Hasan Cemal on the t24 news site writes that the government is fully responsible for the Bloody Saturday in Ankara. HDP co-leader Selahattin Demirtaş is the target of hellfire because he holds the state responsible for the Bloody Saturday. Stop there – as if the state in Turkey is innocent. Have you forgotten about all the provocations that were undertaken in order to pave the way for coups? Have you forgotten the massacres in Kahramanmaraş and Çorum in the 1970s? The evidence of how this state has violated the law in the name of its supposed superior interests are fresh in memory. There is not a single conspiracy that the “deep state” – whose roots go back a century – has not staged in this country in order to prevent democracy and the rule of law from being established. And I should also add this: the regime of Erdoğan, which for a while seemed to be signaling that it was fighting against the “deep state,” has since it became the state itself, resorted to using he ominous instruments of the “deep state.” About that, there is no doubt in my mind.

By Svante Cornell

October 9th, 2015, The Turkey Analyst

Since 2010, the State Directorate for Religious Affairs has risen in prominence. Diyanet’s budget has quadrupled under the AKP, and the Directorate now issues fatwas on demand, as well as wading into political issues and backing up the AKP position. Moreover, Diyanet has drastically increased its provision of Quran courses for students of all ages. The Diyanet, originally created by the Turkish state to exercise oversight over religious affairs, is now firmly under the control of President Erdoğan, and has turned into a supersized government bureaucracy for the promotion of Sunni Islam.

By Nick Danforth

September 23rd, 2015, The Turkey Analyst

Turkey’s democratic and authoritarian legacies have been thoroughly intertwined from the outset. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s authoritarian instincts have been both motivated and enabled by the authoritarian behavior of his predecessors. Yet Erdoğan is also restrained by institutional forces that remain in place because military and civilian leaders before him proved willing to step down and compromise. And he is moreover restrained by the instincts of voters and some within his own party who value Turkey’s democratic tradition.

By M. K. Kaya

September 23rd, 2015, The Turkey Analyst

With the 5^th party congress, the deep divisions within the AKP came to the surface. President Erdoğan masterminded the exclusion of the other “founding fathers” – Abdullah Gül and Bülent Arınç – from the leadership of the party.  The party congress also effectively finished off Ahmet Davutoğlu as a serious leader. In fact, the AKP is at an impasse. The struggle that has been raging within the party is exclusively a struggle over power and control, not about the ideological direction, and the party cadres – whether they are behind Erdoğan or disgruntled with his leadership style – are by and large a spent force in Turkish politics.

Ali Bayramoğlu in Yeni Şafak writes that the AKP congress showed that Erdoğan is imposing a model of partisan presidency. Taha Akyol in Hürriyet writes that the new AKP is much more than ever before under the control of Erdoğan and he asks what’s left of the authority of the prime minister.  Abdülkadir Selvi in Yeni Şafak implores the AKP to preserve its unity, which he fears is gravely threatened unless the party embraces the old guard that has been purged. Etyen Mahçupyan in Akşam writes that the best way of derailing AKP’s reformism is to end the solution process and he asks what will be the choice of the AKP – to represent old Turkish statism and nationalism or reformism.  Mümtazer Türköne in Zaman writes that Erdoğan and PKK are both determined to finish off HDP, and he predicts that HDP is going to boycott the upcoming election to parliament, but thinks that in the end both palace and PKK are going to be the losers.