[House Hearing, 114 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
TURKEY AFTER THE JULY COUP ATTEMPT
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HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON EUROPE, EURASIA, AND EMERGING THREATS
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
SEPTEMBER 14, 2016
__________
Serial No. 114-222
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs
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COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
EDWARD R. ROYCE, California, Chairman
CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida BRAD SHERMAN, California
DANA ROHRABACHER, California GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York
STEVE CHABOT, Ohio ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey
JOE WILSON, South Carolina GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia
MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida
TED POE, Texas BRIAN HIGGINS, New York
MATT SALMON, Arizona KAREN BASS, California
DARRELL E. ISSA, California WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts
TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island
JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina ALAN GRAYSON, Florida
MO BROOKS, Alabama AMI BERA, California
PAUL COOK, California ALAN S. LOWENTHAL, California
RANDY K. WEBER SR., Texas GRACE MENG, New York
SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania LOIS FRANKEL, Florida
RON DeSANTIS, Florida TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii
MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas
TED S. YOHO, Florida ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois
CURT CLAWSON, Florida BRENDAN F. BOYLE, Pennsylvania
SCOTT DesJARLAIS, Tennessee
REID J. RIBBLE, Wisconsin
DAVID A. TROTT, Michigan
LEE M. ZELDIN, New York
DANIEL DONOVAN, New York
Amy Porter, Chief of Staff Thomas Sheehy, Staff Director
Jason Steinbaum, Democratic Staff Director
------
Subcommittee on Europe, Eurasia, and Emerging Threats
DANA ROHRABACHER, California, Chairman
TED POE, Texas GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York
TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey
MO BROOKS, Alabama THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida
PAUL COOK, California WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts
RANDY K. WEBER SR., Texas LOIS FRANKEL, Florida
REID J. RIBBLE, Wisconsin TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii
DAVID A. TROTT, Michigan
C O N T E N T S
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Page
WITNESSES
Ms. Nina Ognianova, coordinator, Europe and Central Asia Program,
Committee to Protect Journalists............................... 5
Mr. Alan Makovsky, senior fellow, Center for American Progress... 14
Ahmet S. Yayla, Ph.D., deputy director, International Center for
the Study of Violent Extremism................................. 29
Aaron Stein, Ph.D., resident senior fellow, Rafik Hariri Center
for the Middle East, Atlantic Council.......................... 43
LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING
Ms. Nina Ognianova: Prepared statement........................... 8
Mr. Alan Makovsky: Prepared statement............................ 16
Ahmet S. Yayla, Ph.D.: Prepared statement........................ 32
Aaron Stein, Ph.D.: Prepared statement........................... 45
APPENDIX
Hearing notice................................................... 68
Hearing minutes.................................................. 69
TURKEY AFTER THE JULY COUP ATTEMPT
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WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 2016
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Europe, Eurasia, and Emerging Threats,
Committee on Foreign Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:25 p.m., in
room 2200, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Dana Rohrabacher
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Let me go on record right off the bat by
saying how happy I am that Congressman Meeks and I decided to
have haircuts on the same day. All right. Okay.
I call this hearing to order. Just over 2 months ago, this
subcommittee met for a hearing focused on Turkey's democratic
decline, the second such hearing that has been held by this
committee. Eight days later, an attempt was made to overthrow
the AKP government, and during the chaos and conflict on the
night of July 15, over 240 Turkish civilians were killed, and
the Turkish Parliament bombed from the air.
As one might expect, this and the following upheaval that
followed it has been a traumatic experience for the people of
Turkey. Let them have no doubts, however, that the United
States stands by them in our support for democracy and the rule
of law. President Obama has made that clear on July 15, and
that remains the case.
Unfortunately, great damage has been done, and great damage
has been done as part of the coup attempt, but, at the same
time, President Erdogan has been making a bad situation worse
by using the failed coup as an opportunity to expand his own
political power. In short, after the coup collapsed, a state of
emergency was declared, and the government began arresting a
wide range of opponents that had nothing to do with the coup.
Journalists, secularists, military officers, government
officials who did not agree with President Erdogan's vision for
Turkey, they were arrested, 10,000 of them, and they have been
arrested, and a number of them have been tortured.
The Turkish Government is blaming its travail on--and I
can't pronounce his first name--Fethullah Gulen. Okay.
Mr. Weber. Fethullah Gulen.
Mr. Rohrabacher. There it is.
A Turkish religious philosopher living in exile on a
Pennsylvania farm. The claim that he personally planned and
ordered the coup has been accepted by many Turkish citizens
despite the lack of substantial evidence to indicate that. To
this effect, I don't find such charges to be credible, and I
believe that the Turkish Government has erred by proclaiming
anyone and everyone involved in the Gulenist religious movement
to be part of a conspiracy that put on the coup.
Again, over perhaps 100,000 civil servants, military
officer, teachers, policemen, prosecutors, even judges have
been removed from their jobs and many of them have been
arrested. They have been replaced by Erdogan's cronies, by
political opportunists, and, yes, by even Muslim Brotherhood
radicals and other Islamic fascists. As one example of how far
these ridiculous purges have gone, the Turkish soccer
authorities announced they have fired 94 officials, including a
number of soccer referees, for their ties to the coup. Over
20,000 people--whatever that exact number, it is in the tens of
thousands--have been arrested, and the Government of Turkey has
used this coup to settle old scores and to clean out the house
of those it does not seem--or deem sufficiently loyal to
Erdogan's vision for Turkey.
Incredibly, it was reported last month that Turkey would
release 38,000 criminals from prison to make room for those
taken into custody in these purges, letting murderers, rapists,
thieves go in order to make room for political opponents. It
doesn't get much worse than that.
As we have in our conversations about recent events in
Turkey, I want to underline my desire to see Turkey become an
economically strong partner of the United States that is at
peace both at home and with its neighbors. The Turks have been
wonderful allies of the American people. And as we are going
through this testimony today and we are seeing what the current
regime in Turkey is doing, which is heavy handed and wrong--
let's not forget that the Turkish people themselves have been
so loyal to us. We must wish them well and do what we can to
try to help them through this confusing time period. I mean,
Turkey, as I say, needs, in order to do that and to--and for us
to succeed and for them to succeed, Turkey needs to have strong
democratic institutions, a free press, and a country in which
people abide by the rule of law.
The government's current witch hunt that sees disloyal
Gulenists behind every door is bound to backfire, even in the
short run, but be disastrous in the long run. The fear and
tension created by a thuggish coup and by a heavy-handed
response does not and is not serving the Turkish people well.
I want to thank our witnesses for appearing here today.
And, without objection, their written statements will be made
part of the record, and all members will have at least 5
legislative days to submit additional written questions or
extraneous materials for the record.
I now turn to our ranking member, Mr. Meeks, for his
opening statement.
Mr. Meeks. Thank you, Chairman Rohrabacher, for calling
today's hearing on Turkey and giving us an opportunity to
discuss the attempted coup and its consequences for Turkey and
the United States and Turkey's relationship.
Clearly, the coup was a traumatic shock to the system. I
can recall when it was taking place looking at my television
screen in disbelief. So it is clear, and I agree with Mr.
Rohrabacher in this aspect, I stand in solidarity with the
democratically elected Turkish Government and against any
violent attempts to overthrow it or any other democratically
elected government. Democracy is important. We can't have coups
d'etat. We have got to speak out against coups d'etat in order
to have democratic order.
When I think about over 270 people were killed as the
Parliament and ministries were attacked with helicopters and F-
16s joining the fight, I can't even imagine such a scene here
in Washington, DC, soldiers firing into civilian crowds. We
cannot, and I can't believe as Members of Congress that that is
something that we want to see or can condone in any way. It is
our job to respect and defend the democratic process, and a
democratic Turkey is in everyone's best interests.
Following the failed coup, there has been a big issue of
Mr. Gulen, his residency in Pennsylvania, and his movement's
involvement in the coup. And it has taken on an increasingly
charged role in Turkish-U.S. relations. The United States has
taken the accusations and requests for Mr. Gulen's extradition
and detention very seriously, but as I say, in democracies,
there are processes. There are institutions, and there is a
judicial process that is in place now and a related treaty that
will determine this outcome. So it is not something that could
be done arbitrarily or capriciously or anything of that nature.
There is a process that has to be had and should be. That is
the reason why we have these institutions, and that is the
reason why we have these treaties.
So I say just linking the U.S. Government to the coup,
apart from being false, damages our important relationship, and
it is something that I deeply care about because the
relationship between the United States and Turkey is very
important. I understand that members of the Turkish Government
are understandably angry, but emotional statements and
accusations will not expedite the judicial process. It has to
run its course, as our judicial system demands.
And perhaps, as a result of the failed coup and subsequent
purges, Turkey has markedly stepped up its fight against Daesh
in Syria. Turkey is a NATO ally and plays an essential role in
the region, and has sought to mend relations with Russia and
Israel. And while cooperation with those countries is welcome,
Turkey's role in NATO and as host to over 1,500 U.S. troops
remains especially important to the United States Congress.
In our previous hearing on this topic we discussed Turkey's
democratic development, the Kurdish question, and the role of a
civil society in Turkey. During the failed coup and afterwards,
in an impressive show of unity, all Turkish political parties
came to the defense of the elected government and even
supported a search for those allegedly responsible for the
coup, including Gulenists and members of Hizmet movement.
Indeed, those found guilty should be rooted out of the
government's organs and brought to justice.
The state of emergency, however, must not be used to cover,
to detain, arrest, and fire those with no responsibility for
the coup. How many judges, teachers, and businessmen have been
found innocent and allowed to return to their posts? We must
look at and analyze because if you had nothing to do with this
and you are found innocent, as I am sure there are many
individuals, they should be returned to their posts.
Furthermore, are members of the legal pro-Kurdish movement, the
HDP, being unjustly ensnared in a political war? As previously
mentioned, we must protect the United States-Turkey
relationship and simultaneously encourage strong democratic
institutions and respect for the law.
So, for me, this is an important hearing to listen to these
witnesses, to get your expert viewpoints on what is or is not
taking place in Turkey, because it is important for us to
decide as Members of the United States Congress what we should
or should not do, what we should or should not say.
Just as I say that, the Turkish Parliament should not do
things based upon emotion, I also believe that we in the United
States Congress should not do something just based upon
emotion. We need to try to figure out what the issues are and
what the facts are, and move accordingly because it is
important for our relationship, and I think all over the world
that the U.S. and Turkey have a strong relationship.
So I want to thank the witnesses in advance for their
testimony, and I look forward to asking questions as we move
forward. And I yield back.
Mr. Rohrabacher. I thank you, Mr. Meeks.
One of our members also has a 1-minute opening statement,
Colonel Cook from California.
Mr. Cook. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I think a number of us are worried about Turkey. Obviously,
this is a Foreign Affairs Committee hearing. I am also on the
House Armed Services Committee. I am also on the NATO
Parliament. As already discussed, everybody knows that Turkey
has been a key ally. It is a member of NATO. The Turkish
Americans in my district throughout California, very, very
close to the business climate, all those pluses. I think right
now everybody is very, very nervous about the Erdogan
government, some of the things that are happening as we speak,
obviously, the relationship with the Kurds, the relationship
with some of the Christians. And I am not sure--right now, I
don't have that optimism about Mr. Erdogan. And this was well
before the coup. And this is going to determine whether our
military relations continue. We have a key base at Incirlik. We
had problems before. We are going to see what happens after the
coup. And we also have an impending sale of F-35s, the most
advanced aircraft. And whether that will still be approved by
the administration and Congress, that is something that is
coming up.
So this coup and everything that has happened there, I am
not as optimistic as my colleagues because of some of the mixed
signals, but then you look at Israel, that a year or 2 years
ago, they had severed diplomatic relations, and surprisingly
enough, recently they have kind of normalized relations with
Turkey.
So, hopefully, we can get passed this, hopefully we can
establish a dialogue with Mr. Erdogan, and hopefully, we can
have a democracy in a country right now where, in my opinion,
it does not exist.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Today, we have four excellent witnesses.
And my direction would be, as usual, if you could get to the
heart of the matter and give us 5 minutes of the basic
information you think we need to know. The rest of your
statement will be made part of the record. And we will proceed
with that in mind.
And our first witness--and I will introduce all witnesses,
and then you will testify--Nina, and, again, I am going to
pronounce this, Ognianova? That is good enough? All right. And
she is the coordinator for Europe and Central Asia programs for
the Committee to Protect Journalists, where she has tracked
developments in Turkey for the past several years. Previously,
she worked as a writer for the International Journalists
Network and earned a master's degree from Missouri School of
Journalism.
And next is Alan Makovsky, who is a senior fellow at the
Center for American Progress. He has been with us several
times, and I am finally learning how to pronounce his name. It
is a private think tank, of course, the Center for American
Progress, and it is here in Washington, DC. And for more than a
decade, he served as a senior professional staff member right
here, so we give him a little leeway that way, on the Foreign
Affairs Committee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee,
covering the Middle East, Turkey, and the other problems that
we tackled in this committee. Before that, he directed the
Washington Institute's Turkey Research Program and was an
employee of the State Department.
We have next Ahmet Yayla. Good. Got it. And he is an
adjunct professor at the Department of Criminology, Law, and
Society at George Mason University, and the deputy director of
the International Center for the Study of Violent Extremism. He
has a long career as a Turkish law enforcement officer and
served as chief of the antiterrorism division of the Turkish
National Police. And he has earned his master's degree and
Ph.D. Degrees from the University of North Texas. And he is the
author of a recent book, and I would ask you to give us the
title of your book during your testimony. See? There you go.
Okay.
And then there is Aaron Stein, a senior fellow at the
Atlantic Council's Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East--
Hariri, okay--where this institute follows and comments on
developments in Turkey and in the region. Dr. Stein received
his Ph.D. In Middle East and Mediterranean studies at King's
College in London.
Does that mean you are English?
Mr. Stein. No. American.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Oh, there. All right.
So we will start on this end, and we will then, after 5-
minute presentations, open it up for questions from the panel.
Okay. Thank you.
STATEMENT OF MS. NINA OGNIANOVA, COORDINATOR, EUROPE AND
CENTRAL ASIA PROGRAM, COMMITTEE TO PROTECT JOURNALISTS
Ms. Ognianova. Mr. Chairman and members of the
subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to testify on press
freedom in Turkey after the July 15 coup attempt. My name is
Nina Ognianova, and I am the Eurasia program coordinator at the
Committee to Protect Journalists. We are a press freedom
organization dedicated to defending the rights of journalists
worldwide, and it is an honor to speak with you today.
My oral statement will be a summary of my written
statement, which contains extended analysis and specific
examples of press freedom violations in Turkey.
On July 15, military officers attempted to overthrow
Turkey's elected government. Thousands of Turks took to the
streets to defend it, and more than 200 were killed. In this
crucial moment, Turkey's usually polarized society was united.
The AKP received overwhelming support from across the political
spectrum, but instead of channeling that support to bridge
differences, authorities have been using the failed putsch to
purge their opponents: Mounting a sweeping crackdown on the
critical media when Turkey most needs a plurality of voices.
The government immediately blamed the coup on the Hizmet
movement, followers of preacher Fethullah Gulen, whom the
Turkish Government accuses of leading a terrorist organization.
Gulen has denied all accusations.
Within days after the putsch, the AKP announced the state
of emergency that allowed it to govern by decree. Within a few
weeks, the government had closed down more than 100 media,
including broadcasters, newspapers, magazines, publishers, and
distribution companies, and it had detained over 100
journalists. At least 30 news Web sites were censored by state
regulators. Some journalists have managed to escape into exile.
Others' passports were canceled to prevent their departure.
Judges suspected of having ties to Hizmet were purged and
replaced with AKP loyalists.
The Prime Minister's office has revoked the press
credentials of over 600 journalists. In mid-August, CPJ's 2016
International Press Freedom Award recipient, Can Dundar,
resigned his editorship of the daily Cumhuriyet and said he
would not return to Turkey while the state of emergency was in
effect. Trusting the judiciary, Dundar said, would be like
laying one's head on the guillotine.
The scope of the purge has spread far beyond the
requirements of the safety and security of the Turkish state.
With all the media outlets perceived as tied to Gulen already
shuttered and with the list of journalists arrested for once
having worked at this media growing by the day, the purge has
now moved on to individual critics of both the government and
the Hizmet movement, and the long-standing judicial and police
harassment of the Kurdish media has intensified.
The state of emergency has given security agencies the
right to detain individuals for up to 30 days without access to
a judge, which has created conditions in which detainees are at
risk of abuse. In my written testimony, I have described
several cases of reported police abuse of journalists in
custody, and all of these abuses have been carried out with
impunity.
CPJ is dismayed at the cancellation of a growing number of
journalists' passports. This punitive measure has been extended
to the family members of the accused. In one disturbing recent
case, on September 3, Can Dundar's wife, Dilek, here in the
picture, was prevented from traveling to Europe to visit her
husband in exile. Security officers confiscated her passport
without giving any reason. She has not been charged with a
crime, so the only explanation for this official action is that
she is being punished for her husband's journalism.
There is much that remains unclear about the July 15 coup
attempt, but instead of allowing Turkish journalists to do
their job and to investigate the truth about this conspiracy,
the government is making the press pay the price for the
illegal actions of rogue military officers.
Turkey's domestic purge of its media has international
repercussions. Credible independent media reports are vital for
the world's understanding of Turkey's handling of the Syrian
refugee crisis or the battle against Islamic State.
While it is important to condemn the coup attempt, we
strongly urge U.S. leaders to condemn the continuing purge of
opposition and independent media. The U.S. should allow Turkish
journalists caught in the post-coup purge to travel to the
United States. CPJ awardee Can Dundar hopes to travel to New
York in November to receive his award. The U.S. should not
honor Turkish arrest warrants for journalists and should
encourage other countries not to honor those warrants as well
and should treat journalist's travel documents as valid even if
Turkey has already canceled them. We urge Congress to consider
imprisoned Turkish journalists as prisoners of conscience,
including the more than 100 journalists detained in the
aftermath of the failed coup.
Plunging to a naked authoritarianism risks destabilizing
Turkey, which is a vital U.S. ally. Putting an end to the ever
broadening crackdown on independent media is a vital step
toward stopping and reversing that plunge before it becomes too
late.
Thank you for providing CPJ with the opportunity to address
you today.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Ognianova follows:]
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Mr. Rohrabacher. Thank you very much.
Mr. Makovsky.
STATEMENT OF MR. ALAN MAKOVSKY, SENIOR FELLOW, CENTER FOR
AMERICAN PROGRESS
Mr. Makovksy. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chairman
Rohrabacher, Ranking Member Meeks, esteemed members of the
subcommittee----
Mr. Rohrabacher. Put the mike a little closer to you. There
you go.
Mr. Makovksy. Yeah. I forgot to turn it on. Second time in
a row I have done that.
Mr. Rohrabacher. How much you forget.
Mr. Makovksy. Yeah. I told you I wasn't on this side of the
table before. Anyway, I will start again.
Chairman Rohrabacher, Ranking Member Meeks, esteemed
members of the subcommittee, it is an honor to have been
invited back to testify here today on this important topic.
Maybe I will get it right this time.
Mr. Chairman, any discussion of the post-coup environment
in Turkey must begin with an acknowledgement that Turkish
society endured an enormous trauma on July 15, as you and the
ranking member and Mr. Cook all said in your opening remarks.
As well, I think we should acknowledge that the U.S. and, for
that matter, European Union's response to the coup was less
than optimal, inadvertently feeding conspiracy mindedness in
Turkey.
That said, it is now 2 full months since the coup, and it
is more than fair to take stock of the Turkish Government's
reaction. Their reaction has been found wanting in three major
ways. First of all, the vastness and persistence of the purge
of the civil service, which you have detailed in your opening
remarks, the arrest of journalists, the closure of media
outlets, the arrests for spurious reasons, many of these
arrests having nothing whatsoever--of people having nothing
whatsoever to do with Gulen or Gulenists, has turned a somewhat
understandable initial desire to err on the side of caution
into an unbridled witch hunt. Even President Erdogan recently
expressed some concern about how vast this is, and he said to
governors: You should not vie with one another to see who can
arrest more people.
And this is happening against a background of growing
authoritarianism in Turkey that predates the coup attempt, as
we discussed at our previous hearing.
Second, even in ostensibly pursuing post-coup unity,
President Erdogan's approach has been divisive. Revulsion of
the coup attempt and justifiable pride in thwarting it through
popular action united many Turks in the coup's immediate
aftermath. However, government-led post-coup efforts at healing
were, in fact, themselves divisive, excluding the party that
most Kurds in Turkey's southeast support, the People's
Democracy Party, or HDP, which is in fact, the third largest
party in Parliament. For example, HDP has been excluded from
talks on a new Turkish constitution, and it was excluded from
the emotional August 7 Istanbul rally that attracted millions
of Turks supporting democracy and condemning the coup.
Third, the Turkish Government has engaged in anti-U.S.
scapegoating following the coup attempt, primarily through
means of the heavily pro-government media, which has repeatedly
blamed the coup attempt on the U.S. Government and various U.S.
citizens, both public and private. The government has
reinforced this scapegoating by raising suspicions regarding
Fethullah Gulen's long-time residence in the United States and
by leading the Turkish public to expect the United States to
deliver Mr. Gulen to Turkey quickly, with little
acknowledgement that extradition is a lengthy process that can
only be successfully achieved with hard evidence.
According to a generally reliable Turkish poll taken during
the third week of August, one-quarter of Turks believe that the
United States was behind the coup whereas 55 percent believe
Gulen was the mastermind. That means one-quarter believe we
were much more behind it than even Gulen. Anecdotal evidence, I
would say, however, suggests that far more than one-quarter
believe the U.S. had at least indirect involvement in or prior
knowledge of the coup attempt. According to the same poll, 90
percent of Turks now have an unfavorable view of the U.S., with
only 9 percent favorable.
Looking ahead, it is clear that President Erdogan is now a
far more dominant ruler than he was even before the coup
attempt. He is also likely to remain a difficult partner for
the United States. I don't believe Turkey wants to leave NATO,
nor should we want it to do so, but President Erdogan's Turkey
is likely to push the boundaries of partnership at times and
use its reborn relationship with Russia as well as manipulate
anti-Americanism at home as leverage with us on bilateral
issues.
Two final points quickly, Mr. Chairman, if I may. A good
relationship with Turkey remains a highest priority U.S.
national interest, but we should not turn a blind eye to
Turkey's deteriorating human rights situation nor conveniently
forget that this deterioration began well before the July 15
coup attempt.
Second, and finally, more broadly, we must remain alert to
the possibility that Turkey could indeed drift from the Western
alliance. I do not believe that will happen, but given the many
strains on U.S.-Turkish bilateral relations, the possibility of
Turkey turning away from the West is now sufficiently plausible
that it would be wrong not to plan for that contingency.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Makovsky follows:]
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----------
Mr. Rohrabacher. Thank you for that important warning.
Next, we have Mr. Yayla.
STATEMENT OF AHMET S. YAYLA, PH.D., DEPUTY DIRECTOR,
INTERNATIONAL CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF VIOLENT EXTREMISM
Mr. Yayla. Thank you very much, Chairman Rohrabacher,
Ranking Member Meeks.
Mr. Rohrabacher. And we would like you to speak right into
that microphone.
Mr. Yayla. Okay. Dear Chairman Rohrabacher, Ranking Member
Meeks, members of subcommittee, and ladies and gentlemen, it is
an honor to testify before you today. Since we have 5 minutes,
I have detailed in my written statement, but I would like to go
over a few quick points very fast.
I think it is critical to understand the pre-coup
conditions in Turkey, especially in regards to President
Erdogan. The economy before the coup was suffering very deeply.
The tourism industry was almost dead after the several
terrorist attacks. After the shootdown of Russian airplane, the
sanctions put on Turkey by Putin were deteriorating. The
economy was very bad, especially tourism suffered a lot. And
after 2013 December criminal charges against the government,
the rule of law had started to mean nothing, and several
international businessmen, businesses and investors left
Turkey, like Tesco, PayPal, also. And freedom of speech, free
media, and the rule of law started to mean nothing in Turkey,
basically eroding the foundations of democracy in Turkey.
Turkey was going through tough times, and the relationship
with the West, with the EU, and NATO was deteriorating.
Erdogan, as the gatekeeper of ISIS, kept tricking the EU with
the sending of several thousand refugees to the European
countries. The U.S. was upset with Turkey's failed commitment
to fight with ISIS and Erdogan's, or Turkey's, illicit support
to ISIS. For example, the leader of Turkish ISIS, Halis
Bayancuk, was released from prison almost a year ago, and right
now, he freely operates inside Turkey without any problems.
Just a week ago, suspects of Sultanahmet's Blue Mosque ISIS
suicide attack were released from prison. If you look at the
arrests of those ISIS people, ISIS suspects, when they got
arrested somehow they were not handcuffed, but if you look at
the journalists, when they got arrested, they were handcuffed
from the back. So that is the approach of the government,
unfortunately. If you compared the ISIS members and the
journalists or other people getting arrested.
Another problem was the Zarrab case. Right now, Zarrab, an
Iranian Turkish businessman, in New York Federal--being tried
in New York Federal court, and he was the key person to
Turkey's oil-to-gold scheme, which was managed by the
government and Zarrab was managing that, and right now is being
tried for money laundering, bank fraud, and evading sanctions
against Iran. And that person was arrested during 2013,
corruption charges raised by Istanbul police, who Erdogan
backed up very furiously and who pledged to Erdogan's wife's
foundation millions of dollars.
Close associates of Erdogan and his sons were being named
with dealing with ISIS oil on the media, and Erdogan could not
produce a diploma, university diploma, which was being
circulated on social media against him. It was very obvious
that Erdogan was not able to reach his goal through democratic
means with all those troubles, as the polls showed that his
support was diminishing.
When we look at the aftermath of the coup, I have spent
almost 20 years as a chief of counterterrorism operations in
Turkey, and I know the capacity of government officials and
counterterrorism of the police. As the police was dealing with
the coup attempters, the security services and intelligence,
all of a sudden, after 3 hours, Erdogan left Ataturk Airport.
We had a list of 1,653 military officers who were deemed as the
perpetrators of the coup, and of whom almost 90 percent were
not on the field. And all of a sudden, the security services in
3 hours found ways to investigate the coup attempt. They
analyzed the evidence they had. They made a list of 1,653
military officers all over Turkey. They got warrants for those
officers and distributed those warrants to 81 provinces all
over Turkey in 3, 4 hours. And then the police somehow started
to arrest those people in their homes or at their vacation
places. And from a technical perspective, it should take
months, not weeks. So it is very clear that that list was
prearranged. And also we can see that from a list of
prosecutors and judges who were fired. They fired immediately
2,000 something prosecutors. One the prosecutors was deceased
57 days at the time of his firing. So they fired someone who
died 2 months ago.
And we can see a lot of examples of that. For example,
Saygi Ozturk, a prominent journalist. We listed a few of them.
The list the government had when they were firing the judges
and prosecutors was prepared almost 2 years ago because the
cities where they were working were the cities where they were
working 2 years ago.
Another important aspect involves the purge, firing, and
arrests. Over 100,000 people were fired, and almost 60,000
people were arrested and detained. And nobody knows how those
lists were arranged and how those people were involved in the
coup.
Another important factor is the questions and
inconsistencies of the statements of important people after the
coup. For example, the chief of staff, Akar, the Turkish
national intelligence director came out and said that he
informed Akar at 4 p.m. About the coup. However, Akar himself,
he was sitting in his office up until 9 p.m. When he was--until
he was arrested. He did not inform Erdogan. He did not inform
the Prime Minister nor did he inform his commanders of the air
force, army. The air force commanders learned about the coup at
a wedding in Istanbul. The commander of Gendarmerie learned
about the coup in Ankara at a wedding. So this is a very
questionable act on not letting know his superiors, President
Erdogan and the Prime Minister and others.
I would like to finish, as I am out of time. My book's name
is ``ISIS Defectors: Inside Stories of the Terrorist
Caliphate.''
And I would like to finish with one note. My son was
arrested after I wrote an article on this issue in Turkey
because my passport was canceled, and the charges against my
son is--the reason that he was arrested was because my passport
was canceled.
And I would like to give a story from the prophet Muhammad.
One companion of the prophet Muhammad asked the prophet
Muhammad, ``What is the biggest jihad?'' Because nowadays, with
ISIS, we hear a lot of stories about jihad. The prophet
Muhammad said, ``A word of truth in front of a tyrant's ears.''
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Yayla follows:]
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----------
Mr. Rohrabacher. Well, thank you. And we will keep your son
in mind. And----
Mr. Yayla. Thank you.
Mr. Rohrabacher [continuing]. I hope whoever is reading
this testimony in Turkey understands that we know who your son
is, and we will not--it will not escape our attention if he is
continued in captivity.
Dr. Stein, would you like to proceed?
STATEMENT OF AARON STEIN, PH.D., RESIDENT SENIOR FELLOW, RAFIK
HARIRI CENTER FOR THE MIDDLE EAST, ATLANTIC COUNCIL
Mr. Stein. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chairman,
other members of the committee, as well as my panelists for the
opportunity to speak today.
I am going to dispense with reading my full statement, and
instead, in the interest of time, just focus on the main
takeaways.
I think the failed coup on July 15, I mean, it was
obviously a very serious event, and I think the scale of the
Turkish trauma has been underestimated in this country, even
people who say that they understand that this was a serious
event I think still to a certain extent underestimate what took
place on July 15.
I also believe that the coup plotters themselves have been
cast wrong. You know, I don't think that they were these series
of bumbling fools who made a series of errors. I think that
they were very serious individuals. I think the coup attempt
was larger than most people realized. It involved a number of
different branches of the armed services from two different
land--you know, land armies, the air force special operations
command, the navy, and the coast guard. And I do think that
there is, you know, enough evidence put forward in the Turkish
press to say that there was Gulenist involvement, but there
were also a lot of other people involved as well.
The post-coup purges have obviously been very, very large.
I believe the last count was 80,000 suspended, with some tens
of thousands formally arrested. I think it is important to note
that a lot of these purges have public support in Turkey, and
that is because of the deep distrust amongst various elements
of the Turkish, you know, both electorate and people for
Fethullah Gulen and his role in Turkish society. But I will say
this: I think there are signs that this unity and this general
support for the purges is beginning to pass. So, if the rally
around the flag, you know, is always palpable in states or
countries that undergo trauma, you know, thinking about our own
country after 9/11, it eventually does pass, and I think we are
in that moment at the moment in Turkey.
I do believe, however, that the sense of nationalism has
been bolstered by two interrelated things. One is that there is
a concurrent war going--or counterinsurgency, I should call it,
in the southeast between the Turkish security forces and the
PKK. And just to give a sense of how large that conflict is--it
largely escapes international attention--is, since July, there
has been greater than 600 Turkish security personnel killed
and, in a number of different cities that have been destroyed
by fighting, more than 500,000 IDPs. So this is independent of
the Syria conflict as well.
And the other is the instrumentalization of anti-
Americanism. Now, I agree with Mr. Makovsky that this has been
instrumentalized and that this is largely a populist crutch
that the Turkish Government is using, one, because I believe,
as, you know, a public opinion poll has pointed out, that
people do actually believe that the United States was involved
in the coup. I think that is far more widespread than most
people realize. And if we weren't directly involved, because,
you know, trying to explain the ins and outs of extradition law
to any public, you know, causes most people's eyes to glaze
over and they flip the channel.
And the other is that it is useful because it is always
easier to blame the foreign other than it is to look internally
to what was a very domestic Turkish event that the United
States has nothing to do with the coup; we have nothing to do
with the execution of Turkish domestic politics, with one
exception, that Fethullah Gulen is a green card holder.
The Turkish military, I will focus on as I begin to wrap
up, has already been affected, and the operational readiness is
nowhere near where it was before the coup began: 149 flag-
ranking officers have been purged, replaced with 99, so they
are 50 short of admirals and generals than where we were on
July 14. The air force has plans to shutter three squadrons,
perhaps in addition to two more, for a total of five, which
means that the operational readiness with the commitments that
they have in three different countries, their own, Iraq, and
Syria, you know, begin to come into question about how large a
scale and how they can actually sustain current level of
operations both against ISIS and the PKK.
And I think, in closing, I think it is important for us all
to realize that Turkey is actually unstable, and it is a very
difficult ally, but nevertheless, it is an important ally. I
mean, you can't really put your finger on anything that says,
``This is why Turkey is absolutely instrumental for American
interests abroad,'' except for the idea that NATO matters,
transatlantic relations matter, especially at a time when that
sort of fundamental aspect of American foreign policy is being
called into question more and more about the value of overseas
alliance.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Stein follows:]
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----------
Mr. Rohrabacher. That last statement was----
Mr. Weber. Interesting.
Mr. Rohrabacher [continuing]. Is very important, in that we
have to--look, Turkey--I am 69 years old, for those younger
people out there who haven't been around that long. Ever since
I can remember, the Turks have always been at our side, and we
have been at their side. What a tragedy to lose that goodwill
and that sense of family that we have had with the Turks. And
that is one of the reasons why as, over the years, there have
been different controversies and areas of friction that have
emerged, I have always bent over backwards to try to be fair to
my Turkish friends, because they are our friends.
And, unfortunately, we have now, from what I can see, is
that the government has gone--the Government of Turkey has gone
way beyond its bounds of not only propriety but of any type of
acceptable response to what was an illegal and bloody and
thuggish, as I say, coup attempt. And a thuggish coup attempt
does not justify creating a dictatorship and an oppressive
regime allied with radical Islamic forces and eliminating pro-
Western people from areas of influence in their country. There
is no justification for it, although we have to recognize, as
all of our folks have, that they have gone through a trauma.
However, that is where my line of questioning begins, I
would suggest, I believe, that just what you can presume that
this didn't just happen in terms of the response. This was not
a response to something that happened. That response was in
place. In other words, there--and I will ask Mr. Yayla about
this. You said that, within a matter of hours, thousands of
people were being arrested. What does that indicate to you as a
former officer in Turkish intelligence and law enforcement,
that those arrests were ready to be made even before the coup?
Isn't that correct?
Mr. Yayla. Definitely. You cannot make just a list of 1,653
people from the military as the police--or as the intelligence,
because the lists are not out there. So those lists were
studied, analyzed, investigated at least, in my experience, 6
months before. And in hours, very short term, while you are
dealing with the trauma, with all your forces in the field
fighting against the coup makers, with your intelligence and
investigators on the--taking precautions and preventative
measures, you cannot prepare a list of 1,653 military officers
and most of whom were not directly involved with the coup,
also. Several of them were taken from their vacation places.
And there was not any indication that those people were related
with the coup.
Mr. Rohrabacher. So we have all kinds of people who had
nothing to do with the coup----
Mr. Yayla. No.
Mr. Rohrabacher [continuing]. Who have been arrested, and
we have, obviously, a list of people to be arrested long before
the coup even happened.
Mr. Yayla. Yes. In the list, there were deceased people.
There were several people wrongly listed, and they were already
fired. Even though they were fired, they were relisted. So it
also shows that the lists were prearranged because they refired
five people.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Right. I would like to ask our first two
witnesses to put this in perspective for us. Was there this
type--was there a major increase, because last time we had a
hearing, that is one of the things we talked about, an increase
of repression going on in Turkey before the coup? Did we see
journalists arrested? Did we see newspapers closed? Did we see
opposition parties or whatever suppressed before the coup?
Ms. Ognianova. I can speak about the situation with the
press and the media. We have been following daily events, press
freedom events in Turkey for years, but because of the
magnitude of the crackdown, which had started months and months
before the coup attempt, we were compelled to create a daily
chronicle of those events. We started putting it out in March,
which is when the--we thought that was the peak of repressions,
when the Zaman--the Feza media group, which includes Zaman and
a number of other big pro-Gulen media, were basically
confiscated by the state.
Mr. Rohrabacher. And that is--when was that?
Ms. Ognianova. That was in March. And that was really a
peak moment that we thought that this was the culmination of
months and months before that of repressions, but we were wrong
because after we started this daily chronicle in March, we
started reporting and documenting dozens of cases on a weekly
basis.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Dozens of cases----
Ms. Ognianova. Dozens of cases of violations of press
freedom, including detentions of journalists, prosecutions on
politically motivated charges, including terrorism charges,
criminal charges, insult charges, the de facto imprisonment of
detained journalists, the shuttering of media outlets----
Mr. Rohrabacher. Okay.
Ms. Ognianova [continuing]. Their confiscation by the
government and their use for--basically they became
mouthpieces.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Okay. Thank you. We see, in the press
area, there was this repression a long time before the coup.
Ms. Ognianova. A long time before the coup.
Mr. Rohrabacher. So no matter how thuggish the coup was,
that can't be an excuse for the tyranny that happened even
before it and, as we heard from the witness, was probably
arranged--the thousands of people were probably arranged even
before there was a coup.
Mr. Makovsky what about--excuse me. The press, what about
other opposition parties, et cetera, did we have that type of
repression before the coup?
Mr. Makovksy. Yeah. Absolutely. I would fully associate
myself with Ms. Ognianova's remarks. And as I testified last
time, media repression in Turkey has been going on for years,
and a lot of it has been very insidious and not so visible: In-
house censorship, a lot of self-censorship, many firings have
been going on for a long time. Most people who work on Turkey
in this town have many friends who suffered as a result,
journalist friends and--suffered well long before the coup.
I wonder, Mr. Chairman, if it is the appropriate time, I
was going to say a word or two about the Gulen movement and
the----
Mr. Rohrabacher. You know what? Let's hold that off until
the other questions----
Mr. Makovksy. Sure.
Mr. Rohrabacher [continuing]. But I will suggest, unless
one of my colleagues would like to ask specifically about it,
but if it does not get covered in the questions, we will come
back, and I will be asking all of you what specifically you
believe about the Gulenist movement. Is it indeed a
conspiratorial movement that tries to in some way capture power
from a democratically elected government?
And do you have one comment on whether or not this
repression that came immediately after the coup and what we
have been talking about was in some way already in place before
the coup?
Mr. Stein. I would agree with most of the statements from
the colleagues. Yes, because it was in place of when the Gulen
movement and the AKP had their political falling out in
December 2013, so I would say beginning in January 2014 was
when you had what we would call purges beginning. And so, yes,
those lists were already there, because the targeting of the
Gulen movement and its listing as a terrorist organization in
Turkey had already taken place before that.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Right. And correct me if I am wrong. The
falling out--that the Gulenist movement supported Erdogan prior
to--well, when he was first coming to power politically, and
the falling out they had was after the Gulenists in the media
reported on corruption of the Erdogan government. Is that
correct?
Ms. Ognianova. If I can just----
Mr. Rohrabacher. Right. That is when--okay. Jump in at that
point, and then we will go on to my colleagues.
Ms. Ognianova. There were released recordings of
conversations, or alleged conversations, between government
officials, including Erdogan, and his family members and other
members of his----
Mr. Rohrabacher. Right.
Ms. Ognianova [continuing]. Circle that were leaked on
social media first, and from there on, the media picked them
up.
Mr. Rohrabacher. But the----
Ms. Ognianova. So they were first leaked on----
Mr. Rohrabacher. But the actual----
Ms. Ognianova [continuing]. The media----
Mr. Rohrabacher. But the actual----
Ms. Ognianova [continuing]. On social media.
Mr. Rohrabacher. The releases were releases concerning----
Ms. Ognianova. Corruption.
Mr. Rohrabacher [continuing]. Corruption. Right.
Ms. Ognianova. Correct.
Mr. Rohrabacher. That is an----
Ms. Ognianova. Correct.
Mr. Rohrabacher [continuing]. Important distinction between
somebody who gets mad because his children are being talked
about in a bad way on social media versus somebody who is angry
because his corrupt practices that were enriching him and his
family have been exposed. It is a big difference.
It is yours. Mr. Meeks.
Mr. Meeks. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
As I indicated in my opening statement, you know, I am
always concerned about democracy and democratic institutions.
So my first question would be, were any members of the
Parliament allegedly a part of the coup d'etat? Does anybody
know? From any parties. Were any arrested or charged with
anything or dismissed from the Parliament or anything of that
nature?
Mr. Makovksy. There were charges against some of the
Kurdish members of the Parliament, but not specifically about
the coup.
Mr. Meeks. Right. I am talking about the coup. I am talking
specifically about the coup at this point.
Mr. Makovksy. Not to my knowledge.
Mr. Meeks. Okay.
Mr. Yayla. Not the Parliament members, but Baskan Saban
Disli, deputy general director of AKP, was reported--Major
General Mehmet Disli was reported to be among the coup makers.
And, in fact, Akar testified that he put a gun on his head to
sign off to a coup statement. However, strangely, when Akar was
saved from Akinci Base, Mehmet Disli, Major General Mehmet
Disli was with him arriving the Presidency, and on 16th
morning, Mehmet Disli, Major General Mehmet Disli, brother of
Saban Disli, the AKP deputy general director, arrived to the
Prime Ministry with Akar, chief of staff.
Mr. Meeks. Right. I am specifically focused on the
Parliament right now.
Mr. Yayla. That is the only connection I have.
Mr. Meeks. Right. I want to know about that because, you
know, that is part of democracy, because part of what I believe
democracy also includes is elections, and there were
parliamentarian elections in 2015, I believe. And I don't--you
know, I think that we should change governments but via
democratic elections, you know, like a President, like a Prime
Minister, you know, member of Parliament, you remove them by
elections, and so that becomes tremendously important to me.
Let me also ask, because I am trying to make sure that I
understand what, if any, differences there are, particularly in
dealing with journalists, A, are the journalists freely able to
report on the failed coup and the aftermath and what took place
in Turkey, and B, how would you describe how journalists--or
the differences between how journalists are treated in Turkey
as opposed to Russia?
Ms. Ognianova. Well, the answer to the first question is a
plain and simple no. They are not freely able to report on the
coup or on any other sensitive issues. Turkey had been using
overly broad antiterror laws for months before the coup, but
now there is, plain and simple, no independent and opposition
media to be voicing an alternative version of events to what
the government is broadcasting happened during the July events.
As I said before, more than 100 media outlets were shut
down directly after the coup. And these figures, the 100
detained, the 46 broadcasters shut down and accreditation
taken, are merely a snapshot that were taken a couple of weeks
after the coup. The events on the ground are evolving, and
unfortunately to the worse for journalists. So chances are
there are many, many more journalists detained.
But, as far as we know, there is no alternative voices that
are available on the ground at the moment, minus the social
media, Twitter, which has also been under attack----
Mr. Meeks. Attack.
Ms. Ognianova [continuing]. In Turkey.
And in regard to the comparison with Russia, well, in the
months before the coup, I personally had made this comparison
between the tactics that President Putin had been taking in
regards to the Russian media for the past 10 years and what Mr.
Erdogan had been able to achieve in a matter of a couple of
years. In 3 or 4 years, Erdogan and his government were able to
achieve the level of censorship in Turkey and Turkish media
that the Russian Government had been able to achieve within 10
years.
Mr. Meeks. Okay.
Let me ask Mr. Stein, how have coups in Turkey's past
affected Turkey's relationship to the United States and within
NATO? And how do you see this failed coup playing out in
relation to others?
Mr. Stein. I think this coup attempt differs because it
wasn't successful, you know. And so what you had is a group of
military officers who did not succeed in their mission, which
was, I think, first and foremost, to decapitate the government.
And because of that, because of the purges, I think you
will have an effect on the Turkish-NATO relationship, largely
because general fear or sort of skepticism about Western
institutions is very high in Turkey right now. A lot of the
forces involved in the Istanbul component of the coup attempt
were part of NATO's, you know, rapid deployable force. And so
it breeds a conspiracy theory that NATO must have also known
about the coup beforehand. And so, when you begin to lose
officers who were exposed to NATO, you know, were operating
within NATO, obviously, it creates friction between the two.
And I would say, just generally, when there are large-scale
purges going on in any institution, people operating in those
institutions are less free to speak their minds or to speak
critically of, you know, their superiors. And so you will have
a tendency within the armed forces basically to run everything
up the chain of command so that you aren't, you know, sort of,
accused of stepping out of line or stepping too far out of
line. And so things will begin to slow down all throughout
Turkey, at least in decisionmaking processes, and be made at
the highest levels.
Mr. Meeks. Thank you.
And my last question would be to Mr. Makovsky.
One of the things that I believe also sometimes threatens
democracy is when countries get so nationalized, nationalism.
So I would like to ask you, what are the consequences of the
rise of Turkish nationalism?
And within that rise, are there any liberal voices calling
for the protection of institutions regardless of the party in
power? Let's remain that we need to talk to or get close to
understand--get a better understanding of what is going on.
Mr. Makovsky. Well, I think the primary consequence of the
rise of nationalism is that it will make it extremely
difficult, if not impossible, to repair relations between Turks
and Kurds.
There had been a peace process. That peace process fell
apart, actually, last year. And I think it is now clear, I
think President Erdogan has made clear there will now be all-
out war on the PKK. And the, sort of, scorched-earth policies
of attacks in the southeast will alienate the population,
already has alienated the population.
But I think fighting the PKK has great support in Turkey.
It always has. And, actually, I think--I know I refer to polls
a lot, but there was one recently; which is the terrorist group
that threatens us the most? And PKK was far and away number
one; Fethullah Gulen, number two; ISIS, number three. I think
that will be the primary result.
Are there liberal voices? Yes, there are still liberal
voices. And I think particularly from the secular opposition
party, center-left party, there has been a lot of criticism,
particularly lately, about the purge. There was initially
nationwide support for the purge, but lately the leader, Kemal
Kilicdaroglu, of that party has been speaking out against its
excesses and also, I think, speaking out against some of the
excesses against the Kurds. So, there are liberal voices.
Also, I would just say, on the media, I don't think we
ought to think it is North Korea. What it is is a very random
process. There are still journalists you can read that
criticize the government. I think if you look at the Hurriyet
Daily News today, you will see a couple of op-eds that are
critical of the government. The problem is the journalists
never know when that pink slip is going to come. And so I--and,
of course, they do a lot of self-censorship.
Thank you.
Mr. Meeks. Thank you. Thank you very much.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Colonel Cook?
Mr. Cook. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Dr. Stein, going back to the military situation, the U.S.
military is obviously caught between a rock and a hard place.
And this anti-American--how about all the dependants? Is there
a restriction now on American military personnel, their
families being outside the wire, so to speak, where, before,
you could visit the whole country and anywhere, right? Isn't
that in effect right now?
Mr. Stein. Yes, it is.
Mr. Cook. And the same thing with Incirlik? Even though we
have a lot of military operations, everything is under the
total control of the Turks in terms of airspace and everything
that goes on there?
Mr. Stein. That is also correct, yes.
Mr. Cook. Yeah.
And you kind of alluded to it. Yeah, I know it is a NATO
ally, I know everything like that, but we have to face reality.
If they want to shut down all U.S. American operations
tomorrow, they could do it because they control everything.
The comment I made about the F-35s, do you have any
reaction to that question that I refer to? Your feelings? Yes?
No? Maybe?
Mr. Stein. I think Turkey is--it is a Tier 3 partner in the
program and has obviously invested money on it. And they will
host both the maintenance facility, I believe, for the engines
inside Turkey and are producing fuselages for the program. So,
yes, I think it should be approved.
Mr. Cook. Even with the fact that getting that technology,
their new friends are the Russians? Why not just give it to the
Chinese or sell it to the Chinese, which is the rationale why
we are developing that weapon, right?
Mr. Stein. I think it is important to distinguish between,
say, the Russians-Chinese potential adversaries and a NATO
ally, so--but I do think that there are frictions over sort of
the----
Mr. Cook. Okay. Sometimes we get it mixed up. Snowden
stopped off in China; then he went to Moscow. So maybe I am old
and I get them confused sometimes.
I am very, very, very worried about the Kurds. This is our
ally. We had talked about them. We have deserted them in the
past, with the history of Middle East. And it is like, here we
go again.
And, yeah, they have been--and I see it is not going to be
just the PKK, I think. Quite frankly, I think they are going to
kill a number of them because of the population demographics
and the fact that they can have a political influence, and this
is obviously the opportunity to finally eliminate the Kurds as
a political threat once and for all.
Do you agree with that premise?
Mr. Stein. No, I don't. I think that they took a different
tactic between 2013 and 2015 to try and reach political
concessions. But one--the previous, Mr. Meeks' question about
the rise of nationalism and perhaps poor decisionmaking by
elected leaders is that you can lose touch with your population
and then you can have a return to insurgency in the southeast,
and I don't see a way out of that. But, no, I don't think that
the plan is to eradicate the Kurds in Turkey.
Mr. Cook. Well, not completely, but to the point where they
are not going to be a viable third party in Turkey. I believe
it is 11 percent. Correct me if I'm wrong.
Mr. Stein. I believe at the last election it was 10.7,
about 11 percent, yes.
Mr. Cook. And the threshold is 11, right?
Mr. Stein. Yeah.
Mr. Cook. And you don't think there is going to be any type
of discrimination to push them over the border or eliminate
them, almost similar to the Russians in Chechnya in terms of
some of their policies?
Mr. Stein. No, I don't think so. Although if their poll
numbers do drop below 10 percent, you could have the AKP
government contemplate early elections.
Mr. Cook. Okay.
Last question, I guess, going back to Russia. You know, a
year ago, those of us in the NATO arena, we were worried about
the snap exercises, flying in over Kaliningrad, everything like
that. And the three countries that a lot of the NATO theorists
thought would destroy the NATO alliance were Estonia, Latvia,
and Lithuania; Latvia because they have such a high number of--
Jerry is looking at me--Russian speakers.
And now I am saying here is a golden opportunity for Putin
to grant his wish, and that is to destroy the NATO alliance.
And you would not suggest that right now, instead of
concentrating on those nations--this is a golden opportunity
for Putin to finally separate, get Turkey out of the NATO
alliance. For all intents and purposes, I think he would
destroy it.
No comment? Anybody?
Mr. Stein. I do think that there are parallels between
Putin's current strategy versus how the Russians have
historically approached, say, you know, East Germany during the
cold war and exactly why it is important to lean in and
continue to engage with Turkey and perhaps with----
Mr. Cook. No, no. I meant in relation to Estonia, Latvia,
and Lithuania.
Mr. Stein. I can't comment on that.
Mr. Cook. Okay.
Anyone? No one agrees?
Okay. I think I am used up. I yield back. Thank you.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Thank you, Colonel.
I will just note, from everything that I have read about
the F-35, well, maybe we should give it to the Turks at this
point. We wouldn't necessarily be doing them a favor, from what
I understand.
Mr. Weber?
Mr. Weber. I think you have Mr. Connolly.
Mr. Connolly. You are up because I am not on the
subcommittee.
Mr. Rohrabacher. You are on the committee.
Mr. Weber. If I had known that, I would have written down
some questions.
Mr. Connolly. I can take the time and then come back.
Mr. Weber. Go ahead. I am good with that.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Mr. Weber yields to Mr. Connolly.
Mr. Connolly. I thank my friend from Texas.
I am here both as a member of the House Foreign Affairs
Committee and as the co-chairman of the Congressional Caucus on
Turkey. I happen to believe that the U.S.-Turkey relationship
is a very strategic and critical one. It is not one that can be
dispensed with. I also happen to believe that it is in Europe's
interest to see ultimate Turkey integration with the West and
with Europe.
However, I share the concern of the chairman and my
colleagues that President Erdogan, in his desire to consolidate
power after a thwarted coup--and, by the way, the thwarting of
the coup had universal sympathy. It had political sympathy in
Turkey among the opposition parties. It had virtually complete
sympathy here, in the West. It was condemned by all the right
people. And in a very short period of time, politically, by
overreaching, it would seem that President Erdogan has actually
lost sympathy.
And I am very concerned about crackdown on the press,
crackdown on political dissent, crackdown on political
opposition, and, of course, using the coup, perhaps, as a
pretext to get at any and all Gulenists, real or perceived.
And, Mr. Makovsky, I know that the chairman was going to
give you an opportunity to talk a little bit more about Gulen,
and I would welcome anybody else.
But I met with a Turkish delegation recently, and, from my
point of view, look, the rule of law applies to you and to us.
And you don't get to demand someone's extradition as some kind
of symbol of our undying support. The burden is on the
Government of Turkey to present evidence that would meet any
reasonable legal threshold to justify the extradition of any
individual, including Mr. Gulen, no matter how unpopular he may
be in your ruling circle. And the fact that we don't do that in
no way can be construed or should be construed as lack of
support of this government for your government.
I wonder if you would comment on that. Because I was
alarmed by the seeming lack of appreciation for what, to us, is
a fairly simple legal precept. And you can expand on Gulen,
with the consent of the chair.
Mr. Makovsky. I completely agree with you, Congressman. I
think it has been difficult for the Turks to understand--and
those who do in the leadership understand have certainly not
tried to educate their public--that this process is about hard
evidence. And just as you said, if the hard evidence is there,
then almost certainly Mr. Gulen will be extradited.
As I understand it, this process is primarily done in the
Justice Department. They decide if it is worth sending to the
courts. If the courts decide he is extraditable--I mean, there
can be an appeal process, but assuming that he is deemed
extraditable, the State Department has final sign-off. And the
State Department has the right to make sure, before signing
off, that he will receive a fair trial and humane treatment.
But that is the basic process. If the hard evidence isn't
there, he cannot be extradited.
Look, I just wanted to say something regarding the
movement, the Gulen movement itself, because it is very hard to
separate now discussion of post-coup Turkey from a discussion
of the nature of the Gulen movement.
I think there are two very positive and significant
hallmarks of the movement that distinguish it from a lot of
Islamic movements, particularly radical movements that we have
become very familiar with in this century and earlier, and that
is they established a lot of schools that focused on subjects
like math and science instead of religion, and they preached a
message of peace and tolerance and interfaith comity.
That said, however, I think there is now a strong set of
circumstantial--circumstantial--evidence that Gulenists have
used the institutions of the Turkish state in order to pursue
their enemies. This was particularly true with--or is widely
believed to have been the case with the judicial actions
against primarily military officers and other seculars in 2008
through 2010. And many innocent people, now free, now the
conviction has been overturned, but many innocent people
suffered and went to jail because of that.
I think there is some strong reason to believe that
Gulenists were involved and were driving the process. That
said, the fact that followers of Mr. Gulen may have been
involved in such things or even in the coup doesn't make Mr.
Gulen himself guilty. And I think that is what has to be
decided through the evidence presented by the Turks in the
extradition case.
Mr. Connolly. I thank the chairman and my good friend Mr.
Weber for their courtesy.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Do you yield back to Mr. Weber?
Mr. Connolly. I certainly do.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Mr. Weber, you are recognized.
Mr. Weber. Thank you.
Would you slide his questions over here to me?
Dr. Stein, you said in your comments, if I understood
correctly, that it was hard to put your finger on why Turkey
was so important abroad. Is that what you said?
Mr. Stein. What I meant is it is hard to point to one
single thing. You know, you can replace air bases, you know,
but it is hard to replace the idea of a strong transatlantic
relationship. And so it is that nebulous idea of strong
transatlantic ties that makes Turkey most important.
Mr. Weber. Okay. Well, let me do it this way then. How
about if we just use one word, ``geography''?
Mr. Stein. That is a good word.
Mr. Weber. Okay. So you would agree that, if for no other
reason, their geographical location is fairly strategic?
Mr. Stein. Absolutely.
Mr. Weber. Okay. I rest my case, Your Honor. I thought so.
I mean, it is extremely important, especially with Syria and
all of the unrest. We need that ally. And, of course, I could
go into energy pipelines and the finds in the Mediterranean Sea
and the islands of Cyprus and just on and on and on. But Turkey
is a very, very strategic, in my opinion, country that we need
to be absolutely sure we take every necessary step--reasonable
step to keep them as friendly to the United States as we can.
Having said that, I think it was--pronounce your last name
for me, ma'am.
Ms. Ognianova. ``Ognianova.''
Mr. Weber. ``Ognianova''? Okay. I think it was you who said
that you began your daily chronicle of the problems with the
media in March 2016.
Ms. Ognianova. That is correct.
Mr. Weber. Are you a Turkish citizen?
Ms. Ognianova. No, I am not a Turkish citizen, nor am I an
American citizen, but I have been covering Turkey since 2012.
And what I said in relation to that daily documentation was
that I wanted to stress when we were compelled to start a daily
chronicle of coverage on Turkey. We have always covered Turkey,
like any other country----
Mr. Weber. From 2012?
Ms. Ognianova. I have covered Turkey since 2012. CPJ has
been covering it for years and years on end.
Mr. Weber. Okay.
Ms. Ognianova. It came on my personal purview in 2012, and
since then, we have been covering Turkey very regularly. But
this March, we were compelled to start a daily chronicle----
Mr. Weber. Okay.
Ms. Ognianova [continuing]. On press freedom in Turkey.
Mr. Weber. But you would readily admit that those kinds of
abuses of power had been going on for years.
Ms. Ognianova. Oh, absolutely. They have been going on for
years. But it was this year that they reached catastrophic
proportions----
Mr. Weber. Okay.
Ms. Ognianova [continuing]. And we were compelled to start
covering press freedom issues daily. We basically became a wire
service for press freedom on Turkey on a daily basis in March.
Mr. Weber. Were you doing it from inside the country or
from afar?
Ms. Ognianova. Well, we are headquartered in New York, but
we have a correspondent----
Mr. Weber. I am talking about you personally. And I don't
mean to pry, if that is okay.
Ms. Ognianova. I am the coordinator of the program, so in
my program, apart from Turkey, I cover 30 other countries.
But----
Mr. Weber. But you aren't in Turkey itself.
Ms. Ognianova. I go to Turkey every year. But our
correspondent on the ground is the one who feeds us the daily
chronicle of events.
Mr. Weber. Okay. And----
Ms. Ognianova. He is the reporter on the ground.
Mr. Weber. Okay. And I think you mentioned later in the
discussion that there are still some reporters or some media
that still criticize the government, but they are kind of self-
regulated?
Ms. Ognianova. Well, there are individual journalists and
some news outlets on the margins that do that, but they do that
at an enormous personal risk. They could be prosecuted at the
whim of the government at any time. And now that we have the
state of emergency, the----
Mr. Weber. The stakes are much higher.
Ms. Ognianova. Absolutely. And all the Parliament or
judicial scrutiny is gone for this----
Mr. Weber. Forgive me, but let me break in. I don't want to
run over too much time.
Ms. Ognianova. Uh-huh.
Mr. Weber. Not that some others haven't.
Would you say that the number of media organizations has
gone from 300 in 2012, for example, to 50? Can you give me
those numbers?
Ms. Ognianova. I can tell you how many were purged. More
than 100 in a matter of 2 weeks. Those are the hard numbers.
Mr. Weber. Okay. When was that 2 weeks?
Ms. Ognianova. Two weeks after the coup attempt.
Mr. Weber. Oh, in that----
Ms. Ognianova. We registered more than 100 being closed
down. Since then, there were more that were closed down, but we
captured that statistic 2 weeks after the coup.
Mr. Weber. Okay.
Dr. Stein, I am going to come back to you. In your
discussion with Colonel Cook, I think you mentioned that there
is anti-U.S. sentiment. Would you say it was building before
the coup attempt, or was that primarily since the coup attempt?
Mr. Stein. The United States has never really been all that
popular inside Turkey, so levels of anti-American sentiment has
always been high. But, you know, it has reached new levels. It
is levels I have never seen before. And, you know, things that
escape detection, you know, prominent people on their sort of
equivalent of cable talk shows going on television every single
night and pointing to CIA involvement----
Mr. Weber. Did that grow when Erdogan, in the last, say, 6
years, since he has begun to dismantle the constitution?
Mr. Stein. I would say it has grown most heavily in the
past year with the breakdown of the peace process and our
actions in Syria.
Mr. Weber. Okay.
I am concerned about the military base established in 1951,
3,300 acres in an area--Incirlik? Is that how you say that?
Mr. Yayla. ``Incirlik.''
Mr. Weber. ``Incirlik''? In an urban area of 1.7 million
people. The colonel alluded to that, them being inside, I
guess, the compound proper, the base. Are they in danger?
Mr. Yayla. Are they----
Mr. Weber. Are the military personnel there on our base,
are they in danger? Yes, sir. Go ahead, Dr. Yayla.
Mr. Yayla. I believe they are in danger. And the reason for
that is that after the coup, per Erdogan, media finger-pointed
Americans so harshly that people on the street, because they
cannot feed themselves with other free media, started to
believe that the coup was really carried out by the American
soldiers, with their support.
Mr. Weber. Okay.
Now, somebody else said that--was it Twitter was under
attack? How so?
Ms. Ognianova. In the many cases of detentions of
journalists, prosecutions of journalists, those detentions have
happened in retaliation for tweets, not simply articles
published or broadcast.
Mr. Weber. It is not the Twitter company, per se, but
whoever is doing the tweeting.
Ms. Ognianova. Whoever is doing the tweeting is being
prosecuted, detained, et cetera, but we have to say that
Twitter, as a company, has censored a number of accounts----
Mr. Weber. Okay.
Ms. Ognianova [continuing]. On the questions and requests
of the Turkish Government.
Mr. Weber. Okay.
Ms. Ognianova. And we are now trying to figure out why they
have done that.
Mr. Weber. So we are losing civil rights hand over fist.
Now, Fethullah Gulen, but all accounts--one of you said
it--is teaching multiculturalism, diversity, and he is going
some good work in terms of schools. Is that you all's general
consensus, the panel here?
Dr. Stein?
Mr. Stein. He is not new in Turkish society. And I think
the allegations that he is an insidious character in Turkish
society has been around since the 1970s, and that is why the
purges have such wide-scale support.
Nobody really likes him because, while he does good work
because he does set up charter schools, sometimes violating our
own laws in terms of fair hiring practices, he is widely
believed to be instructing his followers to infiltrate Turkish
institutions to try and remake the Turkish state.
Mr. Weber. Dr. Yayla, do you concur with that?
Mr. Yayla. No, I don't, but it is very difficult to talk
about it because, as soon as I speak, I am going to be labeled
as Gulenist. But, however, I have to speak the truth.
I spent years on the ground to fight against terrorism, and
I raided several thousand apartments for that because of the 9-
1-1 calls saying that or tipping that there are terrorists in
those flats, especially in Ankara. And this happened on several
occasions. And with those raids, we raided several Gulen flats
where students were staying, deemed from the outside as
terrorists.
I have never, or my people, my officers, never found
anything to incriminate in terms of violence. However, if it
was a terrorist organization flat, there was always evidence.
Mr. Weber. Oh, absolutely.
Mr. Yayla. And then I think Gulenist people came out in
regards to radical Islam and to jihadi terrorism, especially
after 9/11 and with the ISIS, as the strongest voices against
terrorism. Gulen himself was one of the few persons who came
out and said----
Mr. Weber. Right.
Mr. Yayla [continuing]. That a terrorist cannot be a
Muslim, a Muslim cannot be a terrorist.
Mr. Weber. Let me move over here to Mr. Makovsky, but
before I do, you had a son that was arrested?
Mr. Yayla. Yes.
Mr. Weber. And what is his status?
Mr. Yayla. My son was arrested when he was leaving legally
from the borders. Because my passport was canceled, I----
Mr. Weber. He is still under arrest?
Mr. Yayla. He is still under arrest. And he was released.
As soon as he was released, he was rearrested in front of the
prison again.
Mr. Weber. Okay. And how long----
Mr. Yayla. The only charge is being my passport is
canceled.
Mr. Weber. Has that been since July 15th?
Mr. Yayla. Oh, yeah. After I wrote an article saying that I
don't believe this was a real coup.
Mr. Weber. Well, we wish him the best----
Mr. Yayla. Thank you.
Mr. Weber [continuing]. And hopefully he will be able to
get out.
Mr. Makovsky, do you agree with the statement that,
generally speaking, Gulen is viewed as doing some pretty good
things?
Mr. Makovsky. You are talking about within Turkey?
Mr. Weber. Well, we would say--over here--well, let's
just--you make an interesting point. Here and in Turkey.
Mr. Makovsky. Look, as I said, he is, I think, viewed by
many people--because of the nature of the schools and the
teachings, he is viewed by many people here as something
hopeful, a hopeful sign----
Mr. Weber. Okay.
Mr. Makovsky [continuing]. In the Islamic world. In Turkey,
there has been, I think, widespread criticism of him. He was
initially----
Mr. Weber. More so since July 15th?
Mr. Makovsky. Well, absolutely.
Mr. Weber. Okay.
Mr. Makovsky. He--if I could----
Mr. Weber. So Erdogan has, you would argue, perhaps, has
been successful in making him part of the scapegoat.
Mr. Makovsky. Yeah, he has been demonizing him. And there
is no doubt that there is a vendetta, particularly since
December 2013----
Mr. Weber. Okay.
Mr. Makovsky [continuing]. As we discussed earlier.
Mr. Weber. Let me move on, I am way over, if I may.
And can I just call you Nina?
Ms. Ognianova. Yes.
Mr. Weber. Do you agree with that assessment?
Ms. Ognianova. Well, I haven't seen any evidence against--
--
Mr. Weber. But you are reading all the tweets.
Ms. Ognianova. And I think that we should come from the
presumption of innocence and everyone should be innocent before
proven guilty.
Mr. Weber. Sure.
Ms. Ognianova. And that has been the biggest issue with
this crackdown, is that it is continuing without us having seen
any evidence against these detainees.
Mr. Weber. Well, with how many prearranged warrants did one
of you say? There was how many people were arrested within a
couple of days?
Mr. Rohrabacher. Hours.
Mr. Weber. Hours.
Ms. Ognianova. I mean, hundreds of warrants, but----
Mr. Weber. Right.
Ms. Ognianova [continuing]. In terms of journalists----
Mr. Makovsky. July 16th, the very next day, 2,745 judges
were arrested.
Mr. Weber. And, you know, if you do the math on that, if
you signed a warrant a minute, that is 2,500 minutes, okay?
Ms. Ognianova. I mean, no wonder that now the prisons are
being cleaned of actual convicted criminals so that there could
be enough space for the detainees after the coup plot.
Mr. Weber. Yeah.
Ms. Ognianova. I think what is really important is to note
that the cancellation of passports is a critical issue at the
moment. And many, many civilians have been canceled, their
passports--journalists, civil activists, and their families,
like we see in the case of Dr. Yayla. And we should be very
vigilant about that. The U.S. leaders should not recognize
these canceled passports.
Mr. Weber. Well, thank you. I am way over time.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Rohrabacher. All right.
Now, to bring this hearing to a close, we are going to ask
Mr. Meeks, any questions he has about the Gulenist movement,
but anything else and to have a wrap-up statement.
Mr. Meeks. Well, I don't have any specific question about
the Gulenist movement. I think that it is a complicated
scenario.
I think the entire relationship and where we are with
Turkey is very, very complicated. When I look at the scenario
and this nationalism, I know, the passion of nationalism
generally also creates emotionalism, whether it is in Turkey or
whether it is in the United States or wherever it may be.
I do know that we have a firm commitment to make sure that
wherever, in Turkey, in Russia, in the United States, whether
it is violation of human rights, where we don't have freedom of
the press, where we don't have sound institutions, we have to
speak out. We can't be silent about that. We can't just allow
it to go.
That does not mean that we want to be enemies or anything
of that nature. That means we want the same things for all
people--human rights, freedom to determine your own self-
determination. And when any of those things are not happening,
I think we need voices to speak out loudly and clearly.
And if you don't feel--you know, for me, not equating the
two, but what is great about the United States, in my
estimation, is when I have a scenario like Colin Kaepernick,
that he has the freedom to express----
Mr. Rohrabacher. His ignorance.
Mr. Meeks [continuing]. His--well, you say it is his
ignorance. It is the freedom of this country. Because if you
say Turkey, they will say it is ignorance also, with something
that we disagree with, and that is why it is complicated. But
you should have the freedom to express yourself, because people
feel differently.
I mean, for example, for us, our number-one enemy is Daesh,
or ISIL, because we feel threatened by them. To the Turks, it
is the PKK, because they feel threatened by them. So we can't
self-impose how they feel and say, well, you should feel
exactly the way we feel, and if you don't feel the way we feel,
you are wrong. Nor should they. And that is kind of where we
are.
And I think Mr. Stein said, yes, geography does have a lot
to do it. Yes, the fact that they are NATO allies has a lot to
do with it. Yes, because we want to make sure that we are not
condemning the entire Muslim population has something to do
with it. If you have moderate Islamic countries, we want to
make sure that we are engaging with them. We don't want to get
rid of them. That is why it is important and why I think also,
in the United States, we have Muslims, we have Christians, and
they all should be welcome.
So my summary is, there is a lot of work and thought and
negotiations that have to happen here. This is not a simple
matter of you are right and you are wrong. It is a matter,
though, that I think is unquestioned, that the number of
individuals that have been arrested and detained and the
journalists is a violation of human rights, that they are
entitled to hearings and jurisprudence and should be returned,
and it should not be something--that is something that is
wrong. And we have to speak out about that loudly and clearly
even if they are an ally, but also understand that we would be
doing this because we want to work together, and our
relationship is so important that we have to figure this thing
out.
And I thank the witnesses for your testimony.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Thank you, Mr. Meeks.
And I will just--a couple short questions, and then I will
do a little wrap-up.
In terms of the Gulenists, let me ask--so far, it sounds
like you are the only one who believes that the Gulenists, or
at least some Gulenists, are involved with a nondemocratic
approach to power, meaning being willing to be part of a coup
and things such as that.
We will go with--first, let's ask Mr. Stein.
Mr. Stein. I won't speak for the other panelists, although
I presume that others probably think----
Mr. Rohrabacher. Well, I am going to ask them too.
Mr. Stein [continuing]. Like I do.
I think the Turkish people think that. And I think it is
important, if we want to understand how they are----
Mr. Rohrabacher. What are your--you are a specialist. Do
you believe that the Gulenists were the organizing force behind
this coup?
Mr. Stein. I can't speak to that because I haven't seen any
evidence to that.
Mr. Rohrabacher. So you don't know----
Mr. Stein. But were they infiltrating Turkish institutions?
Absolutely.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Okay. But you don't know, and that is your
answer to that question.
Mr. Stein. I don't know because the events of July 15th
have not been told in full detail.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Okay. Okay. Whatever the reason. I mean,
you are an expert in a lot of these areas, including this, but
there is not information enough for you to have made up your
mind on that.
Mr. Stein. No, I haven't seen anything.
Mr. Rohrabacher. All right.
How about you, Mr. Yayla?
Mr. Yayla. I don't believe that Gulenists were behind the
coup because I have worked with several high-level generals in
the military in the field, and most of the generals and high-
level commanders in the military are known for their strong
secularist approaches, and many of them do not like or hate
Gulen. So I don't buy that.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Okay. So it is no.
Mr. Makovsky. As I tried to explain earlier to Mr.
Connolly's question--perhaps I did so fairly inarticulately--I
agree with Dr. Stein that there is strong circumstantial
evidence that Gulenists have infiltrated, tried to infiltrate
the----
Mr. Rohrabacher. But that is not the question.
Mr. Makovsky. The question is just about the coup?
Mr. Rohrabacher. That is correct.
Mr. Makovsky. I think we know nothing at this point about
the coup. And I----
Mr. Rohrabacher. Okay. So we don't know. So your answer is
you don't know because we don't know enough about--and you
don't know if the Gulenists were involved in the organizing the
coup or not. Okay.
Ms. Ognianova?
Ms. Ognianova. I absolutely concur with Mr. Makovsky.
And I also want to add that the persons who are qualified
to make investigations and independent investigations in the
media about the coup plot are now intimidated into silence. So,
not only don't we know what happened, but those who are able to
help us know more are either incarcerated or exiled.
Mr. Rohrabacher. So I see we don't know, but one of the
reasons we don't know is because the government is cutting off
information sources to give us an accurate assessment, whether
or not even the charge.
However, we do have one person, one witness today, Mr.
Yayla, who served as a high-level intelligence officer in the
police and in terms of confronting terrorism, and he has a long
history involved and says that he does not believe the
Gulenists were involved in organizing the coup. So, we have
that as the answer for that question.
In general, do you see--look, obviously, the Gulenists are
trying to be portrayed as a conspiratorial organization.
By the way, do Gulenists go to a particular church or
mosque? Do they do things in public? They just have private
meetings, that is it?
Mr. Makovsky. That is my understanding. I have asked
Gulenists this question, and they said they do not pray at
their own mosques. So that adds to sort of the aura of
mystery----
Mr. Rohrabacher. Right.
Mr. Makovsky [continuing]. For many churches. No one knows
exactly----
Mr. Rohrabacher. Well, I know that we had a problem in our
country with a group of people who had an interesting
philosophy; they were called Masons. And early in our country's
history, there was this Masonic conspiracy that was supposedly
around. But I looked at it, and I have read history--I am a
history major, and I have done a lot of reading on it. George
Washington was a Mason and all the rest of these people. And it
seems to me what they had was a group of people who have shared
values. And although they were private and did not make
everything public, it was far from a conspiracy to try to take
over governments, et cetera. Although, Masons had a lot of
influence here--not enough influence to justify overthrowing
George Washington and his government, because George Washington
was a Mason.
We also today we have determined that before the coup
attempt we already had signs of tyranny and repression and,
even more important, corruption in Erdogan's government,
perhaps leading all the way up to Erdogan himself. The fact is
that, before there was reporting on that corruption, Erdogan
himself did not seem to have any trouble with the Gulenists.
But the Gulenists felt obligated to report it, knowing it would
break their camaraderie, their tie to the man in power.
That indicates something good to me; that doesn't indicate
something bad to me. That indicates that you have people who
are courageous enough, knowing that their children could be
arrested, even, by what appears to be someone who is becoming a
megalomaniac. That sounds like a courageous group of people to
me. Although they say there are people who are in parts of
groups like this who are good people and bad people. Maybe
there are some bad people too. We don't know.
But I think that the fact that Turkey and the Turkish
Government was clearly involved with repressing opposition
prior to the coup and, immediately after the coup, arrested
thousands and thousands of people, many of whom could not have
possibly had anything to do with the coup, suggests to us that
today we have to be very concerned about the nature of Mr.
Erdogan's government.
If he wants to use this as an excuse to eliminate real
democratic rights of his people, if he wants to use this as an
excuse to perhaps sever bonds with the West he is so upset with
or whatever, if he uses this as an excuse to, for example, call
off elections, to end the democratic things right--as if there
is a state of emergency right now, that there is an army of
Gulenists at the door ready to take over the country, so, thus,
we have to arrest more people and shut up more newspapers. And
this is--it is not only unacceptable, but it is also a historic
disaster for the people of Turkey.
And, again, let's go back to the fundamental, and that is
the people of Turkey have been good friends of the United
States. We need to be concerned about them. And we need to
basically not only pray for them, if we are religious, pray for
them and that they come out of this, but also do what we can to
at least ease this government over into the right direction.
And we can't do it by not admitting the challenge that we
have, however, we can't do it by trying to cover up the fact
that Erdogan--and, by the way, so when did Erdogan break with
the Gulenists? When they started reporting on corruption that
directly affected his entourage in government. So this is what
everybody needs to know.
Now, with that said, thank you all for testifying today.
You know, we are having a crazy political year here in the
United States.
Mr. Meeks. We are?
Mr. Rohrabacher. It is about the craziest year I have ever
seen. And what is going on in Turkey and this--which will
change everything. I mean, the alliance and the stability that
we have had, if Turkey goes with more radical, more anti-
Western forces that are at play in Europe, the stability that
we have had is going to go right out the window. It is going to
change the history of the world.
So let's pray that people who do believe in a more free
society and acceptance and open societies and believe in peace
and harmony with their neighbors, let's hope that these are the
people that come to power not only in Turkey but throughout the
Mideast.
So, with that said, this hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 4:10 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
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