WikiLeaks cables paint portrait of the ‘deep state’ in Turkey

...The deep state does not shy away from manipulating the mafia and terrorist groups to its own ends, the cable said. It is very hard to follow the deep state’s activities. It is unaccountable in many aspects, including in terms of finance, as Parliament cannot actually inspect where the military and defense budgets go....

Turkey’s president, the military and the judiciary were “at the heart of the deep state” in 2002, according to a leaked U.S. embassy cable that was released Monday by WikiLeaks’ Turkish partner, daily Taraf.

The elected Turkish governments are “nothing but servants of the deep state,” a former member of the National Security Council, or MGK, told then-U.S. Ambassador W. Robert Pearson.

Pearson sent the detailed report on the deep state just 15 days after the election that brought the Justice and Development Party, or AKP, to power, according to the cable. The paper said the WikiLeaks documents it possesses contained most, but not all, of this report.

In the summary section, the “Turkish Deep State” is described as “the behind-the-curtain power relations between the choice members of the military, judiciary and the bureaucratic elite.” Pearson said in the cable that the domination of the deep state was being rejected with a clarity seen rarely in Turkish history.

In order to define the concept of the state itself for Turks, Pearson wrote that the people were pro-state in terms of being convinced of the power of a state independent from the elected politicians. However, at the same time, they feel “mistrust, even fear” of this behind-the-times, authoritarian, unaccountable state which limits their freedoms, according to Pearson.

He also said Turks used the term to describe the distinction between the “official Kemalist state” and the “deep state” in order to tell how actual power is wielded, as the latter is an unofficial one with an extremely wide national security definition and acts “half-legally.” Its face on the surface is the MGK, which consisted mostly of soldiers back in 2002.

It is headed by the president; the election of AKP-rooted Abdullah Gül to that position in 2007 created a huge dispute.

A former MGK member and member of the “West Working Group,” the alleged organization which carried out the “postmodern coup” of Feb. 28, 1997, when Islamist Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan was forced to resign, told Pearson that the president, the military and the judiciary were “at the heart of the deep state.”

The ambassador added his source also said if the deep state wanted somebody to remain far away from power, he would remain so – implying current Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who was the subject of a political ban at the time and had not entered Parliament yet. The source also told the Americans that the West Working Group was active back in 2002.

The deep state does not shy away from manipulating the mafia and terrorist groups to its own ends, the cable said. It is very hard to follow the deep state’s activities. It is unaccountable in many aspects, including in terms of finance, as Parliament cannot actually inspect where the military and defense budgets go.

The Turkish military has carried out four coups over 42 years, the 2002 cable said, for it argues it is responsible for protecting and looking after the Republic of Turkey. The judiciary is not independent at all but a tool for preserving the Kemalist status quo indefinitely and its loyalty is “hard to comprehend for Americans,” according to the cable.

The cable also accused some “senior journalists” of acting as messengers of the deep state.
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