This is a new crisis in Turkish politics in which the government and judiciary stand on opposing sides. What is confusing, though, is that this is supposed to be the “new judiciary” of the “new Turkey,” shaped after the constitutional referendum of September 2010 by which the old Kemalist elite ceased to dominate the judiciary.
So it is not possible to explain the crisis by referring to the clash between a democratizing Justice and Development Party (AK Party) and a pro-status quo Kemalist stronghold in the judiciary resisting change.
It seems the government has interpreted the prosecutor's move as an attempt directed not only at the government but also directly at Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Anti-government circles in the media further exaggerated this interpretation. According to media reports, the issue that led the public prosecutor to call in Mr. Fidan for testimony is the so-called Oslo talks in which the MİT and the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) engaged in talks on a possible Kurdish solution. It is well known that it was Erdoğan himself who asked for this process to be started, and Mr. Fidan, then deputy undersecretary in the Prime Minister's Office, was in fact Erdoğan's representative at the talks. So this issue naturally leads to the prime minister.
But why? This is a political decision and cannot, of course, be questioned by the judiciary. It is the duty of intelligence officials to contact organizations like the PKK and strike a bargain. Why should the prosecutor target the prime minister? Prosecutor Sadrettin Sarıkaya had been appointed by the Supreme Board of Judges and Prosecutors (HSYK) and was trusted by the government until the call for Mr. Fidan. He was the prosecutor in charge of the Kurdish Communities Union (KCK) investigations. So, shall we argue now that prosecutor Sarıkaya has done everything right in the KCK case but, as his only mistake, he included the MİT in his investigation?
This is difficult to say, indeed.
The same question applies to the police. The two top police officers involved in this case were reshuffled and sent to other posts in Ankara immediately after the prosecutor's request for the MİT officials. These two top police officers are also known as the key figures working not just in the KCK investigations but also the Ergenekon and Balyoz cases. Then, shall we assume these police officers did everything right in the Ergenekon and Balyoz investigations and got everything wrong when they found documents that led from the KCK operations to the MİT?
In sum, it is difficult to explain what has happened and why between the government on the one hand and the public prosecutor and police officers on the other. What is clear is that the competition for power using the apparatus of the state does not produce democracy and the rule of law. This incident should be a reminder that the number-one issue in this country is the consolidation and institutionalization of democracy and the rule of law. The AK Party government seems for some time to have forgotten this fact. I hope it takes this crisis as a warning to revisit its original agenda.
