THE CURRENT STATE OF AFFAIRS: CONVERSATION WITH

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 ISTANBUL 000335

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 06/18/2028
TAGS: PGOV PREL TU
SUBJECT: THE CURRENT STATE OF AFFAIRS: CONVERSATION WITH
SOLI OZEL

REF: 06 ISTANBUL 625

Classified By: Consul General Sharon A. Wiener for reasons 1.4 (b) and
(d).


1. (C) Summary. U.S.-educated, Bilgi University Professor
Soli Ozel offered us a tour d'horizon of the political
situation in Turkey. Like other observers we've seen over
the last several weeks, Ozel expresses bitter disappointment
that the Justice and Development Party (AKP) squandered
political capital following their July 2007 election sweep.
Instead of aggressively working the larger reform agenda -
both political and economic - AKP focused on parochial
issues. According to Ozel, some who saw the AKP as a liberal
democratic champion in Turkey have become disillusioned and
are now searching for alternatives. End summary.

OZAL'S REFORMS EMPOWERED NEW ELITE
--------------


2. (C) Ozel labeled as oligarchic Turkey's traditional
political and economic orders. But a major disruption
occurred in 1980 when Turgut Ozal, as a new undersecretary
for economic affairs ("open, daring, quick-witted") under
Prime Minister Suleyman Demirel, crafted and introduced
extensive, market-based economic reforms into the
then-statist Turkish economy. The September 12 coup that
year closed a chapter on an evolving transition leading away
from oligarchy toward a maturing - less controlled - order.
The momentous historical events of the 1980s reached a climax
for Turkey on November 9, 1989, when the Berlin Wall crumbled
(basically ending the communist threat) and Turgut Ozal
became the 9th president of Turkey. Soli Ozel says the
(military) drafters of the 1982 constitution had assumed the
Cold War would never end and the president of Turkey would
always be a former military general or someone very close to
the military. With communism on the wane, Turkey's strategic
value to the west appeared in jeopardy - something to which
the traditional, secular elite were especially sensitive.
Ozal's election as president challenged that oligarchic
political order just as the economic reforms initiated in
1980 undercut their control of Turkey's economy, which
subsequently integrated into the world economy.


3. (C) Ozal's market-based economic reforms led to the rise
of heretofore unknown economic power houses in Anatolia; no
longer could just a few control the country's economic
resources and structure. These new spheres of significant
economic strength were usually pious and culturally
conservative, a far cry from the traditional Turkish elite
foreigners met and easily mixed with up to that time. The
love/hate relationship of this traditional elite with the
West, begun in 1921, soured and cooled as both economic and
eventually political control began slipping from their grasp.
They blamed this loss on liberalizing ideas from the West
with the United States receiving the most blame. Ozel
characterizes the 1990s in Turkey as a series of crises
within a framework of societal transformation driven by
forces of reform. In the new millennium, AKP became an agent
of this transformational change, but in its second term has
failed to live up to its earlier promise to effectively
shepherd liberalizing changes.

ROLE OF WOMEN: CRITICAL IN ISLAMIST IMAGINATION
-------------- --


4. (C) Within Islamist thought, protecting private life from
infringement is a critical issue. Religions generally fight
the intrusion of the state into these matters. In Turkey,
women are the vital touchstone of the sanctity of the family.
According to Ozel, the headscarf is a convention that
permits women to venture into places, such as the classroom
and workplace, otherwise forbidden. From this perspective,
the headscarf is the most potent symbol of new-found freedom.


5. (C) But while the AKP genuinely desires the education of
women, Ozel observes that it also wants women to stay at
home. He is disturbed by statistics indicating the number of
women in the workforce has fallen from 28 to 23 percent in
the last five years, with fewer women found as employees of
the state bureaucracy. When these pious women "face
misogyny, they are powerless." Ozel claims there is no
original thinking ongoing to address the contemporary needs
and roles of women within AKP or the official religious
establishment, the Religious Affairs Directorate (Diyanet),
in Turkey. Even if the AKP could enlarge the scope of women,
they would not, says Ozel, which reflects the AKP problem.


ISTANBUL 00000335 002 OF 002


NATURAL RHYTHM OF TURKEY: WITH THE WEST
--------------


6. (C) While the natural rhythm of Turkey since Ataturk has
been toward the West, among the secular elite, an
anti-western tendency is stronger now than at any time since
the founding of the republic, Ozel argues. The secular elite
feel themselves in an existential struggle with those
propounding democracy in Turkey. As a result, if aligning
with the West means fully democratic governance, then the
secular elite have no choice but to jettison the West.
Tragically, while the AKP espouses democracy, the AKP's
understanding of democracy is neither really liberal nor
truly democratic, according to Ozel. This is all the more
disheartening since the AKP effectively created space to
further democratic development - in keeping with the
country's westward-looking rhythm. The Prime Minister,
sadly, fails to exercise the leadership needed to filter his
true impulses in order to guide this transformation. The AKP
has a shallow understanding of democracy; with last July's
electoral success went to its head and it turned
"majoritarian." It appears the AKP could not or cannot
delink itself from its pious Anatolian roots. A new
oligarchy now competes with an old one.


7. (C) One western-oriented Turk who is a lightening rod of
this new competition is Kemal Dervis, who left the World Bank
after 22 years to become Turkey's minister of economic
affairs in 2001. He was appointed following what many
consider Turkey's most severe economic crisis. Though he
joined the Republican People's Party (CHP) upon resigning
his ministerial post in 2002, the secular elite today
believes the West sent him to "kill Turkey's secular
parties," according to Ozel. This perceived life and death
struggle leads directly to the secular elite's disdain for
the West. (Note: Dervis established a IMF-approved
macroeconomic stabilization program which entailed
significant structural reforms, as well as comprehensive
financial sector reforms that shielded banks from political
use. He also procured $20 billion in loans from the IMF and
World Bank for Turkey; inflation running about 70 percent
through the 1990s fell to 12 percent by 2003.)

BUT AVERAGE TURKS FEEL OUTSIDE HELP NECESSARY
--------------


8. (C) (The severe economic crisis of 2001 was greatly
aggravated when then-PM Bulent Ecevit stormed out of an NSC
meeting charging that President Sezer had leveled accusations
against him using impolite language. Ozel points to this and
other events to marshal his argument that Turkey is so far
incapable of solving systemic obstructions to a level playing
field where liberal democracy can flourish.) In the current
situation, Turks intuitively understand the country needs
outside help to provide structure for a fair debate. That's
why support for EU membership recently shot up to 62 percent,
despite the fundamental unfairness in the way the EU has
handled Turkey's membership bid, per Ozel. Turkey's
authoritarian tendencies short-circuit a freely competitive
process. Ataturk's true ideals did not long survive him;
Kemalism is not, Ozel stated, what the Turkish Republic's
founder had in mind. (See reftel for comment by Erdal Inonu
on Ataturk, democracy, westernization.)


9. (C) "The void created by the current U.S. administration
is partially responsible for the disruption of traditional
American influence," says Ozel. Ambivalence among the
secular elite toward the West further weakens the U.S.'
stabilizing influence on Turkey. While mindful of a danger
of secularists pushing Turkey from its western orientation,
he is confident they will turn back from the precipice -
lacking viable alternatives - at the last moment.


10. (C) Comment. Ozel is emblematic of those who are deeply
disappointed with the AKP for failing to foster a
breakthrough to greater liberal democracy in Turkey. These
observers placed high hopes in the AKP. Now they recognize
that an imperfect AKP is not enough, but have yet to come up
with a formula for how to continue to move this society
forward. End comment.
WIENER