Corruption inquiry and foreign hand: a Turkey story

The two combined forces are in a battle with the countrys secular military elite,sending them back to the barracks in recent years and establishing Turkey as a successful example of moderate,democratic Islamic government.

Now a corruption scandal not only threatens Erdogans rule,but has also exposed a deepening rift between the prime minister and the followers of his erstwhile ally,who is tearing the government apart.

On Thursday,after several days of sensational disclosures of corruption in Erdogans inner circle,Istanbuls police chief was dismissed as the government carried out,what officials indicated,was a purge of police officers and officials conducting the corruption investigation nearly three dozen so far,according to the semi-official Anadolu news agency.

As Erdogan has tried to contain the fallout,he is blaming domestic conspirators and foreign meddlers. He threatened to expel foreign ambassadors,blaming them for the vast corruption and bribery investigation mounting against people close to his government. On Saturday,the riot police stood guard as hundreds protested against the government. Erdogans accusations come after two government ministers sons were arrested,along with several others including Suleyman Aslan,the CEO of state-owned Halkbank. In total,24 people were jailed pending trial,accused of taking or facilitating bribes,the Dogan news agency reported. Turkish media reports say the investigation also relates to illicit money transfers to Iran. On Sunday,the police in Istanbul clashed with protesters denouncing Erdogans government over bribery scandal. The Dogan news agency says the police fired water cannons and tear gas to disperse the crowd calling on government ministers implicated in the scandal to resign.

Following much the same strategy he employed as he battled thousands of mostly liberal and secular-minded anti-government protesters this past summer over a development project in an Istanbul park,Erdogan is portraying himself as fighting a criminal gang with links abroad. That is an apparent reference to Fethullah Gulen,the Pennsylvania imam who adheres to a mystical brand of Sufi Islam and whose followers are said to occupy important positions in national government,including the police,judiciary, education,media and business.

Erdogan weathered the summer of protest,emerging with the support of his base even as his image abroad was tarnished. But the corruption investigation poses a challenge that analysts and some Western diplomats believe could be even greater. The inquiry has ensnared several businessmen close to him,including one major construction tycoon,sons of ministers and other government workers involved in public construction projects.

Erdogan and Gulen have disagreed on a number of important issues in recent years although the tensions were previously kept largely silent. Gulen was said to have opposed the governments activist foreign policy in the Middle East,especially its support of the rebels in Syria. He is also said to be more sympathetic to Israel,and tensions flared after the Mavi Marmara episode in 2010. That was when Israeli troops boarded a Turkish ship carrying aid for Gaza and killed eight Turks and one American of Turkish descent,leading eventually to a rupture in relations since patched up between Turkey and its onetime ally. Gulens followers never approved the role the government tried to attain in the Middle East,or approved of its policy in Syria,which made everything worse,or its attitude in the Mavi Marmara crisis with Israel, said Ali Bulac,a writer who supports Gulen.

The escalating political crisis,experts say,underscores the power Gulen has accumulated within the Turkish state. That power threatens to divide Erdogans core constituency of religious conservatives ahead of a series of elections over the next 18 months.

Gulen left Turkey in 1999 after being accused by the then secular government of plotting to establish an Islamic state. He has since been exonerated of that charge and is free to return to Turkey,but never has. He lives quietly in Pennsylvania though his followers are involved in an array of businesses and organisations in the US and abroad,and some of them helped start a collection of charter schools in Texas. He rarely gives interviews,and a spokesman recently said that he was too ill to meet with a reporter.

But a lawyer for Gulen,Orhan Erdemli,said in a statement released to the Turkish news media and shared by Gulen on Twitter,the honourable Gulen has nothing to do with and has no information about the investigations or the public officials running them.

Huseyin Gulerce,who is personally close to Gulen and is a writer for a Gulen-affiliated newspaper,said Gulen8217;s followers have many of the same complaints about Erdogan as did the protesters this summer. They believe that Erdogan has become too powerful,too authoritarian in his ways,and has abandoned his earlier platform of democratic reforms and pursuit of membership in the European Union.