TURKEY: POLITICAL RETURN OF ISLAMIST LEADER

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