Taner was allegedly telling one of his former close associates the reasons for his rather unusual public statements concerning Turkey and what its future role should be in a world where nation-states have been under threat due to globalization. Taner released a statement on Jan. 5, the anniversary of the establishment of MİT 80 years ago. His statement went beyond simply reminding the public of the amount of time that has passed since its founding. At the time of its establishment, MİT outlined a road map for a predominantly Muslim but secular country in which there has been an ongoing power struggle between the staunchly secularist and the conservatives, who are sometimes accused of wanting to bring Islamic law to the nation.
Despite EU reforms to reduce MIT's political power, any statement it makes becomes a powerful tool for evaluation during the power struggle taking place between the elected political authority and the appointed secular elite led by the country's still-powerful military.
This is because in general it challenges the views of those in Turkey who are resisting changes and striving to retain the status quo.
Taner, the undersecretary of MİT for almost one-and-a-half years, while falling short of writing any prescriptions, outlined the following points in his famous statement.
As we go through the first quarter of the 21st century, there have been radical changes in the fields of international relations and security. Some nations in the future will fall victim to technological revolutions and the rivalry of global economies, losing their national sovereignty to a large extent;
The security-focused environment of this century has increased the importance of intelligence gathering and its effectiveness more than ever;
We do not have the luxury of pursuing a "wait-and-see" policy, and Turkey should take a more proactive stance against rapidly evolving developments; and
MİT has rapidly been reorganizing itself to meet current and future challenges.
It is also worth mentioning the AK Party government's efforts to bring the nation's intelligence-gathering mechanism under one umbrella under the Prime Ministry as practiced in other democracies; however, these efforts have faced serious challenges from within the system. These challenges come from the secular elite led by the military, which does not have any trust in the AK Party in particular and any other elected power in general.
Consequently, intelligence gathering in the country has long been in the hands of different parties, causing weaknesses in the governance of the nation. For example, the Turkish Armed Forces has its own intelligence-gathering mechanism, the Gendarmerie General Command has another and lastly MİT and the police have separate information-gathering mechanisms. Such practices would not necessarily abnormal if all the information gathered were compiled under one umbrella, i.e., under the Prime Minister's Office. A former senior MİT official who does not want to be named tells me that this has not been the case in Turkey in the past, nor is it now.
This same official, who I had interviewed a long time ago, told me during our recent meeting that nothing much changed since our conversation, when he was complaining about the disorganized state of the country's intelligence-gathering mechanism. Still, he told me that every organization in charge of intelligence gathering compiles information and keeps that information secret from the others.
As far as I can remember, this is the first time in recent history that an MİT undersecretary has shared his organization's views with the public through a public statement. One other incident occurred back in 2002, when former MİT chief Şenkal Atasagun held a press conference as part of efforts to introduce a relative transparency to this highly secret organization, which had been associated with some acts of organized crime, casting a shadow over its credibility.
In fact, it was Atasagun who told Turkish parliamentarians back in March 2002 of the organization's readiness to become accountable to Parliament, as intelligence-gathering units are in democratic countries. The current government's efforts to bring intelligence gathering under the single umbrella of the political authority has so far failed, along with facilitating parliamentary oversight of MİT.
What may have prompted Taner to share MİT views with the public could have been his uneasiness over the current disorganized status of the intelligence organizations and the negative repercussions of this on the governance of the nation.
One thing is for sure: Taner managed to kill two birds with one stone by ensuring that his views were heard not only by the public but also by the decision makers, whom he implicitly blamed for not taking MİT's warnings into account.
