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### Viewing cable 07ANKARA648, THE TRUTH BEHIND THE AKP'S "SECRET ISLAMIC AGENDA"

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Reference ID | Date | Classification | Origin
--- | --- | --- | ---
07ANKARA648 | 2007-03-21 15:03 | CONFIDENTIAL | Embassy Ankara

`

    VZCZCXRO1479
    PP RUEHDBU RUEHFL RUEHKW RUEHLA RUEHROV RUEHSR
    DE RUEHAK #0648/01 0801533
    ZNY CCCCC ZZH
    P 211533Z MAR 07
    FM AMEMBASSY ANKARA
    TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 1409
    INFO RUEHZL/EUROPEAN POLITICAL COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
    RUEAIIA/CIA WASHDC PRIORITY
    RHEFDIA/DIA WASHDC PRIORITY
    RUEKJCS/JOINT STAFF WASHDC//J-3/J-5// PRIORITY
    RHEHAAA/NSC WASHDC PRIORITY
    RUEUITH/ODC ANKARA TU PRIORITY
    RUEKJCS/SECDEF WASHDC PRIORITY
    RUEUITH/TLO ANKARA TU PRIORITY
    RUEHAK/USDAO ANKARA TU PRIORITY

` `

    C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 ANKARA 000648

    SIPDIS

    SIPDIS

    E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/04/2017
    TAGS: PGOV PREL ECON TU
    SUBJECT: THE TRUTH BEHIND THE AKP'S "SECRET ISLAMIC AGENDA"

    REF: A. ANKARA 0629
         ¶B. ANKARA 0610

    Classified By: Political Counselor Janice G. Weiner for reasons 1.4(b),
     (d)

    ¶1. (C) Summary.  Ever since its victory in the 2002 general
    elections, rumours and suspicion have swirled around the
    ruling Justice and Development Party's (AKP) "secret"
    Islamist agenda.  After more than four years in power, some
    doubters are relieved to find an AKP that appears
    conservative, Western- as well as Islam-oriented, reform
    minded and democratic.  Others remain convinced that AKP is
    determined to impose Sharia law in Turkey and undermine the
    country's secular system once it gains control of the triple
    crown - the presidency, prime ministry and parliament - in
    this year's double elections.  The evidence either way is
    circumstantial, but the issue is central to Turkey's future.
    Turkey's traditional secularists (including the civil
    service, judiciary and military), opposition parties and even
    ultra and neo-nationalists are resorting to increasingly
    desperate maneuvers, including rumour and innuendo, to
    counter the perceived "threat" of an AKP-dominated
    triumverate.  Their concern is undoubtedly heightened by the
    realization that AKP's reform agenda threatens the
    established elite's traditional, top-down control.  To keep
    the public's trust and minimize tension as Turkish society
    evolves, AKP leaders will need to continue to employ
    broad-reaching, moderate, balanced rhetoric.  End summary.

    The Origins of Suspicion
    ------------------------
    ¶2. (SBU)  Those looking to brand the AKP as Islamists
    determined to undermine the Turkish Republic point first to
    the AKP's religious origins and PM Erdogan's political roots.
     AKP evolved from Necmettin Erbakan's Welfare Party (RP), an
    Islamist party founded in 1993.  Critics focus on Erdogan,
    who in 1994 as Istanbul's mayor, called himself the "imam of
    Istanbul" and praised God that he was a servant of Sharia.
    Later, in 1998, Erdogan served four months of a 10-month
    sentence for inciting religious hatred by reading a religious
    poem at a rally.  When the Constitutional Court outlawed the
    RP in 1998, Erdogan and other RP members formed the
    Islamic-oriented Virtue Party (FP).  When FP was banned in
    2001 for unconstitutional anti-secular activities, Erdogan
    split off from Erbakan and formed AKP with more pragmatic
    members willing to work within the existing political system.
     Erbakan and more hardcore Islamists formed Saadet (Felicity)
    Party.  Erdogan moderated his rhetoric, making it easier for
    voters to turn to AKP in the 2002 elections as an alternative
    to traditional parties, mired in scandals, corruption and an
    economic crisis.  AKP surged to power with 34 percent of the
    vote, one of the largest parliamentary majorities in Turkey's
    history.

    For the Defense
    ---------------
    ¶3. (C)  Those who view AKP as reform-minded and democratic
    are quick to cite AKP-backed reforms that strengthened
    freedoms and democracy.  AKP legislation that reduced the
    military's influence in the National Secuity Council (MGK)
    and eliminated military membership in the security courts and
    the Board of Higher Education (YOK), among others, improved
    the civil-military equilibrium that had been heavily skewed
    toward military control.  They cite as evidence of the
    party's western-oriented, free market approach AKP's liberal
    economic policies, which have stimulated the private sector,
    increased foreign investment, reduced inflation and
    stabilized the currency.  AKP supporters argue that Turkey's
    traditional power centers (the military, judiciary,
    bureacracy) feel threatened by EU-linked human rights and
    rule of law reforms that enhance individual freedoms.  By
    promoting EU membership, the AKP is slowly introducing more
    balance into Turkey's strictly secular, statist society.
    Supporters maintain that Erdogan's appointment of AKP
    loyalists to influential positions previously held by
    secularists has generated resentment against the AKP, further
    fueled by the party's popularity.  They frame attacks against
    the party as desperate measures by entrenched secularists who
    fear that further democratization will undermine their
    traditional control and the economic benefits they derived
    from state intervention in the economy.

    ¶4. (C)  Opponents charge that AKP only pushed a reform agenda

    ANKARA 00000648  002 OF 004

    as far as necessary to convince the EU to begin accession
    talks.  Even then, AKP focused on those reforms needed to
    dilute the military's power rather than those that might
    interfere with the party's Islamic agenda.  They note
    Erdogan's support for greater freedom to express Islamic
    practices (such as wearing the headscarf), and point to his
    failure to allow Alevis, Kurds, Armenian and Greek Orthodox
    communities similar freedoms.  Suspicious that the accession
    process is just a cover for the AKP's anti-secular Islamic
    agenda, some in the military and opposition are reconsidering
    the merits of EU membership.  AKP officials admit reform
    efforts have slowed, but explain that Turkey's bureaucracy
    needs time to absorb and implement significant changes, such
    as the complete overhaul of the Penal Code, Criminal
    Procedure Code and Punishments Law passed between 2002 and
    ¶2004.  They also note that parliament passed in November 2006
    much of another major reform package, including legislation
    relating to minority foundations and schools, military
    audits, military courts and political party funding.  In some
    cases, parliament has had to re-approve the legislation to
    overcome President Sezer's veto.

    Circumstantial Evidence
    -----------------------
    ¶5. (C)  Conspiracy theorists and concerned secularists alike
    build the case against AKP using persuasive but largely
    circumstantial evidence.  Many claim that Erdogan has used
    AKP's parliamentary majority to weaken Turkey's secular
    educational, financial and judicial institutions.  They warn
    that an AKP troika of president, PM and parliament speaker
    would control the appointments process, transforming Turkey's
    secular system into something approaching an Islamic
    republic.  They point to AKP-sponsored changes in the
    strictly secular education system to allow graduates of
    religious high schools (imam hatip) to compete for limited
    university seats and qualify for government jobs.
    Previously, imam hatip, like other vocational school
    graduates, advanced to the clergy or other appropriate
    professions.  In addition, opponents charge that AKP has
    undermined state regulation of private Koranic schools by
    lifting age limits and extending hours of attendance.  As a
    result, the number of Koranic schools has increased
    significantly, with correspondingly less government
    oversight.

    ¶6. (C) Erdogan is also frequently accused of trying to
    infiltrate the higher education system with Islamist-minded
    professors and administrators.  After some university rectors
    resisted AKP efforts to introduce more Islam into the
    curriculum, AKP opponents claimed the government began a
    harrassment campaign.  Police arrested one obstinate rector
    in Van twice in 2006; both times he was reinstated by court
    decision.  Legislation creating 15 new universities gave the
    government authority to appoint the new rectors, rather than
    the usual procedure of approvals by YOK and the president.
    The law, pushed through over President Sezer's veto, is
    viewed as an end-run to allow Erdogan to select 15 new
    rectors of his mindset.  Parliament currently is considering
    a proposal to establish another 17 new universities.

    Green Money Seeping In
    ----------------------
    ¶7. (C)  While many acknowledge AKP economic successes, some
    doubters flag the alleged influx of "green" money from
    Islamic sources as proof of the real direction AKP is taking
    Turkey's economy.  AKP opponents note that Islamist capital
    is hard to track and question whether it is ultimately tied
    to more Islamist policies.  Increased investments from the
    UAE and a promised doubling of trade with Saudi Arabia after
    the Saudi King's unprecedented 2006 visit raised suspicions
    among some western-oriented investors.  The overall trend of
    increased foreign investor inflows actually counters
    insinuations of an Islamist take-over of Turkey's financial
    sector, however.  Investments from Islamic sources pale in
    comparison to total foreign inflows and do not seem to be of
    economic or political significance.

    ¶8. (C) Erdogan reputedly has manipulated the political
    appointments process to place Islamist bankers in key
    economic positions.  Along with Finance Minister Kemal
    Unakitan - a former board member of one of Turkey's leading
    Islamic banks (al-Baraka) - Erdogan's appointment of seven
    other al-Baraka officials to key positions in Turkey's
    Savings Deposit Insurance Fund is cited as support for an

    ANKARA 00000648  003 OF 004

    Islamist take-over theory.  In 2006, the PM virtually
    paralyzed financial policy when he tried to appoint an
    Islamist as head of the Central Bank against President
    Sezer's firm opposition.  (The compromise candidate has
    demonstrated independent decision-making since his
    appointment.)  To round out the "damning" evidence, critics
    cite FM Gul's background as a specialist at the Islamic
    Development Bank in Jeddah from 1983 to 1991 and his reported
    objections to state scrutiny of Islamic enterprises.

    Packing the Court
    ------------------
    ¶9. (C) Erdogan is also accused of staging a take-over of the
    judiciary.  The AKP pushed through legislation to lower the
    mandatory retirement age for technocrats, opening the way for
    Erdogan to name almost 4,000 of 9,000 judges and prosecutors.
     In a stand-off with the judiciary, AKP has threatened to
    refuse to implement high court rulings against the government
    for obstructing AKP-sponsored legislation.  Similar struggles
    between AKP and President Sezer have caused Sezer to veto
    over 3,000 AKP appointments and send over 100 AKP-backed laws
    to the Constitutional Court for review.  But for Sezer,
    Erdogan would already be implementing his "secret" agenda,
    worried secularists claim.  Economic reformers, including the
    IMF, for their part, would be only too happy to see an
    AKP-inspired change in the judiciary, which has consistently
    blocked forward-looking economic reforms.

    ¶10. (C) Erdogan rebutted the secularists' charges in 2006 by
    noting that the AKP hadn't been in power long enough to
    reshape the judiciary.  Rigid bureaucratic controls on
    promotions and a 15-20 year career path for judges limit the
    influence of any particular government on the judiciary's
    orientation.  But critics note that Justice Ministry
    budgetary control over the Supreme Council of Judges and
    Prosecutors, which oversees assignments within the judiciary,
    gives the AKP indirect influence that can have a long-term
    impact.  The president appoints five of the seven council
    members.  The Justice Minister, however, heads the council
    and controls its funding, which could discourage council
    members from voting against the Minister's proposed
    appointees.  The most recent charge is that the Minister, by
    not attending Supreme Council sessions, is preventing 29
    judicial positions from being filled.

    Small Changes
    --------------
    ¶11. (C) AKP's strategy to infiltrate its Islamist agenda into
    Turkey's secular institutions extends to the municipal level
    and beyond, according to AKP opponents.  The party controls
    four of Turkey's five largest cities (Ankara, Istanbul, Bursa
    and Konya).  Measures by some AKP mayors to ban alcohol on
    municipal property, establish women-only parks or equip
    ferries with prayer rooms are seen as Islamic encroachments
    on the secular system.  Erdogan and other party leaders
    explained the alcohol restrictions as consistent with the
    state's obligation to protect children from alcohol, drugs
    and gambling, rather than a religious proscription.
    Municipalities are authorized to ban the sale and consumption
    of alcohol on municipal property and near schools, religious
    sites and related locations.  Of the 62 provincial capitals
    that have such a ban, 18 have non-AKP mayors.  Of the 19
    without alcohol bans, 14 have AKP mayors.  As another
    often-cited example of small but telling changes, critics
    note that employees at the Health Ministry and state-owned
    Turkish Airlines reported being questioned about their
    religious beliefs and attitudes toward the Koran, an
    unprecedented practice.

    Internal Balancing Act
    ----------------------
    ¶12. (C) Erdogan has performed a delicate balancing act to
    maintain unity within the AKP, despite the sometimes
    conflicting interests of its competing factions.  Many party
    faithful are pious; keeping their allegiance is central to
    the AKP's hold on power but Erdogan has won them few tangible
    successes.  He has not upheld earlier pledges to lift the ban
    on headscarves in public buildings, though his strong
    objections when the European Court of Human Rights upheld the
    ban in public schools resonated with the party's more devout
    members.  AKP's more conservation faction was disappointed by
    the failed attempt to criminalize adultery in 2004.
    Erdogan's attempts to put loyalists into government jobs can
    also be viewed through the prism of rewarding the party

    ANKARA 00000648  004 OF 004

    faithful.

    The Jury Is Out
    ---------------
    ¶12. (C)  Comment. To date, AKP critics can only muster
    circumstantial evidence of an AKP Islamist agenda.
    Opposition leaders, some media outlets, the military and
    extreme nationalists have used this to play up fears that an
    AKP triumvirate will allow Erdogan to make significant,
    perhaps irreversible, changes that would undermine Turkey's
    secular system.  Using dramatic ad campaigns and threatening
    rhetoric, they warn that Turkey may soon have an Islamist
    president with a head-scarf wearing wife ready to take the
    country back to the pre-republic "dark ages".  President
    Sezer, military leaders and the MGK chief have all warned
    Erdogan against unconstitutional moves that might change
    Turkey's secular identity.  The secular establishment's
    concern that AKP poses a genuine threat to Turkey's secular
    system is undoubtedly heightened by the realization that
    AKP's reform agenda threatens the established elite's
    traditional, top-down control.

    ¶13. (C)  Those not convinced of a nefarious AKP plan contend
    that more than four years in power have matured the party.
    Erdogan has had to moderate his message to balance factions
    within AKP and lessen tensions with secularists threatened by
    AKP reforms.  Much of the party's success stems from its
    image as being less corrupt ("AK" in Turkish means "clean", a
    dubious claim for any party here) and more effective than the
    opposition.  Its record to date describes a center-right,
    conservative party with Islamic roots that has modestly
    advanced Kemal Ataturk's core principles of westernization
    and modernization.  Some of the changes tied to that process
    will inevitably transform the traditional power balance and
    strengthen civilian leaders.  To keep the public's trust and
    minimize tension as Turkish society evolves, AKP, and Erdogan
    in particular, will need to continue to employ
    broad-reaching, moderate, balanced rhetoric.  End Comment.

    Visit Ankara's Classified Web Site at
    http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/eur/ankara/

    WILSON

`