February 18, 2012

Are politics and Hizmet from different walks of life?

Merve Büşra Öztürk

The possibility of rivalry or conflict between ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) and Hizmet (the Gülen movement, which consists of followers of Turkish scholar Fethullah Gülen’s ideas), came to the agenda once again when individuals known to be Gülen followers took the side of the judiciary in a debate between the government and the judiciary after it summoned National Intelligence Organization (MİT) officials to testify in connection with acts of terrorism.

Circles close to the government have argued that the recent move by the prosecutor who summoned the MİT undersecretary and several other MİT officials to hear their testimony is clearly an attack on the government’s terrorism policies as the MİT officials who were summoned were all tasked by the prime minister to negotiate with terrorists. On the other hand, many Gülen supporters argue that the prosecutor’s only intention is to find out whether there are some agents in MİT that exceeded the limits of the negotiation.