The investigation followed by the start of the trial of Ergenekon terror organisation in October last year, has become possible largely because İstanbul security's intelligence gathering team has been able or allowed by the political authority to trace and unearth the evidences culminating with the arrest of 46 people including retired generals and ex less junior officials.
Turkey's National Intelligence Organisation (MİT), reported by some of its ex senior employees as becoming a more professional and an efficient intelligence gathering organ after long decades of mistrust felt towards it by the decision makers, has also allegedly played a serious role in the developments that has prompted the İstanbul prosecutors to pursue vigilantly the Ergenekon grouping.
The absence of either former or current security members or MİT employees among the defendants of Ergenekon, however, caused suspicions to be felt over the fairness of Ergenekon investigation.
If there has been a deep state alleged to have been involved in not only undermining the government but also to destablise the nation through various illegal acts for the sake of preserving the status quo, then it should have been unavoidable that some members even if not current officials of both police and MİT should have had been involved in Ergenekon's alleged illegal acts, those sceptics believe.
As a matter of fact, Susurluk gang scandal of 1996 that has unearthed mafia-state ties, involved some ex police and MİT agents but did not implicate ex or acting military members despite widespread suspicion that military members might have had also involved in the gang scandal.
Retired General Veli Küçük, for example, who is now in jail over charges of being one of the masterminders of Ergenekon terror organisation, was cited among the suspects of Susurluk gang and refused to be heard by then Parliamentary commission investigating the then scandal.
The absence of either police or MİT involvement in the alleged activities of the Ergenekon terror organisation, however, does not lessen the importance of the Ergenekon trial as it has, for the first time, in Turkish history, paved the way, among other things, for the trial of ex generals over serious allegations of crime, who formerly escaped from judiciary.
A senior Turkish politican's latest remarks that his party did not trust the police in connection to the detection of bugging equipment in the office a Turkish deputy, has not only resurfaced the fierce battle among the intelligence organisations of this country but also serious lack of trust among the politicans towards some intelligence gathering organisations such as the police.
Deniz Baykal, Chairman of main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), who described himself as the lawyer of Ergenekon, indicating his mistrust that he felt towards Ergenekon investigation initiated by the police intelligence unit upon prosecutor's demand, said last week that they (I Guess he meant his party) have not got any trust to be felt towards the police.
According to a senior intelligence gathering official from the Ankara security department, Baykal meant he did not trust the police intelligence gathering department.
The same official believes that main target of politicans such as Baykal is to get rid of the police intelligence gathering mechanism that has become increasingly powerful in gathering intelligence or to make it weaker against the Gendarmerie General Command and Turkish General Staff intelligence organisations that are not controlled by the government.
A decision to merge the intelligence gathering activities of the police and gendarmerie under an anti terror unit planned to be established, is aimed at weakening the police's quite powerful intelligence gathering operations, the same security official asserts.
Intelligence wars in Turkey appear to continue until political authorities are able to take full control of all the Turkish intelligence gathering organisations, which most of the time use their information against each other in the course of the ongoing power struggle.
