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WIKILEAKS-RELEASED CABLE BARES U.S. FEAR OF POTENTIAL TERRORISTS IN TURKEY
PanARMENIAN.Net
March 24, 2011 - 10:05 AMT 06:05 GMT
A leading Turkish national security analyst told U.S. diplomats that
seven percent of Turkish citizens support "radical forms of Islam."
He said that "even if half a percent of the population supports
al-Qaeda-type terrorism in a country of 70 million [people], this
would mean 350,000 potential terrorists," Hurriyet Daily News reported
quoting according Taraf newspaper, a Turkish partner of Wikileaks,
which released the diplomatic cable.
The Sunni Islamic doctrine has changed so little since the Middle Ages
that there is not much difference between the Taliban in Afghanistan
and Turkey, the Religious Affairs Directorate's research office
director, Niyazi Kahveci, told U.S. officials during a visit on Nov.
14, 1996, according to another recently leaked cable, Hurriyet
reported.
Later, as more cables revealed, U.S. diplomats have observed that
Islam in Turkey is not "monolithic" and is politically divided, with
both secularists and conservative Islamists trying to manipulate
religion's role in public affairs to their own ends.
A June 27, 2003, diplomatic cable released by Taraf, also claimed
the country's Religious Affairs Directorate "is suppressing Islamic
beliefs that do not fit the official version."
The Turkish version of secularism is "180 degrees opposite" of the
U.S. version as it is not one embraced by the people and protected
by the Constitution but "divinized" by the Constitution and forced
on the people, the cable said.
According to the cable, Turkey's Religious Affairs Directorate and the
institutions within its scope are not separated from the state but are
to the contrary, an indivisible part of it. The cable read that the
directorate was among the biggest official institutions in Turkey,
with 90,000 personnel as of 2003, and that it employs all the imams
in Turkey and controls the contents of their preaching.
The directorate produces a "Kemalist Islam" that has little to do
with the beliefs held in the "less elite" corners of Anatolia, the
cable said, adding that the directorate is oppressing forms of Islam,
including the pro-secular faction of Alevism, that do not fit the
official version, the report in Hurriyet said.
From: A. Papazian
PanARMENIAN.Net
March 24, 2011 - 10:05 AMT 06:05 GMT
A leading Turkish national security analyst told U.S. diplomats that
seven percent of Turkish citizens support "radical forms of Islam."
He said that "even if half a percent of the population supports
al-Qaeda-type terrorism in a country of 70 million [people], this
would mean 350,000 potential terrorists," Hurriyet Daily News reported
quoting according Taraf newspaper, a Turkish partner of Wikileaks,
which released the diplomatic cable.
The Sunni Islamic doctrine has changed so little since the Middle Ages
that there is not much difference between the Taliban in Afghanistan
and Turkey, the Religious Affairs Directorate's research office
director, Niyazi Kahveci, told U.S. officials during a visit on Nov.
14, 1996, according to another recently leaked cable, Hurriyet
reported.
Later, as more cables revealed, U.S. diplomats have observed that
Islam in Turkey is not "monolithic" and is politically divided, with
both secularists and conservative Islamists trying to manipulate
religion's role in public affairs to their own ends.
A June 27, 2003, diplomatic cable released by Taraf, also claimed
the country's Religious Affairs Directorate "is suppressing Islamic
beliefs that do not fit the official version."
The Turkish version of secularism is "180 degrees opposite" of the
U.S. version as it is not one embraced by the people and protected
by the Constitution but "divinized" by the Constitution and forced
on the people, the cable said.
According to the cable, Turkey's Religious Affairs Directorate and the
institutions within its scope are not separated from the state but are
to the contrary, an indivisible part of it. The cable read that the
directorate was among the biggest official institutions in Turkey,
with 90,000 personnel as of 2003, and that it employs all the imams
in Turkey and controls the contents of their preaching.
The directorate produces a "Kemalist Islam" that has little to do
with the beliefs held in the "less elite" corners of Anatolia, the
cable said, adding that the directorate is oppressing forms of Islam,
including the pro-secular faction of Alevism, that do not fit the
official version, the report in Hurriyet said.
From: A. Papazian