Erdoğan's Dirty Coalition

A witch hunt was initiated upon the orders of Erdoğan. A number of police officers were placed under arrest in an operation carried out before dawn.

Let us be open. These operations were performed to deliver a message to the AKP support base on the eve of the presidential elections as a consequence of the fabrications and lies Erdoğan has been referring to in his election campaign, to mobilize his supporters. These lies were used by the judges he appointed to start this operation.

Erdoğan wants to show that those who do not support him are cuffed and forced to kneel. The message in these operations is for the Fethullah Gülen community but also for other religious communities. These operations basically send a message to other groups that if the Gülen group, the largest and most influential in Turkey, is undermined so cruelly, then you will face the same fate. Erdoğan wants to make all other religious groups kneel before him and secure their support for his own political future.

There is no need to exert ourselves tirelessly to understand how the photos of the handcuffed officers are being read by religious groups and structures in Turkey. These groups, which remain silent about the repression and unjust treatment, basically say they have received the message. Some of them appear in the pro-government and pro-Erdoğan media to get their share of the spoils by exhibiting strong opposition to the Gülen group. However, it is not possible for Erdoğan to handcuff these police officers all by himself, for his own political ambitions and projects.
These handcuffs were the handcuffs of a coalition. To be realistic, the mistake of these police officers was this: to maintain the rule of law and democracy all by themselves in this country.

Let us remember the crimes of these police officers that have put them behind bars.

1- They investigated the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK) and documented the links between KCK and MİT; they revealed that MİT had infiltrated the KCK structure and organization, which is responsible for the murders of police, military officers and civilians; the police also proved that MİT had not informed the police department of KCK plans, and therefore it failed to prevent the murders. Furthermore, neither MİT nor Erdoğan denied this. Erdoğan stated that the power behind the structure that had killed police and military officers and harmed civilians was his own intelligence agency. He argued that this is the job of an intelligence group. In a democratic country, the acknowledgement that this KCK structure had killed police and military officers and that the state intelligence agency was aware of its activities and plans would have sparked strong reactions and led to the resignation of the political administration. The citizens of the Republic of Turkey endorsed the argument that this is MİT's job, even if police and military officers are killed. The media remained silent to this interesting relationship because it was mostly controlled by the AKP. The police, when performing investigations into the KCK, attracted a reaction from the PKK and those Kurds who support it, but they also attracted the fury of MİT as well. For this reason, the PKK, MİT and their supporters are pleased by the recent arrests.

2- They were handcuffed because they had exposed the activities of actors supporting ISIL and those backing terrorism through al-Qaeda operations. The weapons seized in trucks in Adana were being transported to al-Qaeda; this was the case, even if Erdoğan and his supporters deny it. The police officers investigating the trucks were targeted by Erdoğan. However, MİT's reaction was more severe. MİT wanted to put these police officers behind bars for these two reasons.

3- They placed the Tawhid-Salam organization in the spotlight. This issue was not discussed in Turkey or the world. Erdoğan and his supporters wanted to make sure this issue remained unaddressed. However, it appears that the Tawhid-Salam file provides hints about why Turkey approached Iran and is unable to explain the large sums of money coming from this country. For instance, one of the people implicated in this file is the person who supplied the offices Erdoğan uses now. A bugging device was found in those offices.

4- Some military servicemen should also be considered part of the pro-Erdoğan coalition because of the Ergenekon operations. İlker Başbuğ and the ultra-nationalist Aydınlık group offered unconditional support for this operation.

5- The greatest supporter of the coalition Erdoğan has formed against the police is a group of contractors who rely on the corrupt economy. This group, which was pretty concerned by the corruption investigation by the police, supports this operation by siding with Erdoğan and funding the pro-government media. It is possible to make an analysis of each item. However, this goes beyond the boundaries of this column. In short, Erdoğan formed a new coalition for his own political future. It is not hard to predict the direction of Turkey by looking at this coalition. The initial indicator of this is the ongoing witch hunt.

EMRE USLU (Cihan/Today's Zaman)