RESIGNATION OF TURKEY'S SECGEN FOR EU AFFAIRS

C O N F I D E N T I A L ANKARA 004619 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 08/08/2015 TAGS: PREL PGOV PINS TU EUN SUBJECT: RESIGNATION OF TURKEY'S SECGEN FOR EU AFFAIRS REFLECTS DISARRAY IN AKP GOVERNMENT'S EU POLICY (U) Classified by Polcounselor John Kunstadter; reasons: E.O. 12958 1.4 (b,d). ¶1. (C) Summary: The resignation of Turkey's Secretary General for EU Affairs, a senior career diplomat highly regarded by his EU interlocutors, reflects a drift in ruling AKP's EU policies. The resignation also foreshadows a fundamental political struggle between the secular State and Islamist-oriented AKP. End summary. ¶2. (U) Murat Sungar, Turkey's Secretary General for EU Affairs and a career diplomat with 37 years' service, announced Aug. 5 that he is resigning effective Sept. 30, three days before Turkey is scheduled to begin accession negotiations with the EU. While marginalized and left undermanned and isolated in offices on the outskirts of Ankara by the AKP government, the EU Secretariat and Sungar have been Turkey's principal bureaucratic link with Brussels and EU capitals, a link valued and trusted by Brussels and EU ambassadors in Ankara. ¶3. (C) In his statement to the press Sungar hoped his resignation would give the AKP government the possibility to work with "people of compatible political views." Seasoned observers we talked to Aug. 6, including a counselor at the Prime Ministry, noted that Sungar's statement was a graceful but pointed way of indicating the gulf between the secular, rational, Euro-oriented corporate culture of Turkey's MFA and the elusive, Islamist-oriented, closed culture of AKP. ¶4. (C) Aug. 6 centrist "Hurriyet", Turkey's largest-circulation daily, and left-of-center "Milliyet", owned by the same Dogan media group, featured the story with banner page 1 headlines. One of our best contacts, a pre-eminent national security analyst, told us that "Hurriyet"'s deputy editor Enis Berberoglu had called him Aug. 6 to underscore that the banner headline reflected the Dogan group's assessment that Sungar's resignation is stark evidence of the deep tension between the secular culture of the Turkish State and the ever-clearer Islamist priorities and ad hoc approach to the EU of the AKP government. ¶5. (C) AKP's attempt to squelch the news was evident both in the reluctance of Turkey's main TV channels (with the partial exception of NTV) to give play to the story Aug. 6 and in the venomous coverage of the story in Aug. 7 Islamist "Yeni Safak" the de facto press organ of AKP. Using a derogatory headline implying that Sungar is both effete and deracinated, "Yeni Safak" blamed Sungar for the lack in Turkey's preparation for screening and harmonization and asserted without any grounds that he resigned because he had been miffed at not being given a senior ambassadorship in Europe. ¶6. (C) Comment: Caught up in a Byzantine political rivalry with FonMin Gul, PM Erdogan waited almost five months to appoint a chief negotiator (and then chose a minister without political clout in the Cabinet). Erdogan also avoided travel to any EU capital for seven months after the Dec. 17 EU summit but gave Gul no leeway to move forward with the EU in the meantime. In this context, Sungar was left with no political direction and was granted no power by the AKP government effectively to coordinate preparations for the start of screening and harmonization. His resignation reflects his frustration at AKP's drift and lack of a convincing EU strategy. On a broader plane, his departure is a prelude to the approaching fundamental political struggle between the secular State and a party in power which appears more and more determined to change the nature of the State. MCELDOWNEY