Friday, 16 October 2015 00:00

Mahçupyan: foreign powers behind terrorism

Etyen Mahçupyan in Akşam writes that it is not easy to plan and execute an act of terrorism.  The needs of organization increase the likelihood that the suicide attack in Ankara had a foreign source. The purpose can be to render Turkey incapable of exerting influence in the Middle East by burying it in internal problems.  Alongside this, there can be said to exist results that are wanted when it comes to the internal politics: such as, to spread hopelessness among the public, undermine faith in the state, to paralyze the government, to create a vacuum of authority, to render internal peace impossible… We need to bear in mind that the massacre took place at a juncture when it was being said that the PKK was going to declare a cease fire, as the government was conducting operations against ISIS within the country and as the Syrian air defense system had locked on Turkish war planes. 

Friday, 16 October 2015 00:00

İnsel: an attack against democrats

Ahmet İnsel in Cumhuriyet writes that the October 10 attack was not perpetrated against Turkey. Neither was it made against the state or the AKP. The October 10 massacre was perpetrated against the forces of freedom, democracy and peace in Turkey. This was not a blind act of terror. Its victims were purposefully selected beforehand.  Just as in Suruç and Diyarbakır, it was the people who are waging an unflinching, determined struggle for peace and democracy against the clique of Tayyip Erdoğan and the AKP’s hegemony who were killed. The November 1 election is going to be a critical date, measuring both the determination to hold the power accountable and to stop those who want to drag us toward civil war. Every vote that is cast for the parties of the peace and freedom front on November 1 will be a slap on the face of those who perpetrated the October 10 massacre, who planned it, who hope to reap the benefits of the atmosphere of terror and chaos that they have created, and who are so satisfied with the sight of this barbarity that they are not even able to feign sorrow. 

Kadri Gürsel on the Diken news site notes that, interestingly, historically, assaults against the left, the Kurds, dissidents and democrats in Turkey are not stopped, and when they have been allowed to take place, they are never explained. That is not a coincidence. If an assassination in Turkey that could have been prevented still has taken place, you can rest assured that light will never be shed on it. The proprietor of the system of darkness in Turkey may change, but its signature mark that never changes is this. And, we recognize the origin of this signature that is left behind every unresolved assassination. The abbreviation may change. It was different in the seventies; in the 2015 it has become ISIS. The signature is always the same, though. That signature is written all over the bodies that were blown to death in Ankara. The purpose is to have society retreat within its shell, to make it fear for its future and to depoliticize it.

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 Halil Karaveli

October 16th, 2015, The Turkey Analyst

Turkey’s democrats, leftists and minorities have always been prey to the sinister machinations of the multi-tentacle Leviathan that is in charge of the country. Arrayed against them have been authoritarian right wing governments, the military and the deep state.  The Ankara massacre is a reminder of who the victimized “others” in Turkey really are. It is also a reminder that the course of modern Turkish history has more than anything else been shaped by a sustained effort to stamp out any kind of challenge from the left.  The deep reservoir of popular, ultraconservative, ultranationalist resentment has continued to yield politically instrumental mass murderers. It has ensured that fascism – whether in Kemalist or Islamic disguise – has always prevailed in Turkey.

ankara-rferl 

 

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Joint Center Publications

Op-ed Halil Karaveli "The Rise and Rise of the Turkish Right", The New York Times, April 8, 2019

Analysis Halil Karaveli "The Myth of Erdogan's Power"Foreign Policy, August 29, 2018

Analysis Svante E. Cornell, A Road to Understanding in Syria? The U.S. and TurkeyThe American Interest, June 2018

Op-ed Halil Karaveli "Erdogan Wins Reelection"Foreign Affairs, June 25, 2018

Article Halil Karaveli "Will the Kurdish Question Secure Erdogan's Re-election?", Turkey Analyst, June 18, 2018

Research Article Svante E. Cornell "Erbakan, Kisakürek, and the Mainstreaming of Extremism in Turkey", Current Trends in Islamist Ideology, June 2018

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Op-ed Svante E. Cornell "Erdogan's Turkey: the Role of a Little Known Islamic Poet", Breaking Defense, January 2, 2018

Research Article Halil Karaveli "Turkey's Authoritarian Legacy"Cairo Review of Global Affairs, January 2, 2018

 

The Turkey Analyst is a publication of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Joint Center, designed to bring authoritative analysis and news on the rapidly developing domestic and foreign policy issues in Turkey. It includes topical analysis, as well as a summary of the Turkish media debate.

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