Erdogan consolidates his power on intelligence agency

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has extended his powers on the country's intelligence organization with a new government decree published on last Friday under emergency rule, further consolidating his grip over the state despite objections by the oppositions.

The powerful National Intelligence Agency (MIT) will from now on report to the president rather than the prime minister as it was before. This could be seen as a minor change considering that the dominant president has already extended his powers over the years, but considering that the Turkish government survived a coup attempt last summer, it is a radical and unprecedented move in state affairs of the NATO country.

The decree is the latest of several similar rules released in the line of the state of emergency declared after the failed coup that targeted President Erdogan and his government.

According to the decree, the MIT chief Hakan Fidan, appointed by President Erdogan in 2010, will report directly to the president who will have the last word on any operation of the secret services.

For the first time, MIT will be able to gather sensitive intelligence on armed forces and defense ministry personnel, something carried out previously by the military, reported the state-run Anadolu news agency.

Moreover, according to the decree, jail terms could be given to individuals who disclose the position, duties and activities of MIT personnel, in addition to disclosing the identities of MIT staff and their families.

Immediately after the shocking coup attempt that killed 250 people and masterminded by exiled cleric Fethullah Gulen's followers infiltrated in the army according to Ankara, Erdogan announced he would extend his powers to grasp control of the army and the intelligence services. He is doing this agenda after having very narrowly won a contested constitutional referendum in April conferring him sweeping executive powers and scrapping those of the prime minister.

But most of the measures foreseen in this controversial reform are due to come into effect after the 2019 presidential and parliamentary elections. Yet Erdogan has become the boss of both internal and external intelligence, a move harshly criticized by the opposition amid the ongoing government crackdown against Gulen followers.

Erdogan will now be able to reject the judiciary's demands to investigate the head of MIT or for him to testify in court as a witness. The presidency will from now on head a new body that is directly subordinate to the Turkish leader called the National Intelligence Coordination Board (MIKK) with overseas intelligence activities of MIT, the military and police combined.

The social democratic main opposition party CHP (Republican People's Party) reacted immediately against the move, accusing the government of bypassing the parliament, which it argues should have taken such an important decision. "Erdogan is creating his own deep state," told CHP lawmaker Levent Gok to reporters.

He added that "Turkey is turning into a spy-state, in the footsteps of the regime of Adulhamid," the Ottoman sultan, who ruled over a police state for more than thirty years in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and who was synonymous with despotism and authoritarianism.

Another lawmaker from CHP and renowned human rights lawyer Sezgin Tanrikulu denounced on social media "a clear coup against the constitution" by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), accusing it of violating the rule of law by governing Turkey by decrees since the failed coup.

More than 50,000 people have been arrested following the failed coup on July 15th, 2016, and almost three times that number of civil servants, academics, judges and soldiers, have lost their jobs. Friday's second decree dismissed another 900 public sector workers as well as military personnel with suspected links with the self-exiled preacher, who lives in the United States. Those sacked included more than 100 academic personnel.

Measures adopted by the Ankara government after the failed coup have alarmed Turkey's western allies and right groups. Gulen has denied the charges and condemned the attempt.

Murat Yetkin, a columnist of the Hurriyet Daily News, saw in this decisive move on Saturday the expression of "lack of confidence from the president towards the secret services."

The intelligence service came under fire in the aftermath of the coup and its credibility was tarnished with questions about why the MIT had not discovered the plot in advance and why his chief failed to inform Erdogan.

The secretive organization was reshaped with more civilian personnel than army officers to coordinate on a daily basis with different state entities in post-coup period and young bureaucrats were appointed to key positions in an institution, which is since several years a key player in Syria and Iraq.

A retired MIT official told Xinhua that President Erdogan will also have oversight on the secret appropriations fund used previously by the prime minister, something, he said, "which will be a first in Turkish politics."

"The institutional re-designing of Turkey's security and intelligence architecture so as to adapt an executive presidency has just started with this decree," commented for his part a security analyst and retired Turkish officer, Metin Gurcan, pointing out that a "new system" was being created under the direct oversight of President Erdogan.

Government sources downplayed the move as a "necessary move to streamline bureaucracy and to coordinate efforts from different institutions," while Turkey is struggling against armed Kurdish rebels in the southeast of the country and Islamic State (IS) jihadists threat stemming from neighboring Syria and Iraq.

On August 25, when being asked about the decree, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said "We have no problem with our president or institution."

An intelligent agency under the president is still obligated to report all of its activities to the government, and the change only involves cases about the appointment and dismissal of MIT undersecretary, he added.

Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag brushed aside on Saturday the opposition criticism of a "police state," arguing that the prerogatives and the powers of the intelligence agency remained unchanged and that the move was "appropriate to the spirit of the democratic state of law."

"It is simply an adaption which has been brought forward," in order to enhance cooperation on intelligence matters between different elements of the state, he added.