|
Since the 1980s, Turkey has experienced a tug
of war between the elected leaders and the military,
where the politicians in the 2010s seemed to have
finally resigned. The country has been modernized and
seen a dramatic economic development, which has created
self-confidence and pride for the entire nation. But the
world's admiration for rapid development has largely
turned into a concern for an increasingly powerful
political leadership.
Shortly after the military surrendered power to
elected politicians, civil war broke out in 1984 in
southeastern Turkey, when the Kurdish PKK guerrilla took
up arms to create its own state. The war mainly went on
until 1999 but has flared up in turns since then. The
conflict in 2019 is as current as before.
-
ABBREVIATIONFINDER:
List of most commonly used acronyms containing Turkey. Also includes historical, economical and political aspects of the country.
Turgut Özal, who became Prime Minister in 1983,
partially paved the way for a new Turkey. During his
reign, state control of the economy was reduced.
Subsidies were cut and foreign investors were welcomed.
Growth was high, but Turkey's old problems with
inflation and unemployment remained and corruption
worsened. Despite the civil war, during the time of Özal
it became possible again to mention the word "Kurd" in
public. (He was himself of Kurdish origin.) Özal also
appeared as a Muslim believer and allowed religious
utterances that had previously been opposed.
The first free election after the race was held in
1987, when formerly banned leaders such as Süleyman
Demirel and Bülent Ecevit were allowed to stand at the
head of newly formed parties.
Since Özal succeeded Kenan Evren as president in
1989, throughout the 1990s, Turkey was plagued by
short-lived and resilient coalition governments,
worsening war in the Kurdish provinces and deteriorating
state finances.
 One of the short-lived prime ministers was the
Islamist Necmettin Erbakan, who with his Welfare Party (Refah
Partisi, RP) was able to form a coalition government in
1995. But the army leadership was openly hostile to him
and exposed him to threats in June 1997 that he was
forced to resign. It has been described as the first
"postmodern coup", a military takeover without violence
or state of emergency. At the beginning of 1998, the
Welfare Party was banned by the Constitutional Court.
Members quickly transitioned to the new Virtue Party (Fazilet
Partisi, FP).
In 1999, PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan (see Kurds) was
arrested, who had fled after the Kurdish guerrillas were
pushed back. The war ended, or took a break as it would
later prove, and the guerrillas withdrew to bases in
Iraq. Since 1984, the war had claimed close to 37,000
lives, most Kurds but also 5,000 army soldiers. At least
3,000 Kurdish villages had been destroyed and about 3
million people were forced to flee. Öcalan was sentenced
to death, but the sentence was converted to life
imprisonment since the death penalty was abolished in
2002 as part of an adaptation to EU law.
The 1999 parliamentary elections gave Turkey a new
weak coalition government. Around the turn of the
century, the economy deteriorated further. The
tripartite government got into big trouble and when the
Prime Minister, veteran Bülent Ecevit, became seriously
ill, was declared a new election in 2002. Then a whole
new political situation had arisen, which caused
Turkey's modern history to take an unexpected turn.
A more modern Islamist party
In 2001, the Constitutional Court had almost
routinely illegally declared the largest opposition
party, the FP. Conservative Islamists had just as
routinely formed a new party with the same profile,
which this time was named the Lucky Party (Saadet
Partisi, SP). But a moderate phalanx led by Istanbul's
former mayor Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, realized that this
conservative Islamism would never produce results and
instead formed the Justice and Development Party (AKP).
With an economically liberal, western-friendly,
democratic but value-conservative program, the AKP
joined broad masses. In the November 2002 elections, the
party gained 34 percent of the vote and won by far.
Since only one other party passed the ten percent
barrier, the old CHP, the AKP was disproportionately
given many seats and could form its own government. And
this despite the fact that the party leader Erdoğan was
not allowed to stand, since he had previously served a
shorter prison sentence for publicly quoting a classic
Turkish poem which was believed to propagate Islamic
violence. It was now party comrade Abdullah Gül who was
allowed to form government. Thanks to the large majority
of the AKP, Parliament was able to revoke the ban on
Erdoğan, after which he won a filling election in a safe
constituency. In 2003, Erdoğan took power.
The AKP began its reign with rapid reforms of both
the economy and the laws. The country was modernized in
every respect. The infrastructure was expanded and the
standard of living increased. Small and medium-sized
industries in Anatolian rural cities were given better
conditions and could expand. Turkish companies began to
establish themselves abroad and trade increased. The
government began to strengthen the rights of Kurds and
religious minorities.
In May 2004, the PKK suspended its five-year
ceasefire and entered southeastern Turkey from Iraq.
From 2005, the new fighting between government soldiers
and PKK affiliations became increasingly bloody. There
were suspicions that the PKK was out of concern for
being marginalized: in the Kurdish provinces, the AKP
had strong support, as did the government's peacekeepers
against civil Kurdish politicians.
In October 2005, Turkey was finally able to start
membership negotiations with the EU, but the previous
optimism had begun to slow down. Many Turks felt that
the EU did not take the country seriously and imposed
more stringent advance demands on Turkey than it did on
the former communist countries in eastern and central
Europe, which also had problems with the economy and the
judiciary. Turkey's refusal to recognize the Greek
Cypriot government and open its ports to Greek Cypriot
vessels led to the suspension of parts of the
negotiations.
Tensions between secularists and religious rose in
2006 as a new presidential election approached and
secularists feared that the AKP would strengthen its
power and begin to Islamize the country. When Abdullah
Gül, now Foreign Minister, was presented as AKP
candidate, the opposition boycotted the vote in
Parliament and the Constitutional Court rejected the
election at the CHP's request. The military leadership
made an indirect threat to a new coup in the form of a
statement on its website on the internet.
Unlike previous governments, the AKP did not bow to
the pressure. The government's refusal to back down, and
the support it received from the EU and the US, became a
water divider in Turkish politics. It seemed to be the
beginning to the end of the military's long political
influence. Erdoğan announced new elections and proposed
that the constitution be amended so that the president
would be elected directly by the people every five
years, with the possibility of re-election, and that
Parliament should be elected every four years instead of
every fifth.
After a new big election victory for the AKP 2007,
the party was able to get Abdullah Gül elected
president. Nevertheless, the AKP 2008 was close to being
declared illegal by the Constitutional Court. The reason
was that the government, with the support of a
nationalist party, pushed through that religious female
students should have the right to cover their hair at
the universities. With a single vote margin, the
government party was saved from being banned and all its
leaders from being banned from politics.
The Gülen movement is growing
In parallel with the strengthened position of the
Islamic parties, a different Islamic movement emerged
from the 1980s. It was called alternately for Hizmet
(the Service), also for Cemaat (the Assembly) and was
led by theologian and pastor Fethullah Gülen. The
movement had a strong social profile and became known,
among other things, for starting schools in
disadvantaged areas. Many teachers and doctors were
attracted by the Gülen movement which, in addition to
its social appearance, also advocated democracy and
peaceful coexistence between religions and between the
various branches of Islam. But even lawyers, soldiers
and journalists joined the ideas of Gülenism. Without
making much of a difference, Gülen's followers began to
obtain services in the judiciary, the military, the
media and the education system. Although warnings of
religious infiltration were heard quite early,
The Gülen movement created a global network of
companies, organizations, schools, real estate companies
and charities with no real connection, and without
direct ties to Gülen himself, but led by people united
by faith in his ideas. Hizmet has sometimes been likened
to a sect, built around a charismatic leader but with
such a loose structure that the many members are not
aware of the various branches of the movement and are
not aware of each other's existence.
The AKP and the Gülen movement saw each other for a
long time as soul mates with a common goal. The AKP took
government power when the party was less than a year old
and had limited membership with competent members. The
competence was instead found among the Gülenists with
the help of the AKP could take a grip on public
institutions. With the help of the government, courts,
prosecutors, police and the state bureaucracy were
filled with Gülenists.
Fethullah Gülen himself left Turkey in 1999 when he
risked prosecution for Islamist statements. He was
granted a residence permit in the United States, where
he and his close followers founded a number of
organizations and foundations that advocate for
cooperation between faith communities. They can be
regarded as the spider in the extremely loose, worldwide
network of Gülen-inspired organizations.
Political trials
Beginning in 2008, Gülenist prosecutors brought
charges against over 500 people, mainly high-ranking
military but also journalists, lawyers and left-wing
politicians, who were accused of leading a secularist
organization called Ergenekon (after a mythical
decline in Central Asia described as the "aboriginal" of
the Turkish people). a conspiracy to overthrow the
government. For decades, it had been "widely known" to
harass Kemalists, ie defenders of the secular
constitution called "the deep state", thwarted all
attempts to broaden democracy, increase freedom of
expression and soften the strict control of religious
practice. The "deep state" was considered to be
widespread in the military, the courts and the state
administration.
Therefore, when the Ergen congressional proceedings
began, it did not come as a real surprise. Now the "deep
state" was drawn into the light, it seemed.
In parallel, in 2010, the Taraf newspaper claimed
that it had come across documents showing that parts of
the military leadership had begun plans for a military
coup in early 2003. The conspiracy was said to have gone
under the cover name Balyoz Harekâtı (Operation sledge).
The military leadership said that the scenario described
had existed, but only as a discussion basis for an
exercise. From the beginning, suspicions were raised
that the charges were being enforced by Gülenists for
political reasons and that the evidence was forged, but
the trials ended in 2012 with the majority of the 365
prosecutors sentenced to prison.
In 2013, a large number of life sentences and other
long prison sentences were served against over 250 of
the defendants in the Ergen Conviction.
During its first years in power, the AKP government
succeeded in gradually pushing back the military and
reducing the army's potential - and ambitions - to
unseat a democratically elected government. Through
constitutional amendments, Turkey was democratized and
the ability of the military and the courts to interfere
in politics was diminished. It became more difficult to
ban political parties with a program that "the deep
state" rejected.
But the AKP also began to appear as a powerhouse.
Among other things, so many journalists were arrested,
accused either of being involved in Ergenekon or in
connection with the PKK, that the freedom of the press
appeared to be seriously threatened. There was a
European concern that Erdoğan no longer considered
Turkish EU membership necessary and therefore no longer
needed democratic reforms.
Democratization is slowing down
It did very well for the country and the government's
popularity among the broad masses was steadfast.
Economic growth in 2010 was as much as 8.9 percent, and
during the AKP's reign, GDP per capita had doubled. In
the 2011 election, the AKP received half of the votes
and 325 of the parliament's 550 seats.
After this the third straight election victory for
the AKP, the work of democratization stopped, and here
somewhere between the government party and the Gülen
movement. Erdogan's increasingly authoritarian style
caused more and more governments in the West to lose
confidence in him and are troubled by Turkey's claim to
EU membership.
A clear turning point came in the summer of 2013,
when police were ordered to brutally beat down
protesters who protested against the building of a
popular park in central Istanbul. Broad opinion, even in
the outside world, reacted to the harsh tone of
government and especially Erdoğan, who described the
protesters as terrorists and traitors. Five people were
killed in connection with the protests.
In the fall of 2013, prosecutors brought charges of
corruption against people related to AKP. In a single
day, 52 people were arrested, including three sons of
ministers. The allegations of involvement in the
corruption spree, which involved illegal trafficking in
Iran, went all the way up to Erdogan's own family.
The scandal triggered a bitter power struggle between
the government and the Gülen movement, whose many
supporters within the police and the judiciary were
singled out by Erdoğan for lying behind a conspiracy
against the government. Hundreds of police chiefs and
judges were dismissed or relocated, and over the next
two years all convictions from the Ergenekon and Balyoz
trials were revoked. In both cases, it was now alleged
that all charges and evidence were false. Erdoğan
described the Gülen movement as an "empire of fear".
Around the turn of the year 2012-2013, new attempts
were made to make peace with the Kurdish PKK. The
government agreed that the imprisoned Öcalan should
receive visits and become part of the peace process and
facilitated Kurds' contacts with the authorities. The
PKK announced a ceasefire and pledged to withdraw all
fighters from Turkish soil. But the months went by
without real progress and with growing Kurdish
suspicion. The PKK accused the army of new war
preparations. The ceasefire became increasingly fragile
and began to disintegrate in 2014. In August of that
year, Erdoğan won in the first direct presidential
election. It was speculated that his main intention with
the peace strikes against the PKK was to secure Kurdish
support in the elections.
Kurds interfere with the president's plans
For Erdoğan, one of the big issues now was being able
to change the constitution to give the presidential
office greatly increased power. In November 2013, a
parliamentary commission had interrupted work on a new
constitution after disagreement on several issues,
including the AKP's demand for strong presidential
power. But with a two-thirds majority in Parliament, the
AKP could change the constitution without regard to
other parties, and this became the ambition ahead of the
June 2015 elections.
Among the competitors in the parliamentary elections,
the AKP met the relatively newly formed Kurdish party
HDP (see Political system), which with a broader profile
than the previous Kurdish parties reached out to
left-wing voters across the country and received more
than 13 percent of the vote. It gave the party so many
mandates that the AKP missed a two-thirds majority and
would be forced to form a coalition government.
Negotiations for a new government were significantly
slow, which immediately aroused the suspicion that
Erdoğan would rather have a quick new election.
Meanwhile, relations between the state and the Kurds
deteriorated significantly. The PKK officially suspended
the ceasefire in early July on the grounds that the
state was preparing for new attacks. Hard strikes broke
out in July and when 33 Kurdish peace activists were
killed in a terror attack in the city of Suruç, likely
by the Islamic State (IS) extremist movement, the Kurds
accused the Turkish state of indirect responsibility by
looking between its fingers with IS activity in the
border areas against Syria and Iraq..
The suspicions were also directed at IS when almost
100 people were killed and 250 injured in October 2015
in an attack on a demonstration in Ankara for peace in
the Kurdish areas.
During the fall, hundreds of suspected PKK supporters
and the army were arrested and the flight went on a hard
offensive against the PKK. The government's full
reversal of the Kurds was suspected of being an attempt
to scare away voters from the HDP who did not want to be
associated with a party accused of conspiring with
terrorists.
The result of the new election that was held on
November 1 was that HDP resigned, but again this time
passed the parliament's 10-percent ten-percent block,
and that AKP once again missed the opportunity to change
the constitution on its own. However, the government
explained that work on a new constitution with expanded
presidential power was still high on the agenda.
In 2015 and 2016, interventions against the media and
other companies with ties to the Gülen movement
continued. Several companies, including the country's
largest book publisher, were seized by the state.
Internet sites were blocked and journalists arrested.
Political control of the judiciary increased. The
police's powers to use weapons against protesters, among
other things, were strengthened. Hundreds of people were
indicted for abusing the president through satirical or
critical statements.
The European Security and Cooperation Organization
(OSCE) criticized the unfair conditions during the
election movement, but the EU indirectly rewarded the
AKP by delaying a deeply critical annual report on the
situation in Turkey after the November election. The
difficult-to-handle refugee situation that arose in the
EU during the autumn, when hundreds of thousands of
people from Syria and Afghanistan, for example, entered
Europe via Turkey, also favored the AKP government. A
desperate EU promised Turkey multibillion aid and
accelerated membership negotiations to bring back
refugees and tighten border security.
In 2016, Turkey was characterized by continued
political unrest, arrests of government opponents and
terrorist attacks, including against tourist sites in
central Istanbul. The country's largest newspaper, the
Gülenan-linked Zaman, was taken over by the state and a
couple of the country's leading journalists from the
secularist newspaper Cumhuriyet were indicted for
espionage after revealing how the security service
smuggled weapons into Islamist militia in Syria. In May
2016, the AKP passed a law that lifted the Members'
legal immunity so that they could be prosecuted if they
committed any crime. The law was obviously created to
enable all Kurdish members of the HDP to stand trial for
cooperation with the PKK.
At the end of May, Parliament decided to officially
classify the Gülenists as terrorists. The state began
using the term Gülenist terrorist movement (Fethullahçı
Terör Örgütü, Fetö).
Conditions in Turkey at the beginning of the summer
of 2016 caused great concern in the outside world, but
things would soon get worse.
|