The Answer He Gave to the Question "Was the AK Parti a Project?"
Fact
The assessment below comes from the Gazete Duvar interview of 10 December 2019; Alparslan Kuytul had been released five days earlier, on 5 December 2019. What is spoken of is not the case file concerning him, but the political picture of the 2000s.
The question was direct: was the AK Parti a project? So was the answer: "There is no choice but to say yes."
He rests his reasoning on two examples. In Turkey Necmettin Erbakan was made prime minister for a year and then brought down by a coup; he says the same pattern was applied to Mohamed Morsi in Egypt. In his view the calculation here is to bring figures with an Islamic identity to power and make them fail, and by their hand to turn the people away from Islam.
The second reason, which he sees as the broader one, is regional. America's plan for the Middle East runs with less resistance under a government with an Islamic identity: a left-wing prime minister's Iraq policy draws a reaction from the public, whereas the same policy from a cadre that performs the prayers is met with "they must know something."
His concrete example is 2003: support was given to the invasion of Iraq through the İncirlik Base even though the authorisation motion had not passed Parliament. Kuytul rejects that support both politically and religiously.
The sentence with which he ties the picture together is this:
"The role given to governments is not truly being in power, it is managing a factory. However well they work, the benefit goes to the bosses."
What is conveyed on this page is not a finding established by document, but Kuytul's own political reading. The page conveys that reading as it is; it does not separately declare it to be true.
Which interview, which date?
All of the words on this page are taken from the Gazete Duvar interview of 10 December 2019. Alparslan Kuytul had been in detention since 8 February 2018 and was released on 5 December 2019; the interview took place five days after his release. What is discussed here is not the case file, but a retrospective political assessment.
The question and the answer
The journalist recalls Kuytul's words about the process of the invasion of Iraq and asks directly: was the AK Parti a project? The answer is a single sentence:
"There is no choice but to say yes."
He then divides this answer into two separate reasons. The first is the description of a method, the second the description of a purpose.
First reason: bringing them in and making them fail
According to Kuytul, the coming to power of politicians with an Islamic identity is sometimes not prevented but, on the contrary, made easier — because the real aim is that this cadre should appear to have failed. The two examples he gives are these:
- In Turkey Necmettin Erbakan was made prime minister for a year and then brought down by a coup.
- In Egypt the same pattern was applied to Mohamed Morsi.
He sums up the result like this: people end up being turned away from Islam because of the cadres known as "Islamist". The harm, then, is not only political but religious.
Second reason: the "Middle East Project"
The second reason is broader, and this is where Kuytul's real emphasis lies. In his view America's plan for Iraq and the Middle East runs with far less resistance under a government with an Islamic identity. His reasoning is psychological: the same policy from a left-wing prime minister would have produced the reaction "they sold out the Muslim people of Iraq" among the public; whereas the policy of a cadre that performs the prayers and whose wives wear the headscarf is met with "they must know something."
On this reading the change of government in 2002 is also the outcome of that need: the Ecevit government was brought down quickly, an urgent election was called, and afterwards the new cadre came in.
The date he points to as evidence: 2003
Kuytul does not leave this assessment hanging; he ties it to a single concrete event: during the invasion of Iraq in 2003, support was given to the invasion through the İncirlik Base even though the authorisation motion had not passed Parliament. He says he rejected that support from the very beginning, and that his objection was religious as much as political: aid given for the killing of Muslims is, in his view, religiously forbidden.
This date is the most concrete part of the page — it is the point on which he builds everything he goes on to say.
"Managing a factory"
The comparison that gathers Kuytul's whole assessment into a single sentence is this:
"The role given to governments is not truly being in power, it is managing a factory. However well they work, the benefit goes to the bosses."
What the comparison claims is not that the manager works badly; it is that even if they work well, the gain flows somewhere else. The issue, then, is not the performance of individual governments, but the frame into which governments are placed.
In the same interview he also says that this view does not amount to absolving those in power. He notes that everyone already sees the visible responsibility, and that he is speaking in addition of what is not visible.
What this page says and what it does not say
What is conveyed here is not a document or a court finding; it is Kuytul's own political reading, and it is presented as such. The dates and the examples were written out openly so that the reader can weigh the assessment for themselves.
We have taken up separately the three points he lists in the same interview as the reason for his arrest: Why was I arrested? The three answers he gave himself. This page deals only with the statements made at the end of 2019; today there is a separate and ongoing judicial process, and none of the information here relates to that process.