This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 05 ANKARA 006106 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/07/2025 
TAGS: PGOV PINS PREL PTER TU
SUBJECT: COMBATING EXTREMISM 
 
REF: A. STATE 159129 
     ¶B. ANKARA 002030 
     ¶C. ANKARA 005496 
     ¶D. RELIGIOUS FREEDOM REPORT 
     ¶E. ANKARA 005281 
     ¶F. ANKARA 001551 
     ¶G. ANKARA 001935 
     ¶H. ANKARA 005632 
 
Classified By: A/DCM Thomas Goldberger; reasons 1.4 b and d. 
 
¶1. (C) Summary.  Turkey has a reputation for being a 
moderate, secular, and democratic country with a Muslim 
population.  The reality of Islam in Turkey, however, is 
more complicated.  The State actively represses unofficial 
expressions of Islam.  Violent Turkish Islamic extremism 
does exist.  Mission Turkey does not direct our contact 
efforts toward "extremists" specifically, but we are 
widening our circle of Islam-oriented contacts and seeing 
results. End Summary. 
 
¶2. (C) This cable is in response to Ref A. 
 
 
------------------------------ 
HOW MODERATE IS TURKISH ISLAM? 
------------------------------ 
 
¶3. (C) Turkey has the reputation of being the home of 
"moderate Islam" because it combines a "secular" political 
system with a tolerant strand of Sunni Islam.  The reality, 
however, is difficult to get a handle on because Turkish 
Islam is very diverse and the state actively represses and 
controls religious life (Ref B).  (Note: Many Turks object 
to the "moderate Islam" label for a variety of reasons (Ref 
C). End Note.) 
 
¶4. (C) The Turkish state claims that Turkish Islam is 
unified, tolerant, and peace-loving.  Turkish officials 
note that 98 percent of citizens of Turkey are Muslim and 
they claim that the small (non-Muslim) minority religious 
communities are free to practice their faiths.  The 
majority of Turks subscribe to the Hanafi school of Sunni 
Islam.  The Hanafi school is one of the more open-minded 
and tolerant strands of Sunni Islam. 
 
¶5. (C) The reality is more complex.  Turkish Islam is far 
from unified.  About 10-15 percent of Turkey,s 70 million 
people are Alevis (heterodox Muslim).  The Sunni community 
is divided into a variety of lodges, brotherhoods, and 
religious communities, e.g. Gulenists, Nurcus, National 
View, Naksibendis, and Suleymancis.  These groups have a 
variety of views and practices and some are involved in 
extensive business, educational, and political activities. 
 
¶6. (C) Violent Turkish Islamic extremism does exist. 
Turkish Hizbollah and the Great Eastern Islamic 
Raider-Front (IBDA-C) have conducted a number of terrorist 
attacks over the years.  According to press reports, around 
500 Turks served with Al Qaida and the Taliban in 
Afghanistan.  IBDA-C members cooperated with Al Qaida to 
conduct the 2003 Istanbul bombings against two synagogues, 
an HSBC bank, and the British consulate. 
 
¶7. (C) It is difficult to assess exactly how widespread 
Islamic extremism extends in Turkey because the Turkish 
state actively monitors and represses religious expression 
(Ref D).  The Turkish state hires and trains all religious 
officials (imams and muftis); appoints them to their posts; 
and pays their salaries.  The state writes the sermons that 
most of the imams deliver at Friday prayers; picks which 
imam in each mosque gets to deliver the Friday sermon; and 
uses undercover intelligence officials to monitor their 
activities.  State funds are used to construct mosques, but 
the state spends no money on Alevi houses of worship, 
Jewish synagogues, or Christian churches.  All Muslim 
school age students are required to take classes in the 
Hanafi-Sunni tradition of Islam, regardless of their 
personal sectarian beliefs.  Non-Muslim students are not 
required to take these courses, but alternative courses are 
not offered by the state.  Private religious classes are 
illegal and proselytizing by non-Muslims, while not 
illegal, is viewed with great suspicion and actively 
discouraged.  Pious girls and women are officially not 
allowed to wear headscarves in schools and universities, or 
in state workplaces. 
 
¶8. (C) Embassy contacts have consistently claimed that only 
a tiny minority of Turkish citizens subscribe to extreme, 
radical, or violent forms of Islam.  A leading Turkish 
national security analyst estimates that only about 7 
percent of Turkish citizens endorse radical forms of 
Islam.  Ibrahim Uslu, the general manager of ANAR (the 
governing Justice and Development Party,s (AKP) polling 
firm) claims that only around 5 percent of Turks are 
radical Islamist.  In a country of nearly 70 million 
people, however, there would be over 350,000 potential 
terrorists if only one half of one percent of the 
population supported Al Qaida-like terrorism. 
 
 
--------------------------------------------- ------------- 
WHAT AKP LEADERS SAY (AND THINK) ABOUT ISLAM AND TOLERANCE 
--------------------------------------------- ------------- 
 
¶9. (C) The Turkish constitution and party law bans parties 
formed around sectarianism, ethnicity, regionalism, or 
opposition to the "secular" constitutional system.  AKP is 
officially a "secular" political party.  Nonetheless, AKP 
is an Islam-oriented political party. The leaders and 
grassroots members of AKP largely come from the Refah and 
Fazilet parties, banned for Islamic extremism in 1998 and 
2001 respectively. 
 
¶10. (C) In general, AKP,s senior leaders make constructive 
statements in public about the importance of religious 
tolerance.  In a 1 May 2005 speech, Foreign Minister and 
Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Gul called for tolerance and 
moderation by stating that, "It is, therefore, of great 
importance that based on the fundamental principles of the 
Islamic tradition, such as tolerance and moderation, we 
take an open-minded, realistic but equally visionary 
approach."  In recent public statements PM Erdogan and 
State Minister (for religious affairs) Mehmet Aydin made 
statements criticizing generally the state of the Islamic 
world and stressing the importance of religious tolerance 
and human rights (Ref E). 
 
¶11. (C) The AKP government, however, also backed a sermon 
delivered at Friday prayers in mosques around Turkey in May 
2005 that stated that unspecified foreign powers were using 
Christian missionaries to undermine Islam (Ref F).  State 
Minister Aydin repeated these points by releasing a 
statement labeling missionary activities in Turkey 
"separatist and destructive" and implying that missionaries 
are part of an organized effort by foreign governments to 
create divisions in the country (Ref G).  Aydin was 
unhelpful when the Charge d'Affaires recently tried to 
discuss this issue with him during a courtesy call (Ref H), 
and never responded to Ambassador Edelman,s request to pay 
a joint visit to a Protestant church after it was 
firebombed earlier this year. 
 
¶12. (C) A variety of Embassy contacts assert that AKP,s 
senior leadership does not really believe in religious 
tolerance, but merely pretends to support tolerance in an 
effort to court Western favor and promote Turkey,s EU 
membership bid.  AKP,s leaders, especially PM Erdogan, have 
repeatedly rejected the notion of "Islamic terrorism." 
Many secular Turks have tried to convince us that AKP 
leaders are practicing a form of lying or dissembling that 
is ethically permissible if intended to protect or advance 
the cause of Islam. 
 
 
--------------------------------------------- --- 
MISSION TURKEY,S PROGRAMS IN COMBATING EXTREMISM 
--------------------------------------------- --- 
 
¶13. (C) The Mission organizes public diplomacy programming 
that supports MPP goals and also addresses extremist trends 
in segments of Turkish society.  Our goal is not to target 
extremists specifically, but to introduce a broad audience 
-- many of whom have never met an American -- to our 
society, culture, and politics.  To this end, we have 
opened up new religiously oriented institutional contacts, 
including universities.  Another opportunity has opened up 
with NGOs, a sector that is growing dramatically in Turkey, 
especially with Islam-oriented Turks who do not participate 
in many civil society organizations due to customs and 
culture.  By bringing in speakers on the nuts and bolts of 
NGO organization or sending Islam-oriented NGO members on 
International Visitor programs, we have found a very 
receptive audience. 
 
 
--------------------------------------------- ----------- 
REACHING OUT TO ISLAM-ORIENTED JOURNALISTS AND POLITICAL PARTIES 
--------------------------------------------- ----------- 
 
¶14. (C) The Mission has made a concerted effort to include 
editors and correspondents from Islam-oriented newspapers 
in press roundtables with the Ambassador and Mission 
officials and representational events.  We have targeted 
responsible journalists from Islam-oriented newspaper for 
International Visitor programs.  The Mission has worked 
hard to reach a broad audience through existing contacts, 
opinion leaders from outside the major cities, and 
Islam-oriented Turks. 
 
¶15. (C) Mission officers, of course, meet frequently with 
members of the governing and Islam-influenced AKP to 
discuss US-Turkish relations and a variety of other 
issues.  PolOffs have also met with members from Turkey,s 
smaller and more radical Islam-oriented political parties 
(i.e. Saadet Party and Grand Unity Party).  These meetings 
-- in parliament (with AKP members), party headquarters in 
Ankara, and in regional party offices around the country -- 
have been very helpful in allowing Mission Turkey to 
directly communicate with religious and pious Turks about 
U.S. foreign policy, American values, and the importance of 
U.S.-Turkish cooperation.  Results have been mixed.  Some 
interlocutors listen carefully and appear to take some of 
our points, but others are obviously skeptical about U.S. 
policies and motives; prone to conspiracy theory thinking; 
and clearly influenced by Islamist-oriented media. 
However, in this sense they are no different from other 
Turks, who are equally prone to other conspiracy theories. 
 
 
------------------------- 
ENGLISH LANGUAGE PROGRAMS 
------------------------- 
 
¶16. (U) Mission-organized English language teaching 
programs in Turkey provide abundant opportunities to 
introduce civic education and to open the Turkish 
educational system to Western-oriented educational 
practices and concepts such as critical thinking, 
student-centered classrooms, team-building, and conflict 
resolution.  The placement of American English Language 
Fellows in university ELT and English departments and at 
military service academies has provided critical exposure 
to American culture and values.  Placements have included 
universities in the conservative cities of Konya, Trabzon, 
Gaziantep, and Erzurum. 
 
¶17. (U) English Language Fellows are often the only 
Americans young people in some communities have an 
opportunity to get to know.  After attending prayer 
services with a group of conservative female students at 
one of the oldest mosques in the city center, a Fellow in 
Erzurum spent the afternoon discussing the similarities 
between Christianity and Islam in English.  The students 
noted her appreciation of their way of life and received an 
extra English lesson using content-specific language skills 
that they might never have heard in the classroom. 
 
 
--------------------------------- 
EDUCATIONAL AND EXCHANGE PROGRAMS 
--------------------------------- 
 
¶18. (U) The ACCESS micro-scholarship program provides 
direct English-language instruction by the Fellows to 
underprivileged high school students who cannot afford to 
take private courses.  All ten of the FY-06 English 
Language Fellows, who are placed in cities around Turkey, 
will participate in the ACCESS program, which will reach 
300 students. 
 
¶19. (U) International Visitor (IV) Program and other 
short-term exchanges involve participation by professionals 
in all fields from throughout Turkey as well as government 
officials at all levels.  Participants consistently report 
that they were particularly impressed with the interaction 
and relationship between government and citizenry in the 
United States and the impact of individual initiative. 
Turks regularly participate in projects related to the 
judiciary, anti-terrorism, democracy, and diversity and 
tolerance in a multi-ethnic society. 
 
¶20. (U) The Fulbright Program, active in Turkey since 1951, 
encompasses scholarly exchanges at all levels and is the 
Department,s premier educational exchange program.  The 
Turkish Fulbright program has tripled in size over the last 
two years and in FY-06 will receive more USG funding than 
any other Fulbright program in the world.  After a 
concerted effort to diversify the program and reach 
under-represented universities, geographic regions and 
students from a wide range of backgrounds, more than 400 
applications were received from fifty-nine of Turkey,s 
seventy-three public and private universities.  Almost 
two-thirds of them came from women (240 women; 164 men) and one-quarter from universities outside of Istanbul and 
Ankara.  Up to seventy new fellowships to study in the 
United States will be offered to Turkish graduate students 
for the academic year 2006-07. 
 
¶21. (U) The Embassy supports the annual American Studies 
Association of Turkey conference and organizes seminars on 
resources for teaching about the U.S. in order to 
strengthen teaching about the United States at Turkish 
universities and increase understanding of U.S. society and 
values. 
 
 
---------------------------------- 
GUEST SPEAKERS AND ARTS PROGRAMING 
---------------------------------- 
 
¶22. (U) Mission-organized speaker programs address all our 
MPP themes and in the past two years have included 
presentations by Thomas Friedman on U.S. policy in Iraq 
(December 2003); Bruce Hoffman, RAND Washington on 
terrorism (March 2004); Walter Russell Mead, Senior Fellow, 
Council on Foreign Relations, on U.S. foreign policy (April 
2004); Omar Khalidi, Aga Khan Program at MIT, on Islamic 
architecture and mosque design in the U.S. (April 2004); 
speakers on the U.S. presidential election; Max Boot, 
Senior Fellow, Council on Foreign Relations, on U.S. 
foreign policy (December 2004); historian James Caesar on 
anti-Americanism (March 2005); and Rudolph Vecoli on U.S. 
immigration policy (May 2005). 
 
¶23. (U) The Harlem Boys Choir, which gave two concerts in 
Ankara in April 2005 to standing-room only audiences 
totaling more than 2,000, generated extensive positive 
press coverage that lauded the Harlem Boys Choir 
performances and the multi-cultural nature of American 
society. 
 
¶24. (U) The Department,s support for the Istanbul Biennial 
September-November 2005 included public education programs 
that took U.S. artists and art critics to the conservative 
southeastern Anatolian city of Diyarbakir, where they 
engaged in lively discussions with audiences on how art 
biennials serve as a generator of ideas.  They gave 
detailed information about their works in this context and 
presented examples from other international exhibitions. 
Their outreach was particularly directed toward children 
and young people, and the interactive nature of the program 
allowed local people to be informed about the arts in the 
U.S. and to interact personally with U.S. artists. 
 
¶25. (U) Embassy Ankara joined forces with Consulate Adana 
to mount a photographic exhibition on religious diversity 
in the conservative southeastern Anatolian city of 
Gaziantep in a June 2005.  The exhibition of forty-four 
photographs celebrating the diversity of religious belief 
in Anatolia feature the work of a prominent Adana-based 
amateur photographer whose photographs covered multi-faith 
subjects.  Co-sponsored by the Consulate in Adana, the 
Gaziantep American Corner, the Gaziantep Rotary Club, and 
the Anatolian Journalists Union, the exhibition was opened 
on the same day as the OSCE Conference on Anti-Semitism and Intolerance. 
 
¶26. (C) Comment: Turkey,s reputation as a moderate, 
tolerant, and secular country is due in large measure to 
the oppressive and authoritarian manner in which the State 
monitors and controls religion.  It is difficult to target 
"extremists" because the State has actively repressed 
"extremists" and driven almost all unofficial expressions 
of Islam underground.  As Turkey goes down the road towards 
the EU, the reform process will require the country to 
liberalize some aspects of the regime that control 
religious expression.  This could result in an increased 
degree of Islamic extremism.  But if Turkey is to live up 
to its reputation for being a moderate, tolerant, and truly 
secular country, then it will have to open up and confront 
the hidden and potentially unpleasant realities of some 
aspects of Islamic belief and practice in Turkey.  End 
Comment. 
MCELDOWNEY