As the pieces are being rearranged

Adnan Bostancıoğlu adnanbostancioglu@gmail.com

Last Saturday, Jan. 4, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan held two important meetings in his office at Istanbul’s Dolmabahçe Palace. The first was with – maybe with two or three exceptions – media writers and commentators who were totally “obedient” to him. A couple of matters emerged, about which we more or less knew.

The prime minister mentioned an “organizational chart” in this meeting and the existence of a letter sent from Pennsylvania that called for reconciliation… I guess we have heard these two matters for the first time from an official.

The “organizational chart” is the sign the corruption operation will reach the prime minister at the end. At least the planning is such… Nothing to be surprised about because of two reasons: First, it is apparent that the final target is Erdoğan, who represents the entire government alone. Second is the declaration of the resigned Environment and Urbanization Minister Erdoğan Bayraktar who said, “Everything has been done with the prime minister’s approval.”

Hence, if there is a “conspiracy,” then it will arrive at Erdoğan; if there is corruption, it will also arrive at Erdoğan. If both of them exist – this seems logical – the intersection point of them is indeed Prime Minister Erdoğan.

The other issue is this letter incident… According to the Pennsylvania front, the letter was sent to the president, not the prime minister. That doesn’t change anything. A letter sent to President Gül, when the incident being experienced is taken into account, is not possible not to have been excluded from the field of interest of the PM. The letter is reported to be a kind of a call to reconciliation. Apparently, the community is concerned – at least at this stage – that the business they have attempted will end up with severe damage. It is trying to buy time by stopping the total attack they are under now and strengthen its forces… However, the prime minister is also aware of this… He, since he has taken the opportunity now, wants to transform the incident into a final showdown; otherwise, he knows that he will encounter similar misfortunes again and again at unexpected times.

For this reason, he is putting up a barricade in advance, “Any corruption claim against me is an international conspiracy!”

This was the intention of the meeting: a final tuning for the “self-tools generating ideology,” dictating once again the basic framework of the defense and the counter attack.

The second meeting was indeed more important than the first, the one the PM and Justice Minister Bekir Bozdağ held with head of the Union of Bar Associations Metin Feyzioğlu. The prime minister is reported to have welcomed the proposal of Feyzioğlu regarding the formula to save the convicted or arrested in the Ergenekon and Balyoz cases.

The PM is aware he will shoot more than one bird with one stone. The inducer of these cases has been pointed at as the community within the police and the judiciary. If the cases become obsolete, the community will be punished and AKP will be the government which has corrected the unlawful…

Also, the wide ultranationalist coalition formed related to these cases will weaken to a great extent.

More importantly, a trap will be set for the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP). Since the CHP (and of course the Nationalist Movement Party - MHP) would not oppose these possible releases, they will be left without an argument or without a “policy” before these developments.

Moreover, it is known that the CHP has voluntarily moved to help the community with the recent corruption operations. We can assume that Erdoğan will most probably turn this into a huge opportunity. He will be engaged in all kinds of political maneuvers to put the CHP and the community in the same bag.

There is also the KCK dimension of the issue. This process will also please the Kurdish front.
Interesting days are ahead… The community that they had embraced up until yesterday is now their “main contradiction.” While they are trying to stomach this nowadays, the “main contradiction” of yesterday, that is The Ergenekon and the Balyoz crew will become their indirect associates… Well, this is the ridiculous dimension of the matter…

There is a variable that should not be neglected and that is the international dimension of the matter. We are talking about a government which was caught a few days ago carrying weapons to al-Qaida extensions. In other words, a government that has spent all its credit before the Western world…

Adnan Bostancıoğlu is a columnist for daily BirGün, in which this abridged piece was published on Jan 6. It was translated into English by the Daily News staff.