastolo
Tenente Hasan Atilla Uğur: 29 anni, 3 mesi in carcere
Dursun Çiçek, ammiraglio: Ergastolo aggravato
Mustafa Özbek, Presidente del Sindacato Türk-Metal: Ergastolo
Deniz Yıldırım, ex direttore editoriale del quotidiano comunista Aydınlık: 16 anni, 10 mesi in carcere
Hurşit Tolon, ex generale: Ergastolo aggravato
Kemal Kerinçsiz, avvocato: Ergastolo aggravato
Emcet Olcaytu, avvocato: 13 anni, 2 mesi in carcere
Adnan Akfırat, giornalista: 19 anni in carcere
Ünal İnanç, giornalista: 19 anni in carcere
Ergün Poyraz, scrittore: 29 anni, 4 mesi in carcere
Vedat Yenerer, giornalista: 7 anni, 6 mesi in carcere
Kemal Alemdaroğlu, accademico: 15 anni, 8 mesi in carcere
Mehmet Perinçek, accademico, figlio di Doğu Perinçek: 6 anni e 3 mesi in carcere
Ferit Bernay, accademico: 10 anni in carcere
Mustafa Yurtkuran, accademico: 10 anni in carcere
Aydın Gergin, membro del Partito dei Lavoratori: 8 anni in carcere
Tenente Fikri Karadağ: Ergastolo aggravato
İsmail Hakkı Pekin, ex generale: 7 anni, 6 mesi in carcere
Özlem Konur Usta, editore del quotidiano comunista Aydınlık: 6 anni, 3 mesi in carcere
Mehmet Bozkurt, editore del quotidiano comunista Aydınlık: 9 anni, 3 mesi in carcere
Turan Özlü, fondatore del canale televisivo Ulusal: 9 anni in carcere
Sinan Aygün, Deputato del Partito Repubblicano del Popolo: 13 anni, 6 mesi in carcere
Tenente Fuat Selvi: Ergastolo
Fatih Hilmioğlu, accademico: 23 anni in carcere
Serdar Öztürk, veterano di guerra: 25 anni, 6 mesi di carcere
Mahir Çayan Güngör, corrispondente del canale televisivo Ulusal: 6 anni, 3 mesi in carcere
Kemal Yavuz, ex generale: 7 anni, 6 mesi in carcere

Turkey’s Islamists and the military

Turkey’s Islamists and the military

Youri Kirillov
Ex: http://journal-neo.org

A trial of a group of the former military has started in Turkey. They are accused of the overthrow, in the course of the bloodless coup in 1997, of the Islamist government led by Prime Minister N. Erbakan’s Refah Partisi (Welfare Party). Later, it was banned by the country’s Constitutional Court for the activities of the “anti-secular nature”.

The Justice and Development Party (JDP) – the Islamist party which has been ruling the country since 2002 – originated from Refah Partisi. One of its founders – present Prime Minister Erdoğan – received the relay baton from the hands of his teacher Erbakan.

The trial process, which reminds us of who governs politics in Turkey today, continues the sequence of trials of the military. They include the Ergenekon case, which took place only a month ago, a conspiracy against the government, the imprisonment verdicts issued earlier to more than 300 military for preparing terrorist acts aimed at destabilisation.

In fact, this is the echo of the confrontation between the Islamists and the Turkish army, which, for a long time, considered itself to be the successor of Kemal Ataturk – the founder of secular Turkey.

Although the current process is Turkey’s internal matter, its regional subtext should not be disregarded in the context of the ongoing turbulent Arab Spring near Turkey.

After the Islamists’ success (which was unexpected for many) at the elections in Egypt and Tunisia, as well as the deepening of the crisis in Syria, prospects have emerged for these forces to strengthen their positions at the centre of power, in place of the former elites. A number of Arab political forces, especially the Muslim Brotherhood and similar groups, have focused their attention on the development experience according to the Turkish model. These trends, obviously, appealed to the JDP’s leadership and increasingly inspired them for political involvement, and not only that, in the internal affairs of the countries undergoing the “Arab awakening”.They have revived the long-cherished dreams of Ankara’s Islamist elite to obtain the status of the leader or “big brother” in the Arab-Muslim region.

However, as the subsequent events of the Spring have shown, the leadership of the Islamist parties in Egypt and Tunisia turned out to be incapable to put an end to the post-revolutionary turmoil. Their rule just exacerbated the existing problems in all aspects, and in the field of security in particular.

In Syria, the anti-government opposition was joined, under the mask of the revolution, by the most militant elements of the international terrorist forces.

As a result of the perturbations and the overall imbalance of the situation in the region, the system of economic relations established by Turkey with a number of Arab countries during the rule of the authoritarian leaders, has been shaken. Ankara suffered damage economically and financially due to the internal war and overthrow of Gaddafi in Libya, which used to be one of the strongholds of Turkey’s entrepreneurship in the Arab world. There were about 30,000 Turks here engaged in the implementation of projects worth $15 billion dollars.

The Ankara–Syria relations – once friendly and mutually beneficial for both countries – now have been knocked out. Bilateral trade was growing rapidly, the visa regime was removed, but Ankara’s withdrawal from this trajectory in 2011 shook the cooperation structure like an earthquake.

In addition to the expenses for the support of rebels, the Turkish authorities had to provide shelter to more than 400,000 Syrian refugees. The presence of so many people is fraught with the destabilisation of normal life in the region, which leads to dissatisfaction among the local population.

Experts are warning that the rebellion in Syria fomented with Turkey’s help can have a boomerang-like effect on Turkey itself, and the Syrian religious war will spill into Turkey.

Turkey’s regional geopolitical ambitions were challenged by the overthrow of President Mohamed Morsi in Egypt as the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood had been considered by Ankara as one of the most important partners.

Ankara’s relations with Egypt began to show signs of strain after Turkey’s leadership condemned the rise of the military in Egypt and the overthrow of Morsi. Cairo responded with an official protest to the interference in its internal affairs.

A very subdued reaction to the coup in Egypt from the West (especially from Turkey’s close ally – the US), the support for the Egyptian military on the part of Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf monarchies increased Erdoğan’s concerns about the military, interprets Atilla Yesilada, political analyst at Global Source Partners, Istanbul.

There is no denying that Turkey has outpaced the Arab world in terms of the level of the secularisation of society. Today, when in a number of the Spring countries there is a growing divide in society and an increasing confrontation between the Islamists, who came to power on the protest wave, and the liberal pro-secular forces, logically Ankara should side with the latter.

However, in reality, its authorities, following their narrow party interests, are playing into the hands of those forces in the Arab countries which, by striking the Islamist chords, are pulling their countries back.

Yuri Kirillov, an expert on the Middle East and North Africa, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

The Social “Big Bang” of the 21st Century Turkey: from Atlantic to Eurasia

Semih Koray

Ex: http://www.geopolitica.ru

 

There are two important aspects of the nation-wide uprising in Turkey centered at the Taksim Square in İstanbul that deserve emphasis. First and foremost, it is an unprecetented social “big bang” of the 21^st century Turkey. Secondly, the extreme hostility of the stance of the Erdoğan regime against this protest movement is equally unseen.  

The Taksim Square represents the uprising of the Turkish Nation against the Erdoğan Administration, who arrogantly attempted to trample on the Turkish Nation and the values of the Atatürk Republic. The main symbol that unites millions of people who have been filling the squares all over Turkey for about three weeks now and facing police violence everywhere is the Turkish flag. The nation-wide common slogan  these masses are chanting everywhere is “Tayyip resign! Government resign! Dictator resign!”. If this movement is to be connected to something in the past, its roots clearly lie in the Kemalist Revolution.

                                                               How it began?

            Protests were started by a small group of activists as a reaction to the demolition of the Gezi Park in Taksim, to rebuild the “historic” Taksim Military Barracks, which was also planned to house a shopping mall. The construction company had started to demolish the wall of Gezi Park and cut down the trees, when the protestors stood up to prevent any further demolition. Then the police intervened with tear gas. More people joined the activists to start a sit-in act and a night watch in the Gezi Park. The police attacked once more and more violently with tear gas and water cannons to drive the protestors out of the Park. The outcome of this sequence of  “more protestors-more police violence” was that the resistance grew very quickly and spread over the whole country covering millions of people in hundreds of protest rallies. All the demonstrations were met with police violence, tear gas, water cannons, plastic bullets. The target of the demonstrators went far beyond stopping the project of the government concerning the Gezi Park. They started to unanimously demand the resignation of Erdogan and the government. By now, there are four people killed, thousands injured, including many who are heavily injured by tear gas shells and plastic bullets.

            Before analyzing the background and reasons that led to the mobilization of masses to such an unseen extent, it might be telling to shortly look into the reasons of  Erdoğan's insistence on the project concerning the Gezi Park. This project is two-legged. One leg is concerned with the history of the Military Barracks that are to be rebuilt. After the 1908 Revolution led to the establishment of the Constitutional Monarchy in the Ottoman State, a reactionary rising was staged on the 31^st of March in 1909 in Istanbul demanding to go back to an absolutist regime based on religious principles again. The rising was started in the Taksim Barracks, which was then turned into the  headquarters of this reactionary rebellion. The rising was suppressed by the Movement Army which came from Thessaloniki to İstanbul and whose staff officer was Mustafa Kemal (Atatürk).  It is thus only natural that those who desparately wish to take the revenge of the Kemalist Revolution today insist on rebuilding these Barracks as a symbol of their own stance.

            The second leg of the project is that the rebuilt Barracks are planned to house a shopping mall. I think it will be no exaggeration to regard “shopping malls” as symbols of a lifestyle imposed by the global capitalist system to the entire world. Thus the project itself is nothing but a synthesis of Ottomanism and global capitalism, reflecting the current alliance between the imperialistic system and the medieval forces in Turkey.

                                        The background of the Taksim Resistance     

            If the question is whether the social outburst in Turkey triggered by the resistance against Erdoğan's Gezi Park project was something expected or not, the answer is both yes and no. The first thing to be noted in that regard is that, for the last decade, the political and social tensions in Turkey have been growing since Erdoğan came into power, along with this process being especially accelerated within the last few years. Prior to the Taksim Resistance, the potential energy accumulated within the society had already started to turn into kinetic energy in the form of big mass demonstrations within the last one year.  Large numbers of demonstrators became familiar with tear gas, water cannons and police violence during these struggles. It was this militant rise of the people's movement, which paved the way to the current resistance. That is what underlies the answer “yes”. Due to the stochastic nature of social phenomena, however, it usually is not possible to precisely forecast the time, place and scale of social outbursts, as was also the case with the Taksim Resistance. 

            The bans and limitations introduced by the Erdoğan government last year concerning the celebration of national holidays was met with  big anger among the citizens. The Youth Union of Turkey (Türkiye Gençlik Birliği) made a call for a demonstration in İstanbul on May 19, 2012, in which more than 200 thousand citizens took part. The 19^th of May is the date when Mustafa Kemal landed in Samsun in 1919 to start the National Liberation Movement and is celebrated as a national holiday dedicated to the youth in Turkey. 19 May 2012 witnessed the first big mass demonstration in Turkey in the aftermath of the Republic Meetings in 2007, which had been held in Ankara, İstanbul, İzmir and several other cities with the participation of millions of citizens. On 29 October 2012 - the Anniversary of the Foundation of the Turkish Republic – hundreds of thousands of people gathered in Ulus (Ankara) in front of the First Turkish Grand National Assembly Building under the leadership of Workers' Party (Turkey) (İşçi Partisi – Türkiye) and the Youth Union of Turkey. The police tried to prevent the gathering by attacking the crowd with tear gas and water cannons and by setting up barricades between groups that were coming to the square from different directions. Neither the police raids nor the barricades could prevent the people from gathering at the Ulus Square, from where they marched several kilometers to reach Atatürk's Mausoleum. 19 May 2012 acted as the sparkler, and 29 October 2012 was the turning point in the rising wave of the people's movement in Turkey.

            Hatay is one of the Southern provinces of Turkey bordering with Syria, where several “refugee camps” are located. As most of these are acting as “mercenary camps” from where terror is being “exported” to Syria under the patronage of the Erdoğan administration, several big mass demonstrations were held in Hatay starting as of September 2012, demanding the shutdown of these terror camps and calling for solidarity and friendship with the Syrian people. It seems also worthwhile to emphasize that these demands united people of different ethnic origins and religious beliefs in Hatay and neigboring provinces along the border with Syria.

            The trials of the so-called Ergenekon Case are being held in a prison compound near Silivri. The very fact that Silivri is a town about 100 km distant from İstanbul , while the natural location of the court in charge of this case is in Beşiktaş – a central district of İstanbul –, may give everyone some idea about how “open” these trials are to the public. The summary accusation is that the suspects of this trial (including leaders of political parties, former rectors and several academicians, journalists, retired generals and officers) have formed a secret organization called Ergenekon to overthrow the government, although many of them got to know each other well only in prison. Dr. Doğu Perinçek who is still the chairman of Workers' Party (Turkey) is among the suspects and has now been under arrest for more than five years. The common feature that unites almost all the suspects is that they are all patriotic figures who have struggled against the US plans concerning Turkey and the Middle East and have defended the Kemalist Revolution. The “Ergenekon Case” itself is a US plot implemented by the Erdogan Administration not only against the suspects, but against Turkey as a whole. Thus, it comprises along with other similar “cases” one of the most important sources of political and social tension underlying the current social outburst. There have been two big mass demonstrations (along with several other smaller ones) in Silivri in front of the court within the last year, one on December 13, 2012, and the other on April 8, 2013, both including about 100 000 participants, who had to face barricades, tear gas and water cannons. The citizens, however, insisted on staying in front of the court until the trial was over, thereby also defending the principle of the “openness of the trials to the public”.

            These are just some chosen incidences to exemplify the background of the current nation-wide resistance. It should thus be no wonder any more to anyone who sees this picture how come these young people of all ages, these women and men of Turkey have been struggling day and night all over the country for so long.

            Having gone through the source of human energy of the Taksim uprising, let us turn to the architecture of the political and social tensions in Turkey and the factors behind them. This is quite important as the people's movement in Turkey will continue to rise in waves with outcomes that will not stay confined only to Turkey itself, but will have an impact upon the entire region.

                        Erdoğan's foreign policy is tightly bound to the US and NATO

            It might be best to start with the foreign policy that the Erdoğan Administration has been following since it came into power in 2002 with a focus on the Syrian issue.

            Tayyip Erdoğan – the Prime Minister of Turkey- is known to have himself publicly declared more than 30 times that he is acting as one of the Co-Chairs of the Great Middle East Project of the USA. Abdullah Gül – the President of Turkey- is known to have admitted himself that he signed a secret “two-page, nine-item” agreement with Colin Powell in 2003, when he was the Foreign Minister of Turkey. Ahmet Davutoğlu – the present Foreign Minister of Turkey – is known to have written a book entitled “Strategic Depth” whose main message can be summarized as “Align your policies with those of big powers, if you wish to become a regional leader.” This provides a clear picture of the framework that has been shaping the foreign policy of the Erdoğan Administration.

            Erdoğan is known to be the world champion of hostility against Bashar Assad in Syria. He is   supporting the so-called “Syrian Free Army” and other terror groups against Esad logistically by all means, which include the provision of safe bases behind the front to these mercenaries in Turkey under the guise of “refugee camps”. As a consequence of this policy, the control of Turkish security forces on the border with Syria was practically lifted so that the mercenaries could cross the border freely in either direction. The displeasure aroused thereby among the inhabitants in cities and towns near the border was made visible by mass demonstrations in Hatay and other places as mentioned above.

            The terror that was exported to Syria under the patronage of the Erdoğan regime struck back Turkey itself violently. On 11 February 2013, a car bomb exploded at Cilvegözü Bordergate killing 13 people including both Syrians and Turks. The second and more tragic incidence of terror took place on 11 May 2013 in Reyhanlı, a town in Turkey very near to Cilvegözü Bordergate, when two car bombs exploded in the town center killing more than 50 people and injuring hundreds of them. Erdoğan could go to Reyhanlı only one week after the  incidence and made a speech to a crowd supposedly collected together from other regions  because he was afraid of the fury of the people from Reyhanlı. These two tragic events only added to the great fury of the Turkish people who demand peace with the neighbor and peace at neighbor's home.

            The Taksim Resistance in Turkey and the opposition of the Turkish people to Erdoğan's hostile stance against Syria combined with the inevitable tightening of the control on the Syrian border by Turkish security forces after the Reyhanlı bombs seem to have recently contributed to the Syrian Administarion headed by Beshar Esad in combatting terror at home.

            The relationship between Obama's and Erdoğan's stances concerning the Syrian issue might look puzzling at first glance, as Erdoğan seems to be the one who is ready to do everything to overthrow Esad, while Obama looks as if he were dragging his feet in this regard. It is, however, doubtless that the patent of Erdoğan's policy concerning Syria belongs to the US. Initially, he was driven against Beshar Esad by the US in an unbridled way in expectation of an easy and quick victory. When this plan failed, however, Erdoğan found himself in the midst of a mined ground, while Obama still could use the relative maneuvre space he had secured for himself by having let someone else jump to the mined ground on his behalf. It should be noted here that the “good times” between Erdoğan and Assad, the climax of which was reached by holding joint government meetings very shortly before Erdoğan's sharp turn from “extreme friendship” to “extreme hostility”, were not a product of Turkey either.

            After Obama came into office in the US, Davutoğlu became the Foreign Minister in Turkey.

In the first term (2002-2007) of AKP (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi - Justice and Development Party), “membership to the European Union” had been the major keyword of Turkish foreign policy.  The rationale behind this policy, whose patent again belongs to the US, was to keep Turkey bound to the door of the EU in order to prevent it from seeking other alternatives and forming closer ties with Eurasia. In AKP's second term (2007-2011), however, the keyword “EU” entirely disappeared from the scene, and Davutoğlu replaced it first by “zero-problem-with-the neighbors” and then by “New Ottomanism”.

            In order to understand the rationale behind this change, let us remember the main components of the Obama doctrine, which can be summarized as (i) making more effective use of diplomatic, political and cultural channels, (ii) letting the “allies” share the burden by getting them do some of the jobs on behalf of the US rather than the US itself directly, and (iii) shifting the center of weight from regular warfare to special warfare in reshaping the world. It is the implementation of the second and third items that we presently witness in Syria.

            As for the first item, the USA was lacking direct diplomatic, political and cultural channels with the Islamic World whose effective use would help the creation of political and social footholds 

that would internalize the US plans and thus be useful in implementing them. So, the need was for a country which owned such channels and was ready to use them on behalf of the US. This country was not only to look socially and culturally Islamic, but also should introduce a reinterpretation of Islam that would get rid of all obstacles in Islam to integration with the global capitalistic market. Finally, for such a country to be influential in the Islamic World, it should not act like a proxy of the US. All this is actually nothing but what is meant by “Moderate Islam”, represented by the AKP Administration in Turkey.

            Davutoğlu's formula of “zero-problem-with-the neighbors” as well as Erdoğan's “one-minute-show” in Davos against Israel followed by his stance in the Mavi Marmara Incidence are to be evaluated within this framework. The “golden times” with Syria were not an indication of a shift of axis of the Erdoğan Administration from the West to the East, but were part of a scenario aiming at softening and weakening Syria from inside. But the difficulty that USA and the West have been facing in producing an effective opposition to Bashar Assad in the Syrian issue now nclearly shows that the task of creating an effective political and social foothold on behalf of the US was not succeeded.

            The firm resistance of Syria under Esad's leadership against the dirty war initiated by the US using the Erdoğan Administration as an instrument gained the sound support of a “Eurasian hinterland”. Assad's resistance, the international support it gained and the strong opposition of the Turkish people to Erdoğan's stance concerning Syria left Erdoğan in a cumbersome position. When the inability of the US and the West due to the big difficulties they are going through because of the global economic crisis was added to that, the claim to regional leadership or equivalently “New Ottomanism” collapsed before it even started. We can hardly deny the importance of the role this collapse played in the rise of the people's movement in Turkey and thus in the Taksim Uprising. Conversely, the strength of the nation's opposition now renders Erdoğan more inable than ever concerning Syria as well as in other major issues.

      The Second Israel = “Free Kurdistan” is an invariant of the Great Middle East Project

            One of the invariants of the US policy concerning the Middle East is to turn Northern Iraq into a permanent base of its own, or equivalently into a second Israel. This target can be reached by founding a “Free Kurdistan”. The territory of the Kurdistan Regional Government is by itself not adequate for the sustainability of such a state. Sustainability requires expansion of the territory to the North into Turkey and an opening to the Mediterranean via a “Kurdish Corridor” in Northern Syria. A possible expansion to the East into Iran is also desirable. The competence and accumulation needed for founding and running such a state is owned by the PKK. This collection of statements depicts the framework within which the USA considers the “Kurdish factor” in the Middle East.

            Turkey is now going through a so-called “peace process” with the PKK, the roadmap of which has been drawn by the US. The US authorities had been advocating for quite some time that the PKK should be taken as a negotiation partner by the Turkish Government. To cope with circumstances under which the acceptance of the PKK as a formal negotiation partner would be politically untenable for a government, the advice was that the parliamentary deputies of the BDP (Barış ve Demokrasi Partisi – Peace and Democracy Party) serve as interlocutor in negotiations. The Erdoğan Administration has followed this advice to such an extent that the current position of Öcalan and the PKK is factually far beyond that of a negotiation partner. A description that would fit the present situation best is to refer to them as “coalition partners” of the Erdoğan Administration. The process was carried out under the pretense that this was the only feasible way of liquidating the PKK. The consequence was, however, the legitimization of the PKK, rendering this separatist force stronger than ever.

            “Peace at home” is naturally the common demand of all Turkish citizens irrespective of their ethnic origins. As now the continuation of “cease fire” is made dependent upon the well-treatment of the PKK so that it continues to comply with cease fire, the social engineering behind the “peace process” is the utilization of this common demand of the people for peace by blackmailing them with the PKK terror. The success of this blackmail naturally requires a strong PKK, rather than one that has entered a liquidation process.

            The next stop of the roadmap is the change of the Constitution accordingly, the essence of which can be summarized as to remove the “Turkish Nation” along with all values of the Atatürk Republic from the Constitution. The estimation that has been rendered vacuous by the uprising of the nation was that the same blackmailing by the PKK would be useful in making these changes acceptable  to the nation and carrying it to the brink of fragmentation.

            Having noted that a “Free Kurdistan” lies at the core of the Great Middle East Project and the PKK is indispensable for the US in that regard, it would be an illusion to even think that the USA would allow the Erdoğan Administration to liquidate the PKK. The US plan is, in fact, to let the PKK and the Turkish Army to fight together in Syria and Iraq against the territorial integrities of these two countries when the time ripens for that

                        Turkey is drowning in the Atlantic System: Back to the route of the Kemalist Revolution in Eurasia

            The conquest of the state apparatus by the counter-revolutionary forces was mainly completed in 2007, when Abdullah Gül became the President. It was then that they started the operation against the members of the Turkish Army and the leaders of the patriotic forces in Turkey, who had been opposing Turkey getting turned into an instrument of the USA, under the guise of legal cases as Ergenekon, Balyoz and several others. In the meantime, they also were able to tighten their control on the judiciary. The next item on their agenda was to start the liquidation of the Kemalist Revolution from within the social life.

            The Kemalist Revolution had replaced “religion” by “nation” as the source of power. What naturally accompanied that process was the substitution of “reason and science” for “dogma”. In an attempt tor reverse this process, the AKP Administration is now trying to replace “nation” by “religion” again and substitute “dogma” for “reason and science”. This revival of the medieval approach is in compliance with the attempt of the imperialistic system to dissolve the national states of the Oppressed and Developing World.

            The reversal attempted by the Erdoğan Regime, however, required  on its part to intervene more and more not only into social life, but also into individual lives. It is precisely this increasing intervention what is now especially being met with fury by broad masses. Thus, it is no wonder that the youth and women formed the overwhelming majority in the Taksim Uprising so far.

            There is another very important process going on in Turkey, in parallel with the rise of the people's movement, one of whose main slogans is “we will win by uniting”. Namely, it is the construction of a united national front with the Workers' Party (Turkey) in its center, with the aim of carrying a national government to power. To indicate how successful this movement is proceeding, it might suffice to quote Erdoğan who said about a month ago that “the Chair of Workers' Party (Dr. Doğu Perinçek) is giving direction from prison to CHP (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi - Republican People's Party) with his left finger and to MHP (Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi – Nationalist Movement Party) with his right finger”.

            The summary conclusion that from now on everyone has to take into account is that the rising movement of the nation has invalidated all equations concerning Turkey that do not contain the nation itself as the biggest source of power.

            Everything said in this article points at the fact that Turkey is drowning in the Atlantic System. The unique framework that will allow Turkey to live and develop embracing all its people as equal citizens irrespective of their etnic origins or religious beliefs is the Atatürk Republic. The only geography in which Turkey can set itself back to the route of the Kemalist Revolution and complete it in order to go beyond is nothing but Eurasia.

Published in Journal of Eurasian Affairs No.1, Vol. 1, 2013

Claudio MUTTI: Il lupo grigio al bivio

Claudio MUTTI:

IL LUPO GRIGIO AL BIVIO

Ex: http://www.eurasia-rivista.org

La Turchia è Europa

La regione chiamata con termine greco-bizantino Anatolia (“terra di levante”) nell’antichità fu considerata parte integrante dell’Europa: Erodoto¹ fissa infatti il confine orientale dell’Europa sul fiume Fasi, nei pressi degli odierni porti georgiani di Poti e Batumi. Nel Medioevo Dante colloca “lo stremo d’Europa”² vicino ai monti dell’Asia Minore, dai quali, dopo la distruzione di Troia, l’Aquila imperiale spiccò il volo verso l’Italia. Per la geografia moderna, la penisola anatolica è la propaggine più occidentale dell’Asia; tuttavia alcuni geografi la considerano più che altro la quarta penisola del Mediterraneo, data la sua posizione analoga a quella delle penisole iberica, italiana e greca.

Sotto il profilo etnico, il popolo turco stanziato nella penisola anatolica costituisce il risultato di una sintesi che ha coinvolto popoli di diversa origine. Fin dall’antichità, l’Anatolia è stata abitata da popolazioni di lingua indoeuropea: Ittiti, Frigi, Lidi, Lici, Panfili, Armeni, Celti ecc. Con l’arrivo dei Turchi Selgiuchidi e poi dei Turchi Ottomani, ebbe luogo una fusione dell’elemento autoctono con quello turanico, sicché oggi si ha in Turchia “un tipo medio, che va considerato più di fattezze europee che asiatiche”³. In altre parole, i Turchi dell’Anatolia “sono in maggioranza europidi purissimi, passati nel tempo all’uso di una lingua turca a opera dei loro conquistatori centro-asiatici”⁴.

La lingua ufficiale della Turchia, il turco ottomano (osmanli), come tutte le lingue turco-tatare appartiene al gruppo altaico. Si tratta perciò di una lingua non indoeuropea, così come non sono indoeuropee altre lingue parlate da secoli in Europa: le lingue turco-tatare della Russia, le lingue caucasiche, il basco, le lingue ugrofinniche (ungherese, finlandese, estone, careliano, lappone, mordvino, ceremisso, sirieno, votiaco ecc.).

La religione professata dalla quasi totalità del popolo turco è l’Islam, presente in Europa fin dall’VIII secolo d.C. La Turchia è musulmana così come lo sono state la Spagna, la Francia meridionale e la Sicilia; come lo sono alcune regioni della Russia, del Caucaso e dei Balcani; come lo è oggi una parte della popolazione dell’Europa, dove il numero complessivo dei musulmani supera ormai i dieci milioni di anime.

La dinastia che resse l’Impero ottomano fino alla sua caduta fu in sostanza una dinastia europea, nella quale il tasso di sangue turco diminuiva ad ogni generazione, poiché la validé (la madre del Sultano) era o greca, o slava o circassa o anche italiana. In un certo senso, si potrebbe dunque dire che i Sultani ottomani erano “più europei” che non i re ungheresi della dinastia di Arpád, turanici per parte di padre e di madre. Quanto alla classe dirigente ottomana, furono innumerevoli i visir, i funzionari politici e gli ufficiali dell’esercito appartenenti ai popoli balcanici. Gli stessi giannizzeri, l’élite militare dell’Impero, non erano d’origine turca.

Il pontefice Pio II, nella lettera da lui inviata nel 1469 a Mehmed il Conquistatore, riconobbe il Sultano come “imperatore dei Greci” de facto, in quanto successore dei basileis di Bisanzio e degli imperatori di Roma: “Fuerunt Itali rerum domini, nunc Turchorum inchoatur imperium”. Papa Enea Silvio Piccolomini proponeva quindi al Conquistatore di trasformare la situazione de facto in stato de jure, facendosi nominare da lui “imperatore dei Greci e dell’Oriente” mediante… “un pochino d’acqua (aquae pauxillum)”. Ma, mentre un altro principe “pagano”, il magiaro Vajk, si era fatto battezzare col nome di Stefano e aveva ricevuto da Papa Silvestro II la corona regale, Mehmed invece rimase Mehmed e trasmise ai suoi successori quell’autorità imperiale che, toccatagli per effetto dell’ordalia del maggio1453, era stata ben presto riconosciuta dall’Europa in maniera esplicita e ufficiale. Secondo la Repubblica di Venezia, infatti, Mehmed II era imperatore di Costantinopoli, cosicché gli spettavano di diritto tutti i territori dell’impero bizantino, comprese le vecchie colonie greche della Puglia (Brindisi, Taranto e Otranto). Per quanto riguarda Firenze, Lorenzo il Magnifico fece coniare una medaglia sulla quale, accanto all’immagine del Conquistatore, si poteva leggere: “Mahumet, Asie ac Trapesunzis Magneque Gretie Imperat(or)”; dove per Magna Gretia si doveva intendere Bisanzio col suo vasto retroterra europeo. Altre due medaglie, che parlavano anch’esse un linguaggio inequivocabile circa il carattere rivestito dall’imperium ottomano, furono fatte coniare nel 1481 da Ferrante d’Aragona; le iscrizioni qualificavano Mehmed II come “Asie et Gretie imperator” e “Bizantii imperator”.

“Fatto come i Romani per reggere i popoli, secondo l’affermazione dell’antico poeta, [il Turco] ha governato vecchi popoli civili nel rispetto delle loro tradizioni e delle loro ambizioni millenarie”⁵. Così l’Impero ottomano, subentrando all’Impero Romano d’Oriente, fu “l’ultima ipostasi di Roma (…) la Roma musulmana dei Turchi”⁶, ovvero “un Impero romano turco-musulmano”⁷. La Turchia ottomana fu perciò una potenza europea, come venne d’altronde ufficialmente riconosciuto dagli stessi rappresentanti degli Stati europei nel congresso di Parigi del 1856, quando la Turchia era diventata “il grande malato d’Europa”.

Un secolo e mezzo più tardi lo Stato turco non è più il grande malato d’Europa, ma, al contrario, gode di uno stato di salute migliore di quello di molti Paesi europei. Tuttavia, pur essendo candidata dal 1999 all’ingresso nell’Unione Europea, la Turchia viene tenuta in quarantena a tempo indeterminato. La sua adesione all’Unione, fissata per il 2015, è tutt’altro che scontata.

La Turchia è Asia

Il primo insediamento di un popolo turco sul territorio anatolico ebbe luogo in seguito alla battaglia di Melashgert, avvenuta il 26 agosto 1071, nella quale le truppe comandate da Romano Diogene furono sbaragliate dai guerrieri selgiuchidi di Alp Arslan. Con questi primi invasori turchi erano arrivati in Anatolia anche i Turchi ottomani, ai quali fu inizialmente assegnata una marca di confine fra i territori selgiuchidi della Frigia e della Galazia e la provincia di Bitinia, ancora sotto controllo bizantino; l’indebolimento della potenza selgiuchide favorì la nascita dell’impero ottomano.

Ma già prima che Selgiuchidi e Ottomani giungessero in Anatolia, tra i secoli VI e IX diversi gruppi turchi si erano stanziati in Europa. I Cazari avevano fondato un impero che dalle rive nordoccidentali del Caspio si estendeva fino alla Crimea; i Bulgari avevano costituito due distinti khanati, nei bacini della Volga e del Danubio; gli Avari erano dilagati fino ad occidente del Tibisco; i Peceneghi avevano occupato le foci del Danubio; i Qipciaq e i Cumani si erano stabiliti a nord e a nordest del Mar Nero. Prima ancora, nel IV secolo, nei territori dell’Impero romano erano apparsi gli Unni, che sotto la guida di Attila (m. 453) sarebbero poi assurti a grande potenza creando un impero; essi erano i probabili discendenti di quegli Hsiung-nu che per qualche secolo avevano minacciato l’Impero cinese.

Selgiuchidi e Ottomani, antenati dei Turchi d’Anatolia e degli Azeri, costituiscono una delle tre parti in cui si divise, tra i secoli X e XII, la massa di tribù turche nota come gruppo oguzo. La seconda, costituita inizialmente da Uzi e Peceneghi, è rappresentata oggi dai Gagauzi (sparsi tra Ucraina, Repubblica di Moldavia, Romania e Bulgaria) nonché da varie comunità turche dei Balcani. La terza parte del gruppo oguzo è quella che, rimasta rimasta nei pressi dell’Aral, diede origine al popolo dei Turkmeni.

Premesso che  i vari sistemi di classificazione delle lingue e dei dialetti turchi proposti dai turcologi “sono tutti necessariamente artificiosi nel tentativo di raggruppare concrezioni linguistiche di età differente”⁸, è comunque possibile collocare il gruppo oguzo nel ramo occidentale della famiglia turca, al quale appartengono anche i gruppi bulgaro, kipciak e karluk.

Il gruppo bulgaro, che nell’Alto Medioevo comprendeva la lingua parlata dai Bulgari della Volga e della Kama, nonché la lingua cazara, è rappresentato attualmente dal ciuvascio, parlato sui territori di tre repubbliche autonome della Federazione Russa.

Il gruppo kipciak viene ripartito in tre sottogruppi, al primo dei quali appartenne la lingua di quei Cumani che, apparsi nell’Est europeo nel sec. XI, in parte si stanziarono in territorio ungherese; le lingue vive di questo sottogruppo sono parlate da circa cinque milioni di anime tra Lituania, Ucraina, Caucaso, Kirghizistan e Uzbekistan. Il secondo sottogruppo è costituito da Tatari e Baskiri. Fra le tre lingue del terzo sottogruppo, la più importante è quella kazaka, lingua ufficiale del Kazakhstan.

Il gruppo karluk comprende, oltre ad alcune lingue antiche e letterarie, due lingue parlate in vari territori dell’Asia centrale: l’usbeco (ufficiale in Uzbekistan) e l’uiguro moderno (ufficiale nella Regione Autonoma dello Hsinkiang).

Per quanto riguarda il ramo orientale della famiglia turca, esso comprende il gruppo uiguro-oguzo e quello kirghiso-kipciak. Nel primo gruppo rientrano, assieme ad altri idiomi, il tuvino, parlato nell’omonima repubblica della Federazione Russa, e lo jacuto, che corrisponde alle zone più settentrionali ed orientali dell’area turcofona (Repubblica Jacuta e isola di Sachalin). Nel secondo gruppo, la lingua più diffusa è il chirghiso, che è parlata in Kirghizistan, Tagikistan, Uzbekistan, Hsinkiang, Afghanistan e Pakistan.

Fatta eccezione per la lingua parlata anticamente dai Bulgari, per lo jacuto e per il ciuvascio, le lingue turche antiche e moderne non differiscono molto tra loro, sicché risulta evidente il rapporto di affinità linguistica che lega i Turchi dell’Anatolia agli altri popoli turchi che vivono nel continente eurasiatico.

Prospettive eurasiatiche

Non è facile stabilire dove gli antenati della grande famiglia turca abbiano avuto la loro primitiva dimora, dalla quale ondate successive di orde nomadi partirono per invadere i territori della Cina, dell’India, della Persia e dell’Europa. Secondo le ipotesi formulate dagli studiosi, la sede originaria dei Turchi dovrebbe coincidere con la zona dei monti Altai o con la regione compresa tra gli Altai, gli Urali e l’Ural, mentre altri ritengono che essa si sarebbe trovata a nord della Cina, nell’odierna Jacuzia; altri ancora indicano la vasta area che va dal deserto del Gobi fino al corso della Volga.

L’identificazione dell’Urheimat turco con la regione designata dal termine persiano Turan, a nord dell’Iran, costituisce il mito d’origine del movimento politico-culturale noto come panturanismo, che preconizza l’unità dei popoli turchi. Della tesi panturanista, nata nel quarto decennio del XX secolo in ambiente tataro, si appropriò Ármin Vámbéry⁹, il quale la propose alla Gran Bretagna come uno strumento ideologico da utilizzare nel “Grande Gioco”: una grande entità politica compresa tra i Monti Altai e il Bosforo avrebbe potuto sbarrare per sempre la strada all’espansione russa verso la Persia e i Dardanelli. Ben diverso fu il significato che l’ideale panturanico assunse nei primi anni del Novecento, quando fu la Germania guglielmina, alleata della Turchia, a sostenere il panturanismo e il panislamismo nel quadro geostrategico di un asse Berlino-Vienna-Istanbul-Bagdad che metteva a rischio l’egemonia coloniale britannica.

Anche Samuel Huntington ha preso in seria considerazione l’eventualità che, ponendosi “a capo di una comunità di nazioni turche”¹⁰, la Turchia “si ridefinisca come paese leader del mondo islamico”¹¹ e persegua “sempre più intensamente i propri interessi particolari nei Balcani, nel mondo arabo e in Asia centrale”¹². Il teorico dello “scontro delle civiltà” ha riassunto nei termini seguenti le iniziative intraprese da Ankara in direzione turanica subito dopo il crollo dell’URSS: “Il presidente Özal e altri leader turchi cominciarono a vagheggiare la creazione di una comunità di popoli turchi e dedicarono grandi sforzi per sviluppare legami con i ‘turchi esterni’ dell’ex impero ‘dall’Adriatico ai confini con la Cina’. Particolare attenzione venne prestata all’Azerbaigian e alle quattro repubbliche centroasiatiche di lingua turca: Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakistan e Kirghizistan. Nel 1991 e 1992 la Turchia avviò un’ampia gamma di iniziative volte a rinsaldare i legami e ad accrescere la propria influenza in queste nuove repubbliche: prestiti a lungo termine e a interesse agevolato (…) assistenza umanitaria (…) televisione via satellite (…) reti telefoniche, servizi aerei, migliaia di borse di studio e corsi di formazione in Turchia per banchieri, imprenditori, diplomatici e ufficiali centroasiatici e azeri. Furono inviati insegnanti di lingua turca e sono nate circa duemila imprese miste. La comunanza culturale ha certamente aiutato i rapporti economici”¹³.

Nell’elaborazione geopolitica di Ahmet Davutoğlu¹⁴, consigliere diplomatico di Erdoğan diventato ministro degli Esteri nel 2009, la comunità dei popoli turchi occupa un posto fondamentale: “L’impero delle steppe, l’Orda d’Oro, dal Mar d’Aral all’Anatolia è un punto fermo del suo pensiero. La Turchia ha ogni interesse a rivivificare questa vocazione continentale e ad avvicinarsi al gruppo di Shanghai sotto la bacchetta della Cina e della Russia”¹⁵. La lentezza con cui procedono i negoziati per l’adesione all’Unione Europea è stata determinante per spingere Ankara nella direzione teorizzata da Ahmet Davutoğlu, il quale ha firmato nell’aprile 2013 un protocollo d’intesa che fa della Turchia un “membro dialogante” dell’Organizzazione per la Cooperazione di Shanghai. “Ora, con questa scelta, – ha dichiarato Dmitrij Mezencev, segretario generale dell’Organizzazione – la Turchia afferma che il nostro destino è il medesimo dei Paesi dell’Organizzazione per la Cooperazione di Shanghai”. E Davutoğlu: “La Turchia farà parte di una famiglia composta di paesi che hanno vissuto insieme non per secoli, ma per millenni”.

La decisione turca di aggregarsi all’Organizzazione di Shanghai, nucleo di un potenziale blocco di alleanza eurasiatica, potrebbe essere gravida di importanti sviluppi. Infatti la politica di avvicinamento a Mosca, Pechino e Teheran, se coerentemente perseguita, si rivelerebbe incompatibile con un “neoottomanismo” che malamente nasconde un ruolo subimperialista, funzionale agl’interessi egemonici statunitensi. Non solo, ma prima o poi la Turchia potrebbe porre seriamente in discussione il proprio inserimento nell’Alleanza Atlantica e rescindere i vincoli col regime sionista, qualora intendesse credibilmente proporsi come punto di riferimento per i Paesi musulmani del Mediterraneo e del Vicino Oriente. E non è nemmeno da escludere che uno scenario di tal genere possa indurre l’Europa stessa ad un’assunzione di responsabilità, incoraggiandola a riannodare quell’alleanza con la Turchia che la Germania e l’Austria-Ungheria avevano stabilita all’inizio del secolo scorso…

Börteçine,il lupo grigio che guidò i Turchi verso l’Anatolia, oggi si trova ad un bivio. Non si tratta di scegliere tra l’Europa e l’Asia, ma tra l’Occidente e l’Eurasia.

* Claudio Mutti, direttore di “Eurasia”.

1. Erodoto, IV, 45.

2. Dante, Par. VI, 5.

3. R. Biasutti, Le razze e i popoli della terra, Utet, Torino 1967, vol. II, p. 526.

4. S. Salvi, La mezzaluna con la stella rossa, Marietti, Genova 1993, p. 60.

5. R. Grousset, L’empire des steppes, Payot, Paris 1939, p. 28.

6. N. Iorga, cit. in I. Buga, Calea Regelui, Bucarest 1998, p. 138.

7. A. Toynbee, A Study of History, London – New York – Toronto 1948, vol. XII, p. 158).

8. A. Bombaci, La letteratura turca, Sansoni-Accademia, Firenze-Milano 1969, p. 17.

9. Ármin Vámbéry (pseud. di Hermann Bamberger) nacque il 19 marzo 1832 da una famiglia ebraica che si era stabilita a Szentgyörgy, nei pressi dell’attuale Bratislava. Dopo avere studiato il turco, nel 1857 andò a Istanbul, dove rimase fino al 1861. Partito per l’Asia centrale, si spacciò per derviscio ed arrivò a Khiva, Bukhara e Samarcanda. Rientrato a Pest, si recò successivamente a Londra, dove, per i servigi resi alla Gran Bretagna, fu nominato membro onorario della Royal Geographical Society e ricevuto dalla corte reale inglese. Nel 2005 gli Archivi nazionali di Kiev hanno rivelato che Vámbéry lavorò per il British Foreign Office come agente e spia nel “grande gioco” in Asia centrale. Nel 1900-1901 si adoprò per procurare a Theodor Herzl un’udienza presso il Sultano Abdülhamid II. Morì il 15 settembre 1913.

10. S. P. Huntington, Lo scontro delle civiltà e il nuovo ordine mondiale, Garzanti, Milano 2001, p. 211.

11. S. P. Huntington, op. cit., p. 234.

12. S. P. Huntington, op. cit., ibidem.

13. S. P. Huntington, op. cit., p. 210.

14. A. Davutoglu, Strategik derinlik [Profondità strategica], Kure yayinlari, Istanbul 2008.

15. T. Josseran, La nouvelle puissance turque. L’adieu à Mustapha Kemal, Ellipses, Paris 2010, pp. 42-43.