Failed coup in Turkey (2007) – Case study of the Ergenekon Network

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ergenekon_network

"The Ergenekon network " is the name given to a clandestine, Kemalist ultra-nationalist organisation in Turkey with ties to members of the country's military and security forces.

Its agenda has variously been described as Eurasianist, and isolationist. The defendants portray themselves as defenders of secularism, and national sovereignty. According to the indictment, the group's claim to legitimacy is that it allegedly protects national interests, which the defendants believe are incompatible with the rule of the Islamist Justice and Development Party.

Over a hundred people, including several generals, party officials, and a former secretary general of the National Security Council, have been detained or questioned since July 2008.

The first person to publicly talk about the organisation was retired naval officer Erol Mütercimler, who said in 1997:

“It is above the General Staff, the MİT (National Intelligence Organisatio) and the Prime Minister. There are generals, heads of police departments, and businessmen in this organisation.”

Mütercimler said he heard of the original organisation's existence from retired general Memduh Ünlütürk, who was involved in the anti-communist Ziverbey interrogations following the 1971 coup. Major general Ünlütürk told Mütercimler that Ergenekon was originally founded with the support of the CIA and the Pentagon (probably right as it was an-anti Communist network established in the beginning of the cold war).

Mütercimler and others, however, draw a distinction between the Ergenekon of today and the original one. Today's Ergenekon is said to be a "splinter" off the old one. The person whose testimony contributed most to the indictment, Tuncay Güney, described Ergenekon as a junta related to the Turkish Resistance Organisation operating in North Cyprus. Another position is that while some of the suspects may be guilty of something, there is no organisation to which they are all party, and that the only thing they have in common is opposition to the AKP. In an article for Milliyet, Dündar compares Ergenekon with the Susurluk network, and the Counter-Guerrilla; two other Turkish clandestine groups. Dündar also says that Ergenekon differs from the ”Counter-Guerrilla” in that the former leans towards Russia, while the latter leans towards the United States. Claims of Ergenekon's Eurasian affinity are supported by the statements of the movement's chief advocate, Aleksandr Dugin, who called Ergenekon a "pro-Russian group". A noted retired intelligence agent, Mahir Kaynak, says that on the contrary Ergenekon is the antithesis of Susurluk; the former is predominantly military, while the latter was a paramilitary gang that was erected in opposition to the military.

When the Russian newspaper Kommersant declared Dugin to be the brains behind Ergenekon, Dugin responded that he had no part in illegal activities, but that he saw no crime in sharing their vision of Turkey's future—free from the influence of NATO and the United States.

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