Turkey Analyst,
vol. 3 no. 11
7 June 2010

WHAT THE COLUMNISTS SAY

The near-simultaneous Israeli boarding of the Turkish, Gaza bound ferry Mavi Marmara and the PKK attack against the Turkish naval base in the Mediterranean port of İskenderun have led several Turkish commentators – and politicians – to raise the specter of a possible Israeli attempt to destabilize Turkey.  Although far from everyone is convinced that Israel was actually behind the PKK attack, there is concern that the current Turkish-Israeli confrontation could indeed at some future point induce Israel to consider targeting Turkey’s Achilles’ heel, the Kurdish problem.  Meanwhile, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, the new leader of the opposition Republican People’s party (CHP), caught attention when he condemned military interventions in politics. However, that principled stance has not been sufficient to endear the new CHP leader to the commentators in the pro-AKP media who generally write him off as a representative of the old state establishment.

ERGİN: TURKISH POLITICIANS RAISE THE SPECTER OF ISRAELI INVOLVEMENT IN PKK ATTACK AGAINST NAVY BASE
Sedat Ergin in Hürriyet observes that leading Turkish politicians are prone to see a linkage between the Israeli boarding of the Turkish ferry Mavi Marmara en route to Gaza that resulted in the deaths of eight Turkish nationals and the near simultaneous PKK attack against the Turkish naval base in the Mediterranean city of İskenderun that left seven Turkish soldiers dead. Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, the new leader of the opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) noted that it is “indeed significant that such an attack takes place in an environment where the operations of the Israeli armed forces are ongoing.”  And Hüseyin Çelik, vice chairman of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) stated that “we don’t see it as a coincidence that our soldiers were martyred on the same day as the Gaza attack. Whenever Turkey becomes an important voice in the global community, whenever it stands to take off from the tarmac, someone – be it foreign powers or some intermediary in Turkey – intervenes in order to disrupt its peace and stability.”

GÜRSEL: TURKEY SHOULD WATCH OUT, ISRAEL MAY USE THE PKK
Kadri Gürsel in Milliyet writes that it is of course significant that the PKK attack against the navy base in İskenderun and the Israeli military operation against the Gaza flotilla took place on the same day. It really doesn’t matter if PKK acted as the intermediary of Israel or whether the PKK attack was intended as a message to Israel; with the organization offering its services to Israel, asking for support in return for carrying out acts of violence that destabilize Turkey. For as long as Turkey pursues a foreign policy that sticks close to Hamas and shelters its militancy, the Israeli interest in the extreme elements of the PKK will increase accordingly. The PKK represents a potential ally for Israel, should that country conclude that it needs covert and hostile cooperation in Turkey, just like Syria and Iran once did.  Turkey will invite interventions that threaten its own order and stability if it persists in its attempts to impose “order” in the Middle East without first having resolved the Kurdish question at home.

MERT: WHAT WE SHOULD BE EXPECTING FROM THE CHP
Nuray Mert in Radikal reminds that it is often, wrongly, asserted that the most important political issue in Turkey is unemployment and poverty. However, that is not the really defining issue of Turkish politics; it is the tensions generated by the two main fault lines of our society that determine the content of politics. One of these ruptures is the secularist-conservative confrontation. The other rift is about the nation-state and the Kurdish demands. No political discourse or party that neglects to take these ruptures into due consideration will be in a position to make any significant contribution to the resolution of our political crisis. If the CHP uses a social democratic rhetoric as a convenient excuse for abstaining from democratizing the traditional republican ideology then the change of the party will not reap any substantial benefits. The mission of the CHP should be to help bring about a grand reconciliation: of the republic and secularism with the conservative masses. The CHP and its base must acknowledge that the “republican” values that they consider to be under threat will only be secured if they are reinterpreted in a way that contributes to societal concord.

BİLA:  “MILITARY COUPS CAN NEVER BE EXCUSED”
Fikret Bila from Milliyet has interviewed CHP leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu who clarifies where he stands on the matter of military interventions in politics. Kılıçdaroğlu’s remark that those who were responsible for the coup in 1960 are ashamed of themselves today has caught attention. He is equally unequivocal about the subsequent coups as well as about the e-memorandum of the General staff in 2007 and the intervention in 1997. “At the time, I was against the e-memorandum, and I still am. Military interventions in politics are unacceptable, whatever form they take. I don’t view the intervention in 1997 (the so-called post-modern coup that eventually resulted in the resignation of the civilian government) as an ordinary coup, since the government itself caved in to the demands of the military. I think that was wrong, and I think that Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan should indeed have resisted the military. If he and his government had stood up against the military, the support of the political institutions and of society would have been forthcoming. For instance, when the General staff issued its e-memorandum in 2007, the government held its ground, and the matter was subsequently closed. The civilian authorities should have acted similarly in 1997.”

SEVİMAY:  THERE IS NO STRONG YEARNING FOR A SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC ALTERNATIVE
Devrim Sevimay in Milliyet has interviewed the authors of the newly published report “Societal inequality in Turkey”, Professors Ali Çarkoğlu and Ersin Kalaycıoğlu. Their report offers clues about the prospects of a social democratic alternative in Turkey:  “The claim that there is a strong yearning for a social democratic party in Turkey is somewhat overblown. Since the 1980s the mentality of Turkish society has on the contrary become incredibly conservative. The electorate is overwhelmingly amassed at the right. Thus, the CHP has two major, structural obstacles to overcome: First it must create a social democratic electorate, and secondly it has to cope with the fact that very few voters actually identify themselves as working class, which means that the party stands to make almost no electoral headway with any class based rhetoric. That basically leaves the CHP with the only option of meeting up where the voters are – that is doing what the British Labor party did in 1997 when it successfully copied the message of the conservatives.”

© Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program Joint Center, 2010. This article may be reprinted provided that the following sentence be included: "This article was first published in the Turkey Analyst (www.turkeyanalyst.org), a biweekly publication of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program Joint Center".

The Turkey Analyst
The Turkey Analyst is a publication of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Joint Center, designed to bring authoritative analysis and news on the rapidly developing domestic and foreign policy issues in Turkey. It is published weekly, and includes a topical analysis, as well as translations and summaries of selected Turkish news reports. It is edited and compiled under the supervision of Svante E. Cornell, Halil M. Karaveli, and M. K. Kaya.

The analyses appearing in the Turkey Analyst are often written by the three Editors. The Turkey Analyst occasionally publishes signed guest analyses.

The Joint Center
The Joint Center was created in 2005 through the merger of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute, at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies, and the Silk Road Studies Program, at the Stockholm-based Institute for Security and Development Policy.

The Turkey Initiative
The Joint Center launched a Turkey Initiative in 2006 in order to improve understand of Turkish domestic and foreign affairs in Europe and the United States.

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