NUMAN KURTULMUS: SAADET'S GENTLER AND KINDER FACE

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 ANKARA 000301 SIPDIS DEPARTMENT ALSO FOR EUR/SE E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/24/2020 TAGS: PGOV TU ELAB PREL ECON SUBJECT: NUMAN KURTULMUS: SAADET'S GENTLER AND KINDER FACE REF: A. ANKARA 296 ¶B. 09 ANKARA 390 Classified By: POL Counselor Daniel O'Grady, for reasons: 1.4(b,d) ¶1. (C) SUMMARY: During a recent dinner hosted by the religious Saadet Party (SP),Chairman Numan Kurtulmus outlined the party's ideology, outlook, and priorities. Kurtulmus's presentation of his party's conservative views on democracy, human rights, the economy, and foreign policy were calm and well-argued, with room to understand and address -- if not adopt -- starkly differing positions. Though his public persona to date has been confrontational, in person he appears able to agree to disagree on contentious points, and, perhaps more importantly, claims to be independent from the influence of SP's eminence grise, former PM Necmettin Erbakan. END SUMMARY. ¶2. (C) Saadet Party (SP) recently invited PolCouns and Poloff to dinner, and over an extended traditional Anatolian meal, SP Chairman Kurtulmus presented the SP not as a religious party, but as a populist party in touch with the traditional values of the people of Anatolia. He admits that religion does, therefore, play a strong role among the party grass-roots, but claims that "even some leftists call us a liberal party." He claims solidarity, for instance, with the striking TEKEL workers, who he believes have not been treated fairly by the government during privatizations. He argues that the government needs more, not less, presence in the economy. Citing some calculations, he asserts that it would only cost a small percentage of the Turkish government's budget to set up joint projects with private companies in impoverished areas as a way to create jobs and soften the burden of the economic downturn. He said that such state-led industries could be part of the solution for the poor economic situation in the southeast, which the government points to as one of the main contributing factors to recruitment by terrorist groups. ¶3. (C) On the subject of foreign policy, Kurtulmus asserted that the main conflict of the future would not be one of cultures or religions, but an economic one between the rich north and the poor south. He claimed that the West has to be sensitive to this divide and must do more to help poor countries to develop, otherwise warfare and terrorism will continue to thrive. He lamented that the international 
economic system -- implying the World Bank and the IMF -- works to the benefit of Western economies at the expense of poor nations. Kurtulmus agreed with us that a large part of building strong economies is creating robust, independent, and transparent institutions, and the countries that have been able to cross the north-south divide are those that have been able to establish such institutions. ¶4. (C) The 300-pound gorilla at the table was the subject of Israel, about which Kurtulmus was surprisingly low-key. He did not jump at opportunities to criticize US support of Israel (whereas most other Turkish politicians savor delivering such diatribes),but occasionally touched on it. He noted that the Israel-Palestinian conflict was not simply a conflict between Judaism and Islam, pointing out that some of the Palestinian protesters in Gaza are Christians, and he said he made a point while participating in last year's pro-Gaza protests to carry a picture of a Christian Palestinian woman killed by the Israelis. ¶5. (C) COMMENT: Kurtulmus is something of a different face for SP. Its previous leaders and administrators were largely former engineers, doctors, and scientists who have grown long in the tooth. Kurtulmus is a professor of business administration (still lecturing at Bilkent University, a job he feels helps him relax and recharge). He received a doctorate in Labor Relations from Cornell University (living there for four years in the 1970s) and speaks English well, ANKARA 00000301 002 OF 002 if haltingly. Perhaps even more importantly, he claims that although he is on good personal terms with the eminence grise of Turkey's Islamist parties, former Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan, "I have not gotten one bit of political advice from him, and neither have I given him advice." This apparent independence is in stark contrast to the term of Fazilet Party Chairman Recai Kutan, who was widely regarded in the press and political circles as Erbakan's proxy. ¶6. (C) COMMENT (Cont.): SP's older guard has been largely invisible since Kurtulmus's rise to the chairmanship, underscoring a public message that SP is different from its predecessors. SP still chooses to be confrontational on occasion, for example when organizing and participating in anti-Israel protests and in feeding misunderstandings about US Mission activities in Turkey (See REF A, which stemmed from Saadet's complaint about a sentence in the International Religious Freedom Report). Such stances ensure that Saadet maintains the attention of the press. Still, we found Kurtulmus in person both approachable and reflective, qualities that already are bolstering his political reputation and SP's electoral prospects -- much to AKP's dismay. Jeffrey "Visit Ankara's Classified Web Site at http://www.intelink.s gov.gov/wiki/Portal:Turkey"