UNDER WHOSE CONTROL?

"While I am aware that the Turkish Prime Minister, Justice Minister and Interior Minister have expressed strong determination to uncover all dimensions of this incident and to expend every effort in bringing the perpetrators to justice, I would like to appeal to your Excellency’s Government to ensure that all deaths that occurred in connection with the Semdinli bookshop bombing are promptly, independently and thoroughly investigated in accordance with the Principles on the Effective Prevention and Investigation of Extra-legal, Arbitrary and Summary Executions."
~ Report of the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, UN General Assembly, Human Rights Council

There was something interesting from Monday's Milliyet, titled, "A strange speech in the file". In the file is a report by a chairman of the National Forces Association, Fikri Karadağ, one of the accused in the Ergenekon case. The report is a three-page document with the title: "Now Turkey is under our control". This document is the transcription of a conversation between the Turkish Prime Minister, R. Tayyip Erdoğan and the current Chief of the Turkish General Staff, Yaşar Büyükanıt. At the time, Büyükanıt was the TSK Land Forces Commander. The report is a documentation of a secret meeting between the two, and can be found in the annexes of the Ergenekon indictment.

Note that, given the information the document references about the Şemdinli bombing, the meeting probably took place sometime in 2006, before Büyükanıt became the Chief of the Turkish General Staff.

The dialog, as published in Milliyet, is as follows:

Büyükanıt: Mr. Prime Minister the evidence and intelligence that we received shows that TSK and your government is part of a cabal, and you cannot expect us the attitude that you have toward TSK and toward the set-up by foreign supporters against YAŞ (Higher Military Assemblage). If we, as the TSK, did not give any reaction to this, within the constitutional platforms and to your department, it's because we do not want to give support to anyone who wants to lead our country into chaos. Because then they would say, "TSK talked, and the economy collapsed." That is why we did not speak openly to the public. However, we cannot stand anymore for the moves of your party, with the support of foreigners, against TSK.

Erdoğan: My dear Pasha, please don't fear. There won't be any economic crisis in Turkey just because "TSK spoke". We have agreed with the world's most prominent financial institutions, and whatever is supposed to be investigated about you and TSK regarding the Şemdinli incident, this investigation will be done. Turkey is no longer under TSK's control. Turkey will be a country under the control of the people. And there won't be anything wrong with the economy if a paşa from the TSK talks. We are cooperating together with the world's richest groups, like Rockefeller.

Büyükanıt: Mr. Prime Minister, this tone of speech is not the kind of speech of Turkey's prime minister. Did you agree with the world's most prominent financial institutions in order to block TSK from fulfilling its constitutional responsibilities? Mr. Prime Minister, you are in a cabal against Turkey. Behind the Semdinli incident, there is the intelligence service of this foreign forces, who brought your party into power. Mr. Prime Minister, if TSK is investigated, TSK will be cleared. I will be cleared. But you will be the one who is blamed. The Chief of General Staff (Hilmi Özkök), by not seeing the necessity of investigating me, saved TSK's honor. However, if Şemdinli is investigated thoroughly, everyone will see you and your undersecretariat, and those foreign forces that supported you. You are forgetting that your government is representing the state of the Turkish Republic. Mr. Prime Minister, you are not the Turkish Republic's prime minister, but you are Rockefeller's prime minister.

Erdoğan: My dear Paşa, your intelligence is wrong. Behind the Şemdinli incident are the "TSK Warlords".

Büyükanıt: Those "Warlords" are among those who carried AKP to power. Behind you and your party are these "Warlords". Some of our allies are using you and your party as a Trojan horse. You are not the prime minister of the Turkish Republic, but you are the prime minister of the "Warlords". You set up the "bagging incident" against TSK in order to punish it, with the cooperation with those forces who carried you to power, among whom is the US. The English and Zionists set up the Şemdinli incident in order to keep you in power. You are a coward who does not trust the Turkish people, but who trusts Zionists. TSK, sooner or later, will reveal this fact.

Erdoğan: Turkey is under our control. TSK is also under my control. Whoever I want as a paşa, I can appoint him to the General Staff. We have agreed with the US. We are going to have a joint operation with Iraq, Iran, and Syria. We are a partner of the US in the Greater Middle East Project; the US also sees us as their partner. Dear Paşa, Turkey is no longer in TSK's hands.

Büyükanıt: I will have to report this conversation to the Chief of General Staff. You are not a genuine Muslim. You cannot be a citizen of the Turkish Republic. Your attitude is clearly treachery and your treachery will not go without punishment. The people suffered a lot from fake religionists, fake Atatürkists, fake nationalists, and fake democrats, but, at the end, all of them were punished.

Erdoğan: You are not capable of anything. Turkey has been passed to other hands, and is still passing. Everything is under our control, and my advice to you is to also join us.

Büyükanıt: Mr. Prime Minister, I cannot join in treachery with you.

Erdoğan: You misunderstood me (Meanwhile Paşa--Büyükanıt--is trying to leave the room; Erdoğan blocks him and says). . . We are going to punish the Şemdinli prosecutor in the Şemdinli incident. There are some groups that might be against TSK [and] the extension of those groups investigated the incident.

Büyükanıt: These attitudes and flattery are not good [qualities] in a prime minister and I am leaving this disgusting environment. This meeting is over.

At this, Büyükanıt goes and following incidents are written in the report in parenthesis, by saying that Erdoğan called a couple of places by phone. He is described as "very nervous, and, quoting Erdoğan, "Find someone to calm Paşa. We made a big mistake. Whoever said that Yaşar Büyükanıt is open to every kind of offer, mislead us. Find that name." Erdoğan's orders and condemnation followed in the phone conversation.

First of all, the appearance here is one of two gangsters bargaining over some trinket in the Kapalı Çarşı. Bear in mind that this bargaining eventually led to the Dolmabahçe Deal. Part of that deal was the recognition by TSK of Gül as president. In return, in September 2007, AKP permitted the Paşas to intensify their Dirty War in The Southeast. That, in turn, led to further cooperation in the Ergenekon investigation, which has only managed to arrest and indict the old, well-known members of Ergenekon.

Then we have the appearance of the documentation of a 2006 secret meeting between the soon-to-be Chief of Turkish General Staff, Büyükanıt, and Erdoğan, who was, indeed, brought to power by the Bush administration. This document forms part of the supporting documentation of the Ergenekon indictment. If it's a bogus file, why is it in the indictment? If it's bogus, and it's in the indictment anyway, then what about the credibility of the rest of the indictment and supporting documentation?

What then, does that say about AKP's alleged crusade against the Deep State? Remember that AKP has been claiming that the end of the Ergenekon investigation is the end of the Deep State. Yet the Prime Ministry is less than thrilled that this file is annexed to their own indictment and calls it bogus. If it's a bogus file, why is it in the indictment, especially since AKP has been trying to appear as pure as the driven snow throughout this investigation? If it's bogus, and it's in the indictment anyway, then what about the credibility of the rest of the indictment and supporting documentation? What does that say about AKP's public show against Ergenekon?

Above all, the show must go on. As for justice in the Şemdinli bombing . . . fuhgeddaboudit!