Turkey

[Wayne Hall]

tinyurl.com/b6bunj

Protesters carrying Turkish flags waiting for the arrival of Tayyip Erdogan, the Prime Minister of Turkey, at Ataturk Airport in Istanbul on Friday. (Osman Orsal/Reuters)

DAVOS 2009
Hero's welcome for Turkish leader after Davos walkout
By Sebnem Arsu and Katrin Bennhold International Herald Tribune, The New York TimesPublished: January 30, 2009

DAVOS, Switzerland: Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan flew home to a hero's welcome on Friday after walking off the stage following an angry exchange over the Gaza war with the Israeli president, Shimon Peres, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

The episode Thursday had all the overtones of a diplomatic incident, ruffling relations between Israel and a Muslim ally that is playing a key role in Middle East peace efforts.

The semiofficial Anatolian News Agency reported that Peres called Erdogan five minutes after the walkout in Davos to apologize for any misunderstanding, saying that his remarks about Israel's Gaza offensive had not been directed at the prime minister personally. In Jerusalem, a spokeswoman for Peres, Meital Jaslovitz, described the telephone conversation as "positive." But, she said on Friday, there was no apology from Peres, contrary to the Turkish news agency report.

Erdogan did not seem apologetic, either.

"I only know that I'm responsible for protecting the honor of the Turkish Republic, the Turkish nation from A to Z," Erdogan said as he returned to Istanbul. "I am not a leader of a tribe. I am the prime minister of the Republic of Turkey. I do whatever I need to, so I did it, and will continue to do so. This is my character. This is my identity."

"It was a matter of my country's respect and prestige. Therefore, my attitude should have been clear," he said. "I couldn't have allowed anyone to hurt the prestige and especially the honor of my country."

Live television footage showed crowds waving Palestinian and Turkish flags at Istanbul's Ataturk airport while chanting slogans in support of the prime minister. Banners proclaimed Erdogan the "delegate of the oppressed" and said: "Let the world see a proper prime minister." The passions reflected widespread anger over the Gaza war in Turkey, a secular nation whose population is mostly Muslim.

The incident came just days before President Obama's new Middle East envoy, George Mitchell, had planned to visit Turkey to discuss regional peace efforts as part of a tour of several countries. However, on Friday, a spokesperson for the U.S. Embassy in Ankara, speaking in return for customary anonymity under diplomatic rules, said the visit had been postponed because of "severe scheduling constraints." The decision to put off the visit was made before the altercation in Davos, the spokesperson said.

In Davos, Erdogan apparently became incensed after the moderator curtailed his response to remarks by Peres on the recent Israeli military campaign. The panel was running late, and Peres was to have had the last word, participants said.

Panel discussions at Davos are restricted to one hour, but Erdogan insisted on responding to Peres. Red-faced, and with one hand grasping the arm of the moderator, the columnist David Ignatius of The Washington Post, Erdogan turned to the Israeli president.

"Mr. Peres, you are older than me," he said. "Your voice comes out in a very high tone. And the high tone of your voice has to do with a guilty conscience. My voice, however, will not come out in the same tone."

Resisting efforts by Ignatius to end the session, Erdogan continued, saying to Peres, "When it comes to killing, you know well how to kill."

Eventually, the prime minister gathered up his papers and departed, saying, "And so Davos is over for me from now on."

Peres pointed at the departing Erdogan and said Turkey would have reacted as Israel did had rockets been falling on Istanbul, participants said.

In a news conference immediately after the panel discussion, Erdogan said he was particularly upset with Ignatius, who he said had failed to direct a balanced and impartial panel.

By all accounts, the discussion of the Gaza offensive was lively, with Secretary General Ban Ki-moon of the United Nations and Amr Moussa, the Arab League's secretary general, joining Peres and Erdogan. Participants said Peres was mostly alone in defending Israel's role in Gaza, and for that reason he was given the final 25 minutes to speak. Earlier, Erdogan spoke for 12 minutes about the Palestinians' sufferings.

Although Erdogan has strongly criticized Israel's Gaza offensive, his country and Israel have long enjoyed close diplomatic relations. With its strong relations with the militant group Hamas, which controls Gaza, Erdogan's Justice and Development Party has played a growing role mediating among Israel, Syria, Lebanon and the Palestinians.

Katrin Bennhold reported from Davos, Switzerland, and Sebnem Arsu from Istanbul. Alan Cowell contributed from Paris.

[Wayne Hall]

Britain calms US-Turkey tensions
By M.K. Bhadrakumar on July 30, 2016

atimes.com/2016/07/britain-calms-us-turkey-tensions/


The United States is making the first move to break the ice in the relations with Turkey. That is the obvious message behind the trip to Ankara later today by the Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff General Joseph Dunford. But there are sub-plots hidden from view.

No doubt, Dunford is undertaking a challenging mission. Why should a general be deputed for this mission, which impacts on a much wider canvas than war and peace?

The short answer will be that it is Dunford who happens to have at this sensitive juncture an effective interlocutor in Ankara – in his Turkish counterpart General Hulusi Akar, who, interestingly, will retain his title as the number one Pasha in the Turkish armed forces, as announced by the government following the crucial Supreme Military Council meeting in Ankara on Thursday.

President Recep Erdogan reposes trust in Akar who was of course his hand-picked choice for the job in August last year. The General drew some flak recently for breaking protocol to act as ‘witness’ at the wedding ceremony of Erdogan’s daughter in Istanbul in May.

In fact, there is a move to bring the Turkish armed forces directly under the presidency. Akar conducted himself with quiet dignity under extreme pressure during the July 15 coup attempt and was steadfast in his loyalty to Erdogan and the country’s democratic system.

Now, away from media glare, Akar has been in continuous touch with Dunford and has even been telephoning him a few times through the recent turbulent fortnight since the coup attempt, notwithstanding the public acrimony in the US-Turkish relations, with a couple of ministers openly alleging an American hand in the July 15 coup attempt.

Conceivably, Washington sensed that Akar could have acted only with Erdogan’s knowledge and approval to keep a sequestered mil-to-mil line open at the highest level with Washington in these troubled times.

And, it should not cause surprise at all if Washington figured out a way to use Akar as a ‘back channel’ to Erdogan. After all, Americans and Turks go back a long way as allies through thick and thin.

To be sure, Dunford’s mission signifies that Washington feels it necessary to upgrade the level of communication with Ankara, which is indicative of both a sense of urgency and a reasonable degree of confidence within the Obama administration that the Turkish leadership is still very much amenable to persuasion.

Dunford’s agenda will be three-fold – one, extradition of Fetullah Gulen, the Islamic cleric whom Turkey has named as the mastermind behind the coup attempt; two, the anti-terrorist operations out of Incirlik air base; and, three, Turkey’s standing as a key NATO member country.

Indeed, the most sensitive issue today concerns Gulen’s extradition. Ankara has underscored repeatedly and unambiguously that any reluctance on the part of Washington to extradite Gulen will cause a serious setback to Turkish-American relations.

Turkey pulled back from the expected visits by its defense minister and foreign minister to Washington ten days ago to attend the anti-terrorism coalition’s ministerial meetings. Clearly, the relationship is frayed at the edges and is in a state of animated suspension, pending the Obama administration’s decision on the Gulen issue.

But then, there are straws in the wind.

The point is, Britain, which is Turkey’s traditionally closest friend in Europe, has taken a stance – and more importantly, in full public view – which is completely sympathetic to Turkey’s concerns.

The British ambassador in Ankara Richard Moore, who is an experienced ‘Turkish hand’ in the UK foreign office, put on record in an interview with Hurriyet newspaper that the failure of the July 15 coup attempt is to be seen as a vindication of Turkey’s “democratic maturity.”

He said that the on-going crackdown on Gulen’s supporters within the government and the military is quite understandable and is even legitimate, which is why London has refrained from voicing opinions.

Ambassador Moore said:
· Turkish authorities’ claim regarding Gulen’s involvement in the attempted coup is credible; “emerging evidence suggests that conclusion”; and, there seems to be “a pretty convincing case”;
· It is not “a complete surprise” that Gulenists had infiltrated the Turkish military as well, and such a thing is not “difficult to understand”;
· There could have been disgruntled elements other than Gulenists among the plotters. ”But do I have any trouble in accepting the Gülenist movement played a part in this? No, I don’t, frankly.”

Ambassador Moore categorically ruled out any US role as such in the coup attempt, calling such imputation in the media as “ridiculous”, “pretty ill-informed and not very high quality.”

On the other hand, he expressed full understanding for the revamp of the Turkish military top brass in the wake of the coup attempt (“You can’t just carry on as if nothing happened.”)

What emerges is that the British assessment is a highly nuanced one in comparison with the expressions of alarm over the scale of the Turkish purges by the US and the European Union.

The stunning thing about Ambassador Moore’s remarks is that he chose to speak ten days after the visit to Turkey on July 20-21 by Britain’s Minister of State for Europe and the Americas in the Foreign Office, Sir Alan Duncan, a front-line politician in the Conservative Party who was appointed to the new position only on July 17.

Duncan is not new to the world of diplomacy, having held government positions over the past quarter century in Conservative Party governments, and was deputed for the mission, given the delicacy over British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson’s controversial standing among Turks.

It is entirely conceivable that London shared the feedback from Turkey with American interlocutors.

Curiously, US Secretary of State John Kerry actually had visited London on July 18-19 and a second time on July 27 – that is, both before and after Duncan’s trip to Turkey.

Clearly, the decision to dispatch General Dunford to Turkey is a well-founded decision that factors in Britain’s advice to the Obama administration to constructively engage Erdogan without any further loss of time.

The US cannot overlook that in just about a week’s time, Erdogan is traveling to Russia to meet President Vladimir Putin. Turkey’s pivotal role as a NATO ally is such that any gravitation on its part to the Russian camp will tear asunder the overall US regional (and global) strategies beyond repair.

Nothing less than the future of the western alliance system is at stake here.

Suffice it to say, the moment of reckoning has come over the Gulen issue. Now, what compromise formula Dunford would be relaying to the Turkish leadership remains to be seen.

But if Ambassador Moore’s remarks give any clues – and, indeed, taking into account the ‘special relations’ between the US and Britain, they have a habitation and place in the overall matrix – well, then, Dunford is likely carrying some ingenious formula to cross the Gulen hump in Turkish-American relations.

The Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu may have poked Uncle Sam on the ribs when he said on Friday, “Relations with Russia are not Turkey’s alternative to NATO and EU.”

Ambassador MK Bhadrakumar served as a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service for over 29 years, with postings including India’s ambassador to Uzbekistan (1995-1998) and to Turkey (1998-2001). He writes the “Indian Punchline” blog and has written regularly for Asia Times since 2001.

[Wayne Hall]

www.defenddemocracy.press/russia-debates-turkey/



Russia debates Turkey

04/08/2016


The following article was published in the Russian website Katehon. It is interesting in two aspects. First, it is expressing the viewpoint of a section of Russian elite. Second, as the writer makes a polemic against other currents inside Russian elite, he is helping us to understand better various schools of thought which compete for influence in both the Kremlin and Russian public at large.

Parallel State in Russia

By Gunnar Bjornson

The Turkish mutiny: a response to change in foreign policy paradigm

On the night of June 15th-16th, Turkey faced an attempted coup d’etat. According to the country’s authorities, the military men who organized the rebellion were tied to the network of Fethullah Gülen, who has lived in the United States since the late 1990’s and has close links to the CIA. After the coup was suppressed, more than 100 generals and admirals were arrested. The main organizer of the rebellion was found to be Akin Öztürk, former commander of the country’s Air Force. The Air Force, which is most closely of all integrated into NATO structures and has long since been a stronghold of Gülen’s supporters, played a leading role in the coup. Turkish authorities suspect foreign powers of supporting the coup and have hinted at the United States.

The rebellion took place after Turkey’s foreign policy was radically changed by President Erdogan who apologized to Russia for the destruction of the Russian plane in November 2015 near the border with Syria. This new course intended to restore friendly relations with Russia. Prime Minister Binali Yildirim also designated a course for restoring all working relations with neighboring countries, including Syria and Iraq.

Before these events, the former prime minister responsible for the doctrine of neo-Ottomanism and the architect of Turkish foreign policy for the last decade, Ahmet Davutoglu, who was closely tied to the United States, Qatar, and the Muslim Brotherhood movement, resigned. Erdogan then in fact began to review the whole of Turkey’s foreign political strategy and initiated a turn towards realist pragmatism as previously insisted upon by the supporters of Turkey’s sovereign development, the Kemalists.

Instead of Davutoglu’s typically neo-imperial understanding of Turkey as one of the centers of the global Islamic project which caused expansionism and attempts at exporting revolutions, Erdogan and Yildirim de facto returned to the Kemalist paradigm of understanding Turkey as a nation-state first and foremost. The change in foreign policy strategy initiated the intensification of contact with the Eurasian Kemalists. A special role here was played by the Vatan Party of Dogu Perincek who was involved in forging informal ties with Moscow and Damascus. Just when this strategy and alliance began to yield its first fruits, the coup attempt was launched.

Russian media disinformation

It would seem that everything is very clear. However, at the time of the coup in Turkey and afterwards, Russian media was filled with waves of disinformation. Information on the organizers of the coup, its character, and the forces behind it was purposefully distorted. Such a mass and coordinated action allows us to speak of an aggressive strategy aiming to prevent rapprochement between Russia and Turkey rather than a mere epidemic of incompetence affecting Russian experts. In brief, this strategy of disinformation spread the following theses:

· The coup was organized by Kemalists dissatisfied with Islamist tendencies in Erdogan’s policies (varying between anti-national policies in Syria and in relations with Russia). But, in fact,the coup took place at the moment of rapprochement with patriotic Kemalists and the rejection of neo-Ottomanism.

· Kemalists are Atlanticists and supporters of the US. In fact, most of today’s Turkish Kemalists are by and large supporters of Turkish national sovereignty threatened by the United States.

· The coup was revenge by the military for past repression. In fact, the coup was organized by those people who did everything to offset the Eurasian-oriented Kemalists over the “Ergenekon” process and similar trials, when Erdogan, then in alliance with Gulen, replaced the Kemalists in high command posts with his own loyal people.

· There was no coup. Erdogan plotted the whole operation. This is the official version of Gulen supporters as announced by their leader and spread by Western media.

Influence on Putin and Erdogan

The purpose of the disinformation campaign on the expert and media levels was confusingRussia’s leadership and population by painting a false picture of the processes taking place in Turkey, and then provoking Russia to make a mistake or take inappropriate actions. In the context of the quarrel between Turkey, the USA, and NATO in the wake of a failed coup, Russia adequately understood the situation and was able to extract maximum benefit out of the situation by supporting Erdogan in his fight against the Fifth Column and showing willingness to help Turkey in the case of a deterioration of relations with NATO, including up to leaving the alliance.

In addition, the creation of an unfavorable sentiment in Russian media towards the Turkish president allowed Gulen’s supporters the opportunity to express their opinion and broadcast the West and Gülen’s propaganda through the medium of Russian experts. Such also aided spreading skepticism as to Turkey’s prospects of leaving NATO, which could in turn affect Erdogan and his entourage. Thus, the goal was creating a wrong impression ofRussia’s official position, presenting Russia’s position as half-hearted, partially Westernized, and demonstrating that the Russian leadership cannot act as an ally for Erdogan, being unable to support him in the case of conflict with the United States.

SVOP and Its Atlanticist Network

At the expert level, one of the main centers of the disinformation campaign was the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy (Russian acronym: SVOP) and the related Russian Council on International Affairs. SVOP was created in the 1990’s as a branch of the American globalist Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). It unites both open Liberals and the Westernizers and Liberals from the 1990’s who mimic patriots.

The former head and founder of the SVOP, Sergei Karaganov, was one of the first to announce the version that it was the Kemalists participating in the coup, not Gulen’s supporters. This disinformation was meant to distort the real balance of power in Turkey before and during the rebellion. Karaganov told Interfax on Saturday:

“Turkey once again embarked on its usual course. The military elite of Turkey has traditionally advocated an anti-Islamist course. It is obvious that the downing of the Russian aircraft last year showed that there is an internal struggle among the Turkish elite. Apparently, this intra-elite conflict and the military’s discontent with the Islamist course led to the current situation.” (http://www.interfax.ru/world/518810)

Instead of legally supporting the Turkish government, Kaganov suggested to wait:

“Moscow has to wait, as it is important to understand what could be offered by the military men who are likely to take the situation under their control.” (http://www.interfax.ru/world/518810)

The current SVOP head, Fyodor Lukyanov, also referred to the coup as allegedly being attempted by discontent Kemalists. He prefers not to talk about evidence of the US’ trace, and also fail to mention that Turkey’s foreign policy rapprochement with Russia allowed the current president to enlist the support of the Eurasian Kemalists. Instead, a false picture of confrontation between Islamists and the secular military is presented:







Read also:


Russian MoD Calls on Amnesty Int'l to Investigate Turkey's Attacks on Syria


“The military may not have a good attitude toward the president”, confirms analyst Fyodor Lukyanov, “They have traditionally been a guarantor of stability in the country and ‘restricting’ governments. At least 4 times in the 20th century, they intervened in the government’s course. When Erdogan became president, he announced a new course. He began to squeeze out the army from politics and succeeded in doing this. About 10% of officers are in prison now. Added to that is the unsuccessful policy of recent years and a large number of internal and external problems. And the last sharp turn of Erdogan’s policy… All these measures could not but be irritating. So it is quite understandable why the military would overthrow the president.”(http://sobesednik.ru/politika/20160719-gkchp-po-turecki-nozh-v-spinu-obernetsya-plechom-drugu)

Lukyanov displays skepticism towards Russian-Turkish rapprochement. The last paragraph of his article in the official Russian Newspaper is directed against Turkey:

“However, we can hardly expect that Moscow is ready to forget the recent events and open a new page of strategic cooperation. Especially when the stability of the Turkish political system remains to be proved.”(https://rg.ru/2016/07/17/fedor-lukianov-proval-putcha-v-turcii-primeta-kardinalnyh-peremen.html)

Another member of SVOP and director of the Russian World Foundation, Vyacheslav Nikonov, like the other members of this network, believes that the organizers of the coup were linked to the Kemalists. At the same time, he claims the version that the coup was fake and arranged by Erdogan (a la Fethullah Gulen’s version). This political analyst recalls how in the 20th century, the Turkish army had already tried several times to “take power into their own hands to interrupt governance by the Islamist party and install the Ataturk tradition and secular authority.”

There is yet another version, according to which Erdogan himself provoked military action in order to once again behead the military and protect his regime. Supporting this theory, Nikonov says that “the military coup was too quickly choked.” The political analyst also suggests that the coup was obviously poorly prepared. (http://www.russkiymir.ru/news/210192/)

It is significant that, like other SVOP members, since 1990 Nikonov has adhered to liberalism. His son Alexey (born in 1979) is a US citizen.

The General Director of the Russian Council on Foreign Affairs, a structure under the auspices of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Andrei Kortunov,is also a notable supporter of the notion that Erdogan probably staged the coup. He stated this to lenta.ru (http://russiancouncil.ru/inner/?id_4=7945#top-content), an outlet formally controlled by the Kremlin.

In addition, Kortunov misinformed the public and, obviously, the government, by calling the Turkish Kemalists supporters of rapprochement with the West (a position which is in fact that of the Gulenists) and claiming that the Kemalists were involved in the coup:

“I think that there are several levels of confrontation, i. e. there is a political level where there are, course, the Kemalists who oppose Erdogan and have always been very strong in the armed forces of Turkey.The military are trying to position themselves as the defenders of the Ataturk heritage as a force which acts consistently for a secular path for Turkey’s development, and in this sense, many of them have criticized and continue to criticize Erdogan for playing with Islam, including political Islam, and denying or doubting the Western-oriented, secular Turkish state.” (http://russiancouncil.ru/inner/?id_4=7935#top-content)

Why did Kotrunov proclaim these ideas? This becomes clear upon examination his biography: apart from heading the Russian Council on International Affairs, he continues to lead the New Eurasia Fund, a de facto branch of the American National Foundation financed by USAID.

Here are some of the pages from his resume:

From 1998, he was executive director of the mega-project, Development of Education in Russia, an Open Society Institute (Soros Foundation) in conjunction with heading the Moscow Public Scientific Foundations. He was vice-president of the American Eurasia Foundation, president of the autonomous non-profit organization, ISE-Center (Information. Science. Education).

From 2004, he was the president of the New Eurasia Foundation established by the American Eurasia Foundation, the Russian Dynasty Foundation (created by businessman Dmitry Zimin, founder of the VimpelCom company) and the European Madariaga Foundation (the notorious former NATO Secretary General Javier Solana’s fund). (http://www.derrick.ru/?f=n&id=4216)

Since 2011, he has been the General Director and presidium member of the Russian Council on International Affairs. Another member of SVOP’s presidium is the State Duma Committee on International Affairs chairman and former speechwriter for Mikhail Gorbachev, Aleksey Pushkov. From 1993-2000, he was a member of the editorial board of Foreign Policy magazine published by the Carnegie Endowment in Washington, D.C. In 2004, he became a member of the Supervisory Board of the Moscow Carnegie Foundation.

In line with US interests, not Russian interests, Pushkov publicly demonstrated all the same SVOP skepticism towards Turkey leaving NATO, stating on his personal Twitter page: “Kerry has threatened Turkey’s exclusion from NATO if the purges forget the rules of democracy. An absolutely useless threat. Erdogan knows this.” (

Soros’ Supporters from the Valdai Club

Another element of the network closely associated with the RCIA and SVOP is the Valdai discussion club.

Oleg Barabanov, the Program Director of the Valdai Club Foundation, scientific director of the European Institute of Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO), and professor at the Faculty of World Economy and International Affairs of the Higher School of Economics, has deliberately disinformed audiences with his publications for the state news agency Russia Today, in which he argues that it was not Gulen, but the Kemalists who were behind the coup:

“And so we are seeinga coup attempt which suits the middle layers of Kemalist military officials.” (http://ria.ru/analytics/20160718/1469885587.html#ixzz4EwsXAsvk)

The author deliberately distorts the situation in interpreting the elimination of the pro-Gulen network as repression against the Kemalist military: “Now, in the first days after the coup, we can see the quite clearly planned policy of repression against not only specific plot participants, but also against the whole pro-Kemalist part of Turkish society. In the first hours after Erdogan’s victory, we were surprised by the scale: thousands of officers were arrested and thousands of judges dismissed from work. And these numbers are only growing. This will naturally lead to more than just growing resentment for Erdogan among the deep layers of the Kemalist security circles.” (http://ria.ru/analytics/20160718/1469885587.html#ixzz4EwtN3Fj6)

The expert’s resume includes passed qualification courses at George Soros’ Central European University in 1994, being a member of the council of the Liberal Youth Union of Russia and the council of Soros’ Open Society Institute’s Hot Spots program, membership on the Board of Trustees of the British NGO International Peace Project, and membership in the International Wilton Park Association based out of the Wilton Park Conference Center of the UK Ministry of Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs.

Andrey Suchentsov, the program director of the Valdai Club and student of Vice Rector of the Moscow State Institute of International Relations Andrey Bogaturov, is promoting the notion that a Turkish withdrawal from NATO is undesirable:

“In fact, NATO and the USA can do without the Turkish military base used in the Syrian operations. Syria is coastal country, so aircraft carriers can be used. But in the case of Turkey leaving NATO, Turkish-Greek relations would worsen, as the conflict is still largely constrained only through both states’ membership in the organization. Relations between Turkey and Iraq are likely to worsen on the Kurdish question. Relations with Syria and Georgia would be complicated.” (http://mgimo.ru/about/news/experts/mest-erdogana-napugala-zapad/)







Read also:


Visa – free travel and the “Kurdish problem”


MGIMO Experts

Another MGIMO (Moscow State Institute of International Relations ) expert, Vyacheslav Avatkov, also promotes the concept that Erdogan organized the coup attempt:

“Though it may seem incredible, something of a conspiracy theory, one cannot exclude the possibility that the government itself tried to arrange the coup with the aim of strengthening the position of Erdogan and finally subordinating the military. Such actions activate the electorate, hoping for stability making them ready to vote for a “strong hand” in the future, in this drive for a presidential republic, which has been the dream of the country’s leader for a long time. In addition, the incident provides opportunities for a “savior-hero” like Erdogan who can finally stop military coups, identifying all possible potential instigators and – at least – sending them to jail. This is possible in the context that the country’s intelligence services are closely linked to the ruling elite, especially to the president. But such an operation could only be carried out with the participation of intelligence services.”

Another MGIMO expert Kirill Koktysh (demanded by officious Russian media) also promotes the version of a fake coup:

“For me, there is no clear answer, if it was a fake or actually a failed attempt. When it comes to Gulen supporters, they do not know how to fight. And if we talk about the right answers, we are likely not get them. For example, we still do not know how the 1991 coup in the Soviet Union passed, which eventually destroyed the Soviet Union, why it was so inept, despite the fact that it was headed by the first people from all key ministries. But the answer can be that it was a real failed coup or fake one or even a false start.” (http://mgimo.ru/about/news/experts/sbivshikh-su-24-pilotov-arestovali-iz-za-neloyalnosti-k-vlasti/)

Patriots of Russia and Israel

It should be no surprise that the point of view of Gülen and pro-Western networks of influence in the Russian expert community is shared by Yevgeny Satanovsky, the president of the Middle East Institute (formerly the Institute for the Study of Israel) and former president of the Russian Jewish Congress, one of the main lobbyists of Israel’s interests in Russia. He was one of the first to promote the version that Erdogan himself allegedly organized the coup in order to start the repression of undesirables. His hysterical commentary shows that the failed coup affected him. The possible causes for such include the old ties of Gen. Akin Öztürk with the Israelis ever since his service as Turkey’s military attache in the country. Satanovsky’s hysteria hints at his own investment in these matters:

“A personal dictatorship is being established will will undoubtedly turn the Turkey of Kemal Ataturk into an Islamic republic. In Europe, there was the Führer of the German people and in Turkey, there will be the Fuhrer of the Turkish people.” (http://www.mk.ru/politics/2016/07/18/blistatelnaya-provokaciya-ekspert-kritikuet-oficialnuyu-versiyu-tureckogo-perevorota.html)

Surprisingly, the leading expert at RISS, Adzhar Kurtov, shares the same position as the liberals, Israel lobbyists and staff members of Western foundations:

“‘In particular, the Turkish parliament has no impact on the country’s politics, so there was no need to attack it,’ the analyst believes. ‘Unless we take into account the theory this was done by someone with the aim of showing the inhumanity of the plotters is striking at Turkish statehood, i.e., with the aim of discrediting them.’”(http://www.utro.ru/articles/2016/07/18/1290579.shtml)

Konstantin Kosachev, the head of the Federation Council on International Affairs, announced on the night of the coup that the rebellion was caused by the contradiction between the Kemalists and Erdogan’s Islamists (which is pre incompetence or misinformation), and called on Russia not to interfere in the conflict (rather than support the legitimate government of the country):

“The crisis in relations between the current Turkish government and military elites (or a substantial part of them) has existed for the whole duration of Erdogan’s term. This crisis also concerns a fundamental disagreement between generals with Ankara’s departure from the ‘only true teachings’ of the father of modern Turkish statehood, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk (which irritate the moderate Islamism of the current resident), and Erdogan’s more pragmatic offense of ousting the military from the real power they once had. These problems do not disappear overnight and will not be resolved by reprisals against conspirators (and they, knowing the particularities of Turkey, are many). And we in Russia have yet to see what will happen in the future, while respecting the sovereignty of Turkey and not interfering in the internal conflict. The main thing now is to ensure the safety of our citizens and compatriots. Once again.” (https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=1082105035203591&id=100002123135703)

Nikolai Starikov also joined in on spreading misinformation about the failed coup in Turkey. He is an expert with the reputation of being a Kremlin propagandist. Starikov ignores Gülen’s trace in the organization of the coup. The Kemalists, he goes on, are linked with a focus on pro-American foreign policy, extrapolating from the situation during the Cold War to the current events. He concludes that “Turkey is not a friend of Russia,” thereby ignoring the large-scale shift in Turkish foreign policy that happened before the coup.

Starikov directly lied in claiming that those participating in the coup were military men unhappy with the worsening of relations with Russia under Erdogan:

“The reasons for the coup attempt are much deeper. The military was generally dissatisfied with the actions of Erdogan. It seems to me that the conflict with Russia is just one of the factors why they were dissatisfied.” (http://newinform.com/18872-nikolai-starikov-o-turcii-ssha-perestavlyayut-figury-kak-na-shahmatnoi-doske)

Gumer Isayev is one of the first who started the issue of a fake coup. He is the head of the St. Petersburg Center for a Modern Middle East openly supporting Gülen and heads the Russian Research Institute in Istanbul assumably associated with Gülen’s network.

Here is his “expert opinion” quoted by Komersant newspaper on the night of the coup:

“The whole story looks like a farce and a theatrical performance by the government itself. Afterwards, Erdogan will be the winner, for example, with the proposal to change the constitution. If this was indeed a real coup attempt, they would have been better prepared.” (http://kommersant.ru/doc/3040983)

Issues in the Media’s Work

Russian media did not work in the best way in terms of public interest, including state media and those having the reputation of being “pro-Kremlin.”

On the night of the coup, RT Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan wrote on her Twitter with undisguised glee:

“In Turkey, there is a coup attempt, i.e., an attempt to tighten the government’s grip under the pretext of a coup” (

)

She wrote further: “According to the old Russian tradition, we are waiting for Erdogan in Rostov with crawfish, beer, and the Leberdon neighborhood. So are the many Armenians there. We have a lot of things to discuss.” (

)

On RT’s site, the expert Semen Bagdasarov called the rebels “patriotic officers”:

“The patriotic rebels ‘have decided to put everything at stake and, particularly unprepared and acting on the principle of all or nothing, attempted a coup,’ Bagdasarov said. “Of course, they weren’t strong enough. That’s what happened.” (https://russian.rt.com/article/312492-voennyi-ili-grazhdanskii-eksperty-rasskazali-predystoriyu-perevorota)







Read also:


Jeremy Corbyn talks sense on nuclear weapons


Moreover, RT has been marked as a pro-Gulen publication. It mentions nothing of Gulen’s ties to American special services, but portrays him to be a preacher promoting inter-religious and inter-cultural dialogue.

RT publications on the subject have been characteristically skeptical towards a possible worsening of Turkish-US relations. A good example of such is the article “After the Putsch.”

The Russia Today Online Media Holding published 5 materials on the attempted coup in Turkey. All of them are misinformative in nature:

In one (http://ria.ru/analytics/20160718/1469928101.html), Erdogan is called mentally deranged and the rebels are said to have acted out of patriotic motives. The assessment is made that the suppression of the coup will have negative consequences for Turkey, that “democracy is under threat.”

One of the others (http://ria.ru/analytics/20160718/1469885587.html) is misinformative article by Barabanov

Another (http://ria.ru/analytics/20160720/1472436282.html) quotes Bagdasarov’s anti-Erdogan statement and disseminated the fake about the supposed mass demolition of Ataturk monuments in Turkey. The possibility of rapprochement with Russia and Iran is skeptically commented on by the featured Bagdasarov and Fyodor Lukyanov. The supposedly “pro-Kremlin political analyst” Abzalov is given spotlight in insisting that the West did not arrange the coup despite all the obvious facts. It is alleged that the US needed Erdogan for some reason or another.

The fifth (http://ria.ru/analytics/20160718/1470259125.html) mixes up Gulenists and Kemalists by suggesting that Gulen has defended the Ataturk principles which Erdogan has allegedly sought to destroy since the coup. The argument that Erdogan himself arranged the coup (Gulen’s line) is also repeated.

Daria Aslamova, the special correspondent for Komsomolskaya Pravda who supported the rebels’ actions, adheres to strictly anti-Turkish positions. She equates the actions of the pro-American group of conspirators to a demonstration of discontent with Erdogan by the whole Turkish Army:

“When Erdogan came to power, he immediately tried to create his own service and decapitate the army because military coups in Turkey are a usual, traditional thing. And when you can not get rid of a dictator, you use the army. This was a desperate attempt by these forces. I am very surprised that Istanbul did not support this since Istanbul terribly hates Erdogan…” (http://www.kp.ru/daily/26553.7/3572242/)

Several patriotic media outlets have published the opinion of Arif Asalyoglu, the Director of the International Institute for the Development of Scientific Cooperation. According to our information, Asalyuglu is representative of the Gülen’s network operating in Russia. As we know, it was Gulen who introduces the idea that the coup was fake. An article by Asalyoglu in which he supports this official Gulenist position was published on the website of Modest Kolerov’s Regnum Agency.

Also, the website nakanune.ru (http://www.nakanune.ru/articles/111917/) as other “patriotic” publications in Russia media have actively given coverage to the theory of a fake coup. this includes the official news service Vesti (http://www.vesti.ru/doc.html?id=2777247)

Even TASS fell for the tricks of provocateurs and on the night of the coup spread the fake information that Erdogan had supposedly fled Turkey.

Networks’ Work on the topic of Ukraine

A significant part of the same resources and experts behaved in the same way on the Ukrainian issue in 2014. We have already seen how similarly such at first glance different experts like Karaganov, Pushkov, Lukyanov, Starikov, and Koktysh assessed the events in Turkey. In 2014, however, the case was the same with Ukraine. In 2014, Starikov scared patriots with the thought of a Third World War while Karaganov said that Ukraine would be our second Afghanistan. Pushkov echoed them in saying that Washington and Brussels are waiting for Russia to send troops to Ukraine . Nikonov insistently protested against the refrain from deploying troops while Fyodor Lukyanov spoke against such and supported Poroshenko as a supposedly “peaceful leader”. Koktysh offered to give up Crimea in exchange for concessions from the West in 2014.

Now, just as then, Russia has the huge opportunity to not listen to such “expert” advice. After all, Russia was able to extract the maximum benefit from the crisis in Ukraine while taking advantage of the West’s confusion to reunify Russian lands. The exact same situation concerns the Turkish case. The pro-Western network in Russia is trying to prevent this.

Obviously, there was and is a massive disinformation campaign aimed against both the public and authorities carried out on both the expert and media levels. These examples only partially illustrate this campaign which involves both “patriots” and liberals (the anti-Erdogan campaign positing the “failed coup theory” is advocated by Russian liberal media and experts) as well as “anti-Maidan” experts such as Starikov and the classic representatives of the sixth column (Westerners and liberals imitating loyalty to the president) like Karaganov, Nikonov, Lukyanov.

The Achilles’ Heel of Caesarism

From the point of view of Gramsci’s analysis, we are dealing with agents of influence of Western hegemony acting through the media and intellectuals. From the perspective of critical theory based on the writings of Antonio Gramsci, both Russia and Turkey are structurally similar phenomena in regards to the organization of their political systems and their relations with the center of hegemony, i. e. that type of political power which is based not only on the police, political and economic power, but also on the control of ideas and basic concepts dominating intellectual life and intellectuals themselves. In Russia and Turkey, we are dealing with the phenomenon of Caesarism.

Caesarism is a political system in which hegemony is established only in fragments, but is still faced with no serious ideological alternative. The Caesarist authoritarian-style state opposes hegemonic forces from both the outside and from within (pressure groups, networks arising under the influence of Westernizing processes, entire social strata and social groups arising as a consequence of imitating the West).

Caesarist strategy is defined as “transformism”, in which the Caesarist regime balances between the pressure of external and internal hegemonic pressures in part by making concessions in interacting with pro-hegemonic forces (pro-Western networks) and including them in power. This can be seen in the faces of Davutoglu in Turkey, Erdogan’s former alliance with Gulen, Medvedev’s premiership in Russia, the liberal economic block in the Russian government, etc. These forces are selectively balanced in order for the state to maintain political power.

Caesarism remains mere Caesarism, i.e., it is not completely opposed to hegemony in the intellectual and ideological fields, and is therefore doomed to failure. Sooner or later, pro-Western networks will intensify their work and overthrow the Caesarist leaders.

In Turkey, concessions to the forces of hegemony resulted in a “parallel state” which infiltrated the army and organized a coup d’etat. Erdogan is now hastily getting rid of these pro-Western networks not only in the army, but in all spheres of society. Meanwhile, the Russian “parallel state” is successfully busying itself with disinformation on the Turkish question.


The Coup in Turkey – a view from Moscow