TURKISH POST-ELECTION POLITICS: WHAT IS THE

S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 03 ANKARA 002078

SIPDIS


E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/09/2019
TAGS: PREL PGOV PINS TU
SUBJECT: TURKISH POST-ELECTION POLITICS: WHAT IS THE
INFLUENCE OF ISLAMIST "MILLI GORUS" ON RULING AKP?

REF: A. ANKARA 1842

B. ANKARA 348

C. ANKARA 2074


(U) Classified by Polcounselor John Kunstadter; reasons: 1.4
(b,d).



1. (C) Summary: PM Erdogan's reforms in pursuit of Turkey's
EU candidacy suggest there is truth in his assertions that he
and AKP hew to western concepts of democracy. At the same
time, many in AKP and the Turkish "secular" establishment
worry that because Erdogan and other AKP founders came out of
the Islamist movement Milli Gorus (MG) and MG adherents,
though in a minority, are found throughout AKP, the party is
vulnerable to control by MG. It appears to us that, as long
as Erdogan maintains momentum toward making AKP into a
centrist party, MG will remain a drag but not a determinant
factor. End summary.



2. (C) Has ruling AKP has truly transformed itself into a
"conservative democrat" party of the center? Or, given the
past of its founders, does AKP remain merely an offshoot of
Milli Gorus (National View),the movement of Turkey's
guardian of political Islam Necmettin Erbakan?



3. (C) AKP's leader Erdogan asserts he has changed, become
democratic, embraced the EU and good relations with the U.S.
His pragmatism, rhetoric far different from the past, actions
on Cyprus and in favor of reform and Turkey's EU candidacy,
and personal ambition suggest there is truth to his
assertion. FonMin Abdullah Gul has also put great energy
into Turkey's EU candidacy and delivered major speeches
calling for reform in the Muslim world at OIC conferences in
Tehran and Kuala Lumpur. Most of the M.P.s and party
provincial chairmen with an MG past whom we maintain contact
with also assert they have changed. AKP projects a much more
mass-party orientation and its public rhetoric avoids the
Islam-drenched vocabulary of Erbakan and his movement.
Erbakan in turn scorns Erdogan (but not Gul) with sly
condescension, highlighting a deep and personal split.



4. (C) Therefore, establishmentarian columnist Sedat Ergin's
Feb. 29 assertion (picked up and disseminated further by at
least one Washington think-tank) that 80% of AKP's mayoral
candidates represented MG, aside from providing no basis for
his claim, obscures three essential questions. First, what
is MG? Second, how far have MG types in AKP changed?
Second, how much influence does MG have over Erdogan and
party decisions?


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THE NATURE OF MILLI GORUS
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5. (C) As summarized in ref (A) MG types wrap themselves in
prejudice and Islamist rhetoric, interpreting both Islam and
the world in an arid, conspiratorial, anti-democratic way.
In this sense, they bear careful watching. However, they are
arch-hypocrites and willing to overlook their alleged
Islamist principles to make deals beneficial to themselves
and their narrow circle. In this sense, their
too-clever-by-half duality works against them. Regarding
MG's focus on material benefits, one of the basic motives for
the break with Erbakan was the frustration on Erdogan's,
Gul's, and others' part that Erbakan's inner circle was
hoarding the substantial inflow of contributions, especially
from MG in Germany (the common estimate we heard several
years ago was two million DM a month).


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HAS AKP BLEACHED MILLI GORUS?
--------------



6. (C) Reflecting the duality within MG, opinions are mixed
about how far those in AKP from the MG line have changed.
AKP Afyon M.P. Mahmut Kocak, ex-center right DYP and thus by
his pragmatic nature opposed to MG, complained to us in
bitter frustration about how the MG hold on the AKP Afyon
organization led to the choice of a colorless, pliant mayoral
candidate and has blocked Kocak's ability to get can-do
candidates appointed to key civil service posts in the
province. Yet in a later conversation he dismissed claims
that MG influence is a danger to AKP's centrist direction
since, as he averred, MG types are forced to adapt to
Erdogan's more centrist, pragmatic vision whether they like
it or not.

7. (C) In this vein AKP whip Sadullah Ergin, who comes from
the MG line, has long tried to assert to us -- although each
time with a classically MG expression of vague and passive
acceptance -- that MG types recognize they have to
change...and are changing. Yet we recently witnessed him in
classic MG mode patronizing three of the leading AKP women
M.P.s, who were pointing out to him the need for more women
in the party's leadership.



8. (C) AKP deputy chairman for policy Dengir Firat, who says
he is called an infidel by the outwardly more pious AKP
M.P.s, resents what he sees as the continuing dead hand of MG
on the party, especially at the provincial level (ref A).
AKP Erzurum-Ispir district chairman Osman Cakir was one of
several independently-minded, salt-of-the-earth district
chairmen in the northeast who told us last autumn they would
leave the party if the MG types did not change; Cakir did
leave and won the Ispir mayoral election as an independent.



9. (C) Views of pious Turks outside the party are split.
Renowned calligrapher Ismet Keten, formerly an activist in
rightist-nationalist MHP and with extensive contacts among
various religious brotherhoods, dismisses MG as a corrupt,
spent force. On the other hand, Bedreddin Habiboglu, son of
a famous Islamic theologian and himself an expert on Islam,
asserts MG types are indelibly tainted by their collectivist
(secret lodge) approach to Islam and will never be able to
think for themselves. Likewise, an upper-mid-level police
intelligence official stationed in central Anatolia tells us
that in his experience MG types throughout the heart of
Anatolia are only pretending to change. When they think they
are among friends they still speak of the U.S. as their main
enemy and acknowledge their change is only a facade.



10. (S) Other long-time Embassy contacts also voice mixed
assessments. Leading national security analyst Faruk Demir,
whom we have seen recently drafting a series of eyes-only
security and foreign policy analyses hand-delivered to
Erdogan, points out that Erdogan has never explained how he
has changed or developed. Demir, who had a religious
education including graduation from a preacher (imam-hatip)
high school, is also uneasy with Erdogan's bristling
rejection of a connection between Islam and terrorism.



11. (S) But Demir concurs with long-time Erdogan confidant
Mustafa Birbilen (aka Bilginer),who sees Erdogan as having
distanced himself from MG for several reasons (ref B). Both
Demir and Birbilen agree with the widespread assessment in
AKP and among other who follow the party closely (e.g.,
Bedreddin Habiboglu, Islam-oriented "Yeni Safak"'s diplomatic
correspondent Duygu Guvenc, Islam-oriented "Zaman" columnist
and sociologist Nevval Sevindi) that, underneath his
reasonable exterior, FonMin Gul remains much closer to MG
ideological precepts than Erdogan.


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THE MILLI GORUS IMPACT ON AKP
--------------



12. (C) On core foreign policy questions such as EU candidacy
or continued close adherence to NATO, MG has had no
discernible influence. Likewise on Cyprus, although "Yeni
Safak"'s Duygu Guvenc avers that at times FonMin Gul's
approach -- e.g., his openly friendly overtures to Rauf
Denktash just before the February meetings at which the
parties agreed to re-open negotiations -- suggests that,
while he supports a settlement, he's trying to carve out a
margin for maneuver from Erdogan's forthright line. On
"Eurasia" and policy toward Syria and Iran, Gul's and foreign
policy advisor Ahmet Davutoglu's approach contains Islamist
tones, although to call the approach MG would be to miss
nuances.



13. (C) Some appointees in national-level positions, e.g.,
Prime Ministry Undersecretary Omer Dincer, have clear
Islamist tendencies; in the words of one contact, "to say
that Dincer is not MG is to assume a heavy responsibility."
Given the wide assortment of advisors around Erdogan, it does
not appear that Dincer has undue influence at present.
Samsun M.P. Musa Uzunkaya, a former mufti (civil servant
supervisor of mosques and imams) and a founder of AKP, was
one of the first MG types to join Erdogan as he split from
Erbakan, and appears to be one of Erdogan's main channels for
controlling the MG fraction of perhaps 40 M.P.s (15
hard-core) in AKP's parliamentary group. In our experience
Uzunkaya retains the classic MG physical appearance and
mannerisms but is shrewd enough to sense that he must adapt
to keep up with Erdogan's move toward the center.



14. (C) From our own observation and by admission of scores
of AKP M.P.s and local party officials we have talked to
across the country, MG types remain in control of many of
AKP's provincial organizations. Kemal Kaya, legislative
assistant to liberal-conservative NATO parliamentary group
chairman (and former ANAPer) Vahit Erdem, confirmed to us
Erdem's discomfort at MG's influence in the selection of
mayoral candidates for the March 28 local elections. Several
contacts in or close to AKP acknowledged to us that Gul
adamantly opposed Erdogan's choice of incumbent Melih Gokcek,
a latecomer to AKP and too independent, nationalist, and
ambitious for MG tastes, as AKP's mayoral candidate for
metropolitan Ankara. Telling us infighting between MG types
and the AKP mainstream is now fiercer than AKP's competition
with other parties, liberal-conservative AKP deputy chairman
for foreign affairs Saban Disli averred that MG is powerful
but not so powerful as some media reports indicate. Erdogan
will now seek to lop off MG extremists, Disli asserted.


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COMMENT
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15. (C) In our view, MG types in AKP are in a minority. They
are a drag but not a fully operational brake on AKP's
consolidation and transformation into a centrist party. They
will remain under pressure to adapt to the extent that
momentum to move AKP toward the center remains with Erdogan,
who has moved substantially away from the full-blown MG
environment of his youth and his work in MG founder Erbakan's
parties.



16. (C) But in the context of the challenges facing Erdogan
outlined in reftels, open questions remain. First, how the
Erdogan-Gul dynamic will play out in terms of appointments.
Second, how Erdogan will be able to keep Gul in line on
foreign policy ("Aksam" Ankara bureau chief Nuray Basaran,
who has the best access to Erdogan of all correspondents we
know, tells us Erdogan has heard that Gul is disparaging him
to foreign interlocutors). Third, how Erdogan will have the
time and energy to clean MG's influence out of the provincial
organizations.




EDELMAN