After the elections of any country, the change of leaders at the national level is an inevitable phenomenon, but the composition of the new Turkish government after Turkey May 24 election and the re-election of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan which accompanied with the selection of a security figure like Hakan Fidan as the head of the Turkish diplomatic system has attracted much attention. The prominence of Turkey's foreign minister's election has even made Erdogan's re-election to the presidency less prominent. The phenomenology of Fidan's character requires the investigation of the two decades of recent Turkish political history, which will be mentioned below.
Since the beginning of the Islamist Justice and Development Party's rise to power in 2002, we have witnessed the continuous presence and sometimes significant absences of the 54-year-old Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan in the power body of this country. He entered a military school at the age of 16 and went through the stages of promotion in the uniform of a soldier and appeared as a promising soldier in the Turkish army headquarters. But in 2001, with the emergence of the Justice and Development Party under the management of Abdullah Gul, Ahmad Davutoglu and Recep Tayyip Erdogan, he mysteriously left the army and began his studies at the University of Maryland, USA, in the field of political science management, studying the approach of the intelligence services of western countries and then defended his doctoral thesis in 2006 entitled "The Role of Information Technology in the Ratification of International Treaties."
He has accompanied the discourse changes in Turkey in the last two decades, that is why he has a good understanding of the power structure in this country. His political personality was formed along with the Justice and Development Party with the "strategic depth" doctrine of Dr. Ahmet Davutoglu. He has experienced Turkey's role in regional and international developments as the basis of Turkey's foreign policy and interaction with the region and the world with the AKP. A party which gained power in Turkey by emphasizing the potential capabilities of this country in the geographical field and historical identity by presenting Ankara as a trans-regional and global power with the "zero tension with neighbors" slogan.
In 2006, he supervised the presentation of the Black Sea and Maritime Security Symposium by Admiral Cem Gordeniz, presenting of the "Blue Homeland" doctrine, which was later adopted and completed by Admiral Cihad Yaici by delineating the territorial waters of the continental shelf and the exclusive economic zone of Turkey using the capacity of the surrounding waters of this country. According to the doctrine, zero tension with neighbors Davutoglu's started from the zero point and practically marginalized that doctrine. Although the Blue Homeland doctrine had its own obstacles and could not be easily implemented, the liberal approach of the strategic depth of the Ahmet Davutoglu doctrine is still the basis of many developments in Turkey's foreign policy and economic development, including the peace process between the government and the Turkish Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), with Fidan being its presenter from 2008 to 2015 and he also played a key role in bringing an end to the peace process.
He went through various stages of management in the position of ambassador and attending in the Atomic Energy Organization as well as security structures. Fidan started to continue his service in the National Intelligence Organization of Turkey (MIT) and relying on his knowledge in the body of the security structure of Turkey, he quickly climbed the steps of promotion. The main problem of Turkey is the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which Hakan followed the negotiation project with the aim of disarming this regional party from 2008 to 2015, until he was called as the architect of "hidden management" and "open tolerance" with PKK. Because the claws of his influence are clearly visible everywhere in this party, so that it can be said that MIT's role within PKK is much stronger than the role of the leaders of that party within the PKK organization, to the extent that it may not be rhetorical to consider this party as to be divided into " Ocalan's PKK " and " Hakan's PKK ". The targeted elimination of some PKK cadres in the Kurdistan region of Iraq and playing with this party's card in the developments east of the Euphrates in Syria and northern Iraq are proof of this intelligence aristocracy within the PKK party.
From the very beginning of his studies, Fidan focused on the power of diplomacy, that's why he emphasized in his master's thesis abstract that "Turkey should strengthen its intelligence for a stronger foreign policy, because dependence on the intelligence of America and other NATO countries is problematic."
He believes that good information does not always lead to a good decision, but incorrect or incomplete information is sure to cause failure in foreign policy.
Turkey's domestic and foreign policy priorities are respectively; Reviving the idea of Neo-Ottomanism with the aim of returning to the geography of the past empire, joining the European Union, the internal and peripheral issue of the Kurds and the expansion of influence in the Caucasus area, which Hakan Fidan has existed in all the above areas, leading the case.
He is one of the few managers who has been closely in contact with all the surrounding issues of Turkey. He can be seen as the architect of reconciliation and the restoration of Turkey's relations with many countries in the region, especially Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the UAE, because Turkey is looking for a powerful and comprehensive diplomacy, of which Fidan can be seen as its designer and executor.
Though, there are deep historical questions facing the AK Party government and its security director, Hakan Fidan, for which convincing answers have not been provided so far. Including defending and supporting the ISIS, the mysterious murder of the Saudi journalist Jamal Ahmad Khashoggi in Turkey, dealing with the Gulen movement and suppressing the June 2016 coup, the quality of dealing with the issue of Palestine as a part of the Neo-Ottomanism land is still in the veil of ambiguity and is in contradict with the political thought of this country so that he can neither hem the New-Ottomanism ideology, nor has taken as serious stance against Israel.
Turkey has not yet been able to balance the brotherhood approach of the Turkish government and the "blue homeland" doctrine in the Mediterranean Sea with Egypt as the most influential country in this sea area. Of course, in recent weeks, the signals of the restoration of relations with Egypt and the lowering the brotherhood wick inside the country reveal clear meanings regarding the continued loyalty of the Turkish government to this doctrine. This question and many other questions of this kind are facing Hakan Fidan as the helmsman of the Turkish diplomatic system.
The footprints of Hakan Fidan can be seen in many ethnic and religious movements in the neighboring countries of Turkey. He took purposeful steps in the axis of resistance and has traveled to Tehran many times during the past few years. He had relations with martyr General Qasim Soleimani regarding regional developments and in a way he imitated Solaimani's regional move's with a Turkish perspective in the region, that's why, in international circles, his views are considered to be inclined towards Iran.
Fidan's political personality is complex and ambiguous. He has specialized in all regional developments, especially the human geography of the Kurds and the Caucasus and Syria. He has also played a role in the negotiation process with Syria and Russia. From the beginning, Fidan had the idea of getting out of the security curtain. In 2012, he was summoned to the court by the Republic Court to be interrogated as a suspect and accused of conciliatory talks with terrorists.
This action caused a controversy in Turkey and turned into a big crisis in the country until Erdogan had to announce "Fidan is the repository of my secrets. Interrogate me instead of him." This decisive position of Erdogan caused an amendment to the law of judicial courts of this country regarding the legal immunity of high-ranking officials. The sensitivity of this issue for the government was such that Erdogan ordered a text to amend the law to be written at night and sent to the president of the National Assembly, and within less than 24 hours, this sentence should be included in the law: "No one has a right, without permission and coordinate with the Prime Minister, to summon the high-ranking officials of MIT to the court" and they quickly turned it into a law.
A Kurdish Judge and the Fethullah Gulen think tanks, both of which belonged to the population that had been hurt by Hakan Fidan were accused for the case. As a result, the MIT organization will always see itself indebted to Hakan. This resolution somehow expressed the key role of Hakan Fidan in the survival of Erdogan's government. When Fidan became the head of the MIT organization, Ehud Barak, the then Israel prime minister, announced; this appointment is a worrying development because in 2008-2009, when Fidan was serving in the International Atomic Energy Agency, he had a pro-Iran position. In response to this position, Fidan told the Turkish media in 2013: "For the first time in the world, a government (Zionist regime) is reacting to the appointment of the head of the intelligence service of a country because they did not want me to become the head of MIT."
Now, Hakan Fidan, with a wealth of experience and extensive security copetency, has been assigned to Turkey's internal affairs and foreign policy as the Foreign Minister with the authority of the country's security organization. Leaning on Fidan's power, tired Recep Tayyip Erdogan was also able to sit again for another eight-year term in the "Ak Sarai" palace with. Erdogan's powerful rivals, centered on the People's Republic Party, gave the field to the Sultan by a not too long distance.
Now it seems that Erdogan's physical conditions are reminiscent of the conditions of Sultan Muhammad VI, the last Ottoman Empire, with the difference that Sultan Recep has chosen the key holder himself, while the key holder of Sultan Muhammad VI was out of his will, and now the young and experienced Hakan, in addition to being Erdogan's cane, is also in charge of his secret reservoir, which has prepared all the conditions for Hakan Fidan to be the future "Ak Sarai" key holder.
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