FOREIGN MINISTRY THE NEW BATTLEGROUND BETWEEN GOVERNMENT AND ESTABLISHMENT
Lale Sariibrahimoglu

Today’s Zaman, Turkey
March 15 2007

President Ahmet Necdet Sezer’s refusal to sign a decree envisaging the
appointment of five deputy undersecretaries for the Foreign Ministry,
the first of its kind in the history of the republic as described by
the daily newspaper Hurriyet in its March 14 edition, has revealed an
ongoing battle at the Foreign Ministry between the political leadership
and the establishment. President Sezer, regarded as the mouthpiece
of the establishment that prefers to rule the nation independent
of the political leadership, has returned to parliament numerous
decrees envisaging the appointments of top bureaucrats. He has also
vetoed, sometimes rightly, various laws passed by the parliament —
all mainly on grounds that the Islam-based conservative Justice and
Development Party (AK Party) sought to seriously infringe on the
secular character of the nation through the appointments of top and
lower-level bureaucrats.

The problem with Sezer’s policy is the double standard that lies
behind his attitude. To start with, since the establishment of the
Turkish Republic by Ataturk 84 years ago, the Turkish bureaucracy has
always turned into a battlefield between the different ideologies,
from the left to the right, depending on what type of coalition or
single party governments then ruled the nation.

There has been no objective criteria applied to the appointment of
bureaucrats who have mostly fallen victim to the ill-defined policies
of the then ruling political leadership. Due to the absence of a
fully established rule of law in Turkey, sometimes bureaucrats not
affiliated with any party view can find themselves being linked to
a certain ideology through rumors instead of objective criteria that
should dictate their appointments.

It is also true that in Western democracies the winning party or the
parties setting up the government would choose to work with bureaucrats
they feel are close to their own ideologies. But in Turkey, we have
always witnessed a massive shakeup in public institutions from top
to bottom with every new government, resulting with the danger of
creating bureaucrats who could only keep their positions if they were
loyal to government policies they sometimes did not agree with.

Those who have been resisting AK Party appointments thus pursue a
double standard with the sometimes unnecessary fear that the Turkish
secular order would receive a serious blow with certain appointments.

Such resistance damages the credibility of the resistors because the
same voices criticizing AK Party appointment policies have remained
relatively indifferent when in the past governments close to their
ideologies made appointments that, for example, resulted in the
ministry of education and ministry of culture being staffed with
either ultranationalists or extreme conservatives — appointments
that contributed to ultranationalism in society sometimes turning
into violent nationalism. This was the case with the slaying of
Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink in January this year.

President Sezer’s rejection of a decree envisaging the appointment of
five Foreign Ministry deputy undersecretaries is significant because it
reveals that the ongoing battle between the establishment the current
government over the appointment of top level bureaucrats has spread
to the foreign ministry, an institution regarded as the closest to
the status quo.

The current names appointed as deputy under-secretaries mark
a rejuvenation drive by the government at the ministry to create
a team of top diplomats who would be much more loyal to the ruling
government than the older diplomats who are part of the establishment,
says a senior Turkish diplomatic source.

But in my opinion this rejuvenation drive by the government is
positive in the sense that those top but young diplomats would act
in a more realistic manner toward world affairs. I myself know in
person a majority of the five deputy undersecretaries that Sezer
rejected by not signing the appointment decree. They are intelligent
and sophisticated enough to inject energy into the ministry which
has not done much in the past in taking initiatives to help the
government in its efforts to pursue a proactive stance in solving
Turkey’s chronic foreign policy problems.

As a long time journalist dealing with diplomacy and defense I
believe that the new deputy under-secretaries, who now must remain as
acting deputy under-secretaries in the absence of Sezer’s approval,
will contribute positively to the government’s efforts to settle the
country’s chronic foreign policy issues; issues that the status quo
preferred not to solve, thereby putting too heavy a burden on the
citizens of this country.