Sami Kohen is a Turkish journalist. He began his career working for Jewish community newspapers in Istanbul, before rising to become one of Turkey’s most respected commentators on geopolitical issues. He has written a column for the daily Milliyet since 1954.

Gulan: this is the second time that Turkey is facing crisis. The first one was the demonstrations in Istanbul, and now we see that the government is facing a big challenge with the Islamic wing of Fathula Gulen movement. In your opinion, why do you think Turkey is facing these difficulties, while there has been a lot of developments and many good steps that have been taken during Erdogan’s cabinet?

Kohen: first of all, this is a corruption scandal, and has different dimensions. One is strictly the ethical side of it. There are many people who are very close to government including the children of some cabinet ministers that have been involved in corruption cases, bribery, and immoral cases. So in any country, those kinds of things happen except in dictatorships where everything is silenced, but in democracies, it is very natural that this would be revealed and come out. The media will play a role in bringing out the truth, and the civil society would also be playing a role in that, and we have seen in many European countries, starting from Italy to Germany and many other countries. So when you have scandals like this, it is the government’s duty, normally, I mean, in any democratic country, to carry on the legal sittings and to have a kind of plane society concept and therefore those who are responsible have been removed from office, that is the way it is. Now in this case, in Turkey unfortunately, this has not worked this way. The prime minister has said in the beginning, if there is truth in the charges of corruption, the government has always been very much for clean society and not to have anything to do with such cases. So if that was the truth and not just rhetoric, I think by now this question or this problem would have been resolved because normally the judiciary would proceed with its practices which are normally to detain these people and put them on justice and the public opinion would have been very satisfied with that. This has not worked this way, the government and particularly the prime minister at the beginning, what he says, he did just the contrary, instead of going through the normal procedures or normal practices which would normally be to ask, first of all, those three or four ministers to resign immediately. Instead of doing this, they protected the ministers, the government, and more than that the worse thing is that he proceeded to purge all the services including the judiciary and the police, and all the people who have been involved in the investigation. I mean, those who have investigated the case and brought out the truth, or at least, the claim that those people are responsible for bribery and corruption. So they have become the target and within two days we have seen, to the surprise of all of us, instead of going on from that point on with the judiciary procedures, those people who have been investigating have lost their jobs, which is undemocratic by all standers. So this is one dimension of it.
The other dimension is that the struggle that we have seen now between the AKP and the Gulen community, up to now or very recent months, at least at the beginning of the year, we knew that of course that the Gulen groups or community… let’s put it this way, there was a kind of an alliance between the AKP and the Gulen group and the Gulen community has been very supportive of the AKP as much as the AKP has been very supportive of the Gulen community. So there was no problem between the two until recently, but recently some of the policies and some of the speeches of the prime minister have criticized by Fatuhlla Gulen. So Gulen was a bit critical, like many other people, but as you have mentioned this year we have demonstrations in Geza Park, which was presented mainly more democratic and liberal sections of the Turkish population. So the turn has come to the Gulen community which the government has been very disturbed by the Gulen’s critical attitude and took this opportunity to remove them, so anyone who is suspected to be supportive of Gulen, whether it is in the police, judiciary or bureaucracy, they are all losing their jobs. All of the sudden, you have a very worse situation, not only on suspicion of being part of that community, but also of neglecting, you see, now they had to deport to the ministry.. now this is a very controversial thing because if the police chief would have reported this to the minister whose sun is being charged with corruption and bribery, how on earth you expect that case to come out with the minister accept and allow this to happen, so it is a very controversial issue, but now what the government has done is put a new rule that any official who is in charge of investigating has to report this to the superior, to the police chief or the interior minister, so there is not a kind of new rule which is not comparable with the EU standards and Turkey is seeking to be part of the EU, and EU is very disturbed about this, we have seen statements made by the EU officials in Brussels and also in Strasburg in European parliament very critical of what Turkish government has done recently which is very undemocratic and very much contradicted with Turkish seek for membership in the EU .
The third dimension is a foreign policy dimension, now all of the sudden we have seen the Turkish prime minister coming out in very harsh statements, he mustn’t do this because there are meetings now being held on the EU municipal elections which are due next March, so he is taking advantage of this, going from one city to another and address the people and mostly those people who support AKP and telling them that there is so called a foreign plot, this is done by foreigners and at one point prime minister last week made a very strong statement against the US ambassador in Ankara,… he was very critical to the point that he hinted that he may declare the ambassador has persona non grata when he said we are not obliged to keep such ambassadors in our territory or land, so it was unexpected sort of criticism if there is reason or not about the US involvement in this and of course the US categorically denied an impact being done and the American diplomacy has been trying to assure the Turkish officials in Ankara that they don’t like to be pushed or to be told that they are involved in this, they said absolutely that they have nothing or interest in this but unfortunately with the very populist attitude the Turkish prime minister has gone for one thing to another to say that the foreign powers were involved and in fact there was a report of some of the Turkish newspapers very close to the AKP which has a very successional news story are saying that the US ambassador had convene with the ambassadors of the EU countries saying the Turkish empire collapsed or something like that. Now the fact of the matter is that the US ambassador immediately denied this saying there has not been such a meeting, the us ambassador has not been talking to the EU ambassadors and there is absolutely no such efforts, then of course the whole thing was dropped down and nothing was added to that except that the Turkish foreign ministry became in a very embarrassing situation had also to say that there is no need to believe that such things are happening, so now we see a strong reaction from the EU and the US, and Turkey in this case is also losing ground in the western world which is after all the US has a close ally and so many European countries also Turkey’s main train partners and investments come from those countries like French, Germany, Italy and therefore it losing ground, I mean, so all in all this scandal has dealt with in a way that has been mismanaged instead of having a good crisis management and using all the diplomatic means and channels to resolve this problem because after all this a financial scandal, the crisis have been spreading in a way that has affected the Turkish foreign policy and Turkish economy. The Turkish lira now is losing value and its stock market has gone down considerably so all in all Turkey is losing instead of gaining anything in this case so the only way out is to have a good crisis management to keep the scandal within its scope and resolve it without spreading its effect over economy or foreign relationships.

Gulan: we see that the AKP has an Islamic background and has been supported by the Gulen community and the support has apparently been a factor for AKP to meet all these successors. So to what extent will the AKP be able to remain in power if Gulen’s movement freezes their support for AKP?

Kohen: yes what you have said is true, I mean, there is a large section in the …. Of the supporters of Gulen, but the AKP leadership believes that there might be bit of the laws but it is a question of reasserting itself and consolidation its power. That is the main thing that Erdogan is seeking. Now that we are going to have elections in March, in all his speeches he is saying one thing and précising this point all the time that for him democracy is the ballet box and he says well if there are criticism and critics of my policy, so we have the elections, so he is full of confidence that in the elections he will again dominate and will be the big winner. In the last general elections, the AKP had something more than half of the votes, fifty one percent and so, so he believes that if he has that majority, so he can prove that he is right, which is also very controversial because democracy is not only a ballet box, but now how much is that hope or confidence realistic? That is a key question. We are all trying to find out the truth about this. Now since the Gulen community had provided a lot of support in the past to the AKP, normally the AKP is now losing that support which means practically that the ballet box may prove otherwise. So all in all the AKP may lose some support, but again the prime minister and the leadership of the AKP believes that if the will emerge as the strongest party why because the other opposition parties are not so strong and at the end of the day if the ballot box dominates, then the AKP will be still the winner and the alternatives which the CHP and the other smaller parties are not real alternatives for that.

Gulan: in your first answer, you have mentioned that Erdogan is supporting the government and standing against these corruption scandals, but why is Erdogan doing this and to what extent is the judiciary independent enough and will not be affected by any aspects either the government opposition, or Gulen community to resolve this problem and why not the judiciary unveiling the fact whether the corruption true or not?

Kohen: there have always been some suspicions in liberal circles in Turkey that the judiciary is fully independent in many cases in which we have seen the judiciary has acted in a way that … the AKP administration. Now even more so because of almost changes that happen… for instance the chief prosecutor is not that much independence anymore because now under a new regulation they have put … they have assigned two new deputies… now these two deputies probably are pro-AKP or they would like to controvert the chief prosecutor… there is a lot of controversy here about how much the judiciary is fully independent and the liberal opinion is that there is not fully independent, so there is a fear that a few things may come about… now I am sure that within the next few days, we will hear that some of those ministers will be dismissed, we will hear also that some of the people whose names appear to have connections with the corruption or the bribery will be put on trial, no doubt. The prime minister would have to abandon some of those friends or collaborators that he had so far—these ministers, because then that gives him a right or opportunity right on the eve of the elections to go on those mass meetings and tell the people how keen we are and don’t hesitate to sacrifice people we have trusted in the past but they are not clean so they should be punished. So probably he will abandon those people. That is to prove that the AKP is doing the right thing.

Gulan: we have also mentioned the alternatives that are very weak, for example the CHP who cannot be like a challenge to the AKP in the next elections, so this might not have a profound impact on the next elections, but there is a kind of quotation says that “my enemy’s enemy is my friend”. So in your opinion, is there any probability a kind of agreement made between his movement and oppositions?

Kohen: well, I don’t think that the CHP and probably the Gulen community would like to make any formal agreement the two. I don’t think that they would like to be exposed in a side. After all the CHP and the social democratic party are very liberal and in the past they have not been very strong supporters of the cleric and of religious practices which for the CHP are on the contrary to the Turkey’s secularist principles. I don’t think that anything formal would happen, but I think there would be perhaps a tacit not formal ritual support. In other words, certainly a know that some of the CHP people are happy to see this split in the religious group, I mean, the AKP and Gulen. They believe that this weakens the AKP which there is some truth in it, but on the other hand, I don’t think that the CHP would go all around to announce a new kind of alliance with the Gulen movement or vice versa, whether the mass of people who normally support Gulen and who in the past have voted for AKP, perhaps some of those would not vote for the AKP. Will they vote for the CHP? That is the key question, we don’t know that and hearing a lot of discussions about this, some of them may and some of them may not… I don’t think that the Gulen will send the signal to his community to vote either way, I think it will set them free to do whatever they want and I met that many of them who are now frustrated would, in a sign of protest, not go to the ballet box at all because they don’t like to vote for the CHP or to the Kurdish party or whatever, but they don’t want now to vote for the AKP either. For those people would abstain.

Gulan: some observers think that the first crisis—the demonstrations in Istanbul—were due to the Syrian regime support because Turkey allowed the opposition in Syria to hold meetings in Turkey. However, Fathulla Gulen has thought that Erdogan has rushed in holding positions against Syria and they have been disappointed about Erdogan’s movements for Turkish being a member in the EU. That is why this crisis is taking place. So to what extent do changes in the area have impact on the internal affairs of Turkey? And does the Issue of Turkey’s being member in the EU have anything to do with this crisis?

Kohen: well, we should separate the EU because it is another question. The membership to the EU has been on the agenda for years and the AKP government has perused the same kind of policy. Then there have been frustrations and disappointments and a lot of criticism from here and there. Recently there have been some encouraging sign, I mean, some new chapters have been opened; the Turkish have been given the chance to travel, not immediately but in a few years’ time without a visa to several countries, and etc. so there have been some limited progress, but the prospect is still not so bad regarding the EU. The question is what could the damage between the EU and Turkey—exactly that same behavior we have seen in the past three days, if you limit the powers of the independent judiciary, and if you make arbitrary appointments, then you go to up urge the police departments.. We have quite a number of statements made in Brussels about this in the last few days very critical to Turkey and saying very openly that this kind of behavior has damaged the relationship between EU and Turkey. So to that extent it has an effect, of course. Now regarding the Middle East and Syrian situation, as I have said earlier, Fathulla Gulen has been critical to some of Erdogan’s policies; he has been critical to Erdogan’s policy towards Israel, on Syria and Erdogan’s very harsh rhetoric against the west. So there is now a row between the two and this is very normal, I mean, not everybody agrees on overall policies, it should not be the case, but unfortunately, as I have said, this scandal has gone out on its way, it should have remained as a scandal which should be perused in the court, not in the public statements, mass meetings, and criticism against friends and allies.

Gulan: and also Washington is expecting from Erdogan to condemn the accusations against the US embassy, do you think this has an impact on US Turkish relations?

Kohen: this tense to deteriorate the US Turkish relations, of course unless there is a crisis management. We have crisis, between the United States and Turkey, and we need a very careful crisis management. These sorts of crisis is not resolved in public statements because public statements, particularly in the EU relations, tends to be very populist… this is not the way to resolve the problems. We need crisis management and silent diplomacy.