Interior Minister Beşir Atalay, holding a press conference yesterday, announced that a bill for the creation of a Public Order and Security Undersecretariat, in the fight against terror and to be affiliated with his ministry, is to be submitted to Parliament.
Atalay stressed that one of the main functions of the new unit will be to enable the coordination of the related intelligence-gathering institutions, which, he admitted, was disorganized. In an attempt to underline that this coordination will be enhanced in a real sense, Atalay indicated that it will be ensured through laws but not through regulations that do not have as strong sanctions as the law.
“All the intelligence to be gathered [by different institutions] will come to the undersecretariat and be evaluated there,” he noted.
Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization (MİT), affiliated with the prime minister, Security Directorate, affiliated with the Interior Ministry, and Gendarmerie General Command (JGK) affiliated with the Interior Ministry in theory but functioning under the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) as well as the Turkish General Staff, are the four institutions gathering intelligence.
However, as many law and order events have proven, civilian and military intelligence organizations have long been operating independently from each other and sometimes against each other, themselves becoming a problem, instead of a solution to the problem.
By gathering information on the same incident or on a member of a terrorist organization separately, failing to coordinate among themselves causes duplication and time-wasting, leading to security weaknesses in ensuring law and order, said a repot prepared by the Security Directorate of Ankara in November of last year and published by Sabah daily. The same report criticized the JGK for failing to coordinate its intelligence activities on internal security matters with the police.
However, Interior Minister Atalay’s emphasis on questions that the new bill was prepared as a result of consent and harmony among all the institutions has signaled that earlier objections by the military in sharing their intelligence information with the civilian authority has been overcome.
Normally, intelligence collected by the different institutions of a country is gathered and evaluated under the prime minister’s office, which represents the civilian authority.
The new undersecretariat, at least, may mark the beginning of a new era in Turkey where intelligence-gathering and evaluation and its execution under one umbrella, with the emphasis on civilian control, can be ensured.
As a matter of fact, Turkey announced plans to create an anti-terror unit in October of last year, but concrete steps to this end came only yesterday. That may be proof that Ergenekon suspects played a role in the delay of its creation, prompting the government to wait for the dust to settle.
An alleged revelation by İbrahim Şahin, former acting chief of police, Special Operations Directorate, who was arrested earlier this year over his alleged links with the Ergenekon organization – accused of a plot to unseat the government -- might have been the reason for the government delay in taking concrete steps towards the enforcement of the new unit only yesterday.
Şahin allegedly told the investigators that 7th Army Corps Commander Gen. Bekir Kalyoncu as well as Gen. Metin -- he did not provide this general’s second name -- from the General Staff, told him that he was going to be appointed as the undersecretary of this new anti-terror unit and that he should make the necessary preparations, such as listing the names of around 300 police officers from the Special Operations Unit to operate under the new unit.
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