Mustafa Belbey: ‘Ties of Turkey and Turkic regions of Russia, including Tatarstan, were poisoned by Fethullah Gülen’
A deputy of the National Assembly of Turkey from the oldest Republican Party, a politician and journalist Mustafa Belbey admitted to Realnoe Vremya that Ankara is guilty of curtailment of initially close cooperation of Turkey with the Islamic regions of Russia. However, according to the parliamentarian, at a new stage of relations with Russia, which began after the reconciliation of countries, it is the interaction with the Turkic regions of our country that can become a driver of Turkish-Russian relations. The politician also answered the questions of Russian journalists about the coup attempt on 15 July, the Turkey's position on Syria and many other things.
Do you believe that Fethullah Gülen is responsible for the coup attempt in Turkey on 15 July or, maybe, he has been exploited by other forces?
Yes, I believe that he is really connected with it. But there is also a point of view that Gülen has been exploited. In the 1990s, in a German newspaper there was a very informative article about the fact that in the 1990s three very strong states ceased to exist: Yugoslavia, Russia and Iran. The interesting thing is that all these states at the time of collapse had been existing for 70 years. In the same article it was stated that Turkey was reaching its 70th birthday, and there were forces that were interested our country to be destroyed or weakened.
'We, as a political party of Atatürk, clearly advocate for total elimination of the Gülen movement.' Photo: euronews.com
How do you think what happened? Why have the ruling party and Gülen argued?
Your question is very profound. The Islamist movement of Turkey has two directions. The first one calls for seizure of power by democratic means, i.e. through political competition and elections. The second direction advocates the seizure of power by force, and this is so-called movement of fethullahists. They simply have failed to share the power and therefore the conflict began. In regard to the struggle between the movements: its known part — the events of the last 4 years. It all started on 7 February 2012, when the secretary of national intelligence was called for interrogation. It is the same as if the Director of the KGB was called for interrogation. What does it mean to call such person for interrogation? It means to bring to justice the state itself. Earlier, in 2011, in the general election, the Gülen movement demanded from the ruling party 100 parliamentary seats. They refused, significantly reducing the number of seats in the parliament.
We, as a political party of Atatürk, clearly advocate for total elimination of the Gülen movement, it is first. Second, we believe that Turkey should once again become a Turkey of Atatürk, to get back on the rails, which were laid by Mustafa Kemal and his associates. We agree with the AKP on many issues, but we can't agree on what will be a new political system of the country after the destruction of the vicious old one. Here we have disagreements.
What about the position on Syria? Can you agree on that?
By saying that we have differences, I do not mean some kind of fundamental conflict. We just have different understandings of how you we can do better. I think, on 15 July we escaped the scenario of a civil war, on the brink of which we were. We have managed to avoid it. If the coup succeeded, I would be among the first three thousand detained statesmen. As for Syria, here the first steps were wrong. If you do your first button of a shirt wrong, even if you do all the remaining buttons properly, it will look comical. Whatever it was, we should find a companion. And only then to start a fight.
We look at the current situation. The ruling party claims that Bashar Assad is a terrorist with whom we should have nothing in common, nothing to do. This is a very straight and narrow comment. But Putin has agreed with Assad, that is, Russia has agreed with him. We are currently negotiating with Russia, that is, indirectly negotiating with Assad. It's not a direct arrangement, but we look at it condescendingly.
Once the Republican Party introduced Turkey in NATO and took an anti-Russian position. Has this position changed now?
The principle of international policy of our party — peace in the whole world. At the time, Atatürk concluded agreements with the countries of the West and with the countries of the East. We coexist with all. On the one hand, we have Iran, Russia on the other, on the third — Balkans, the West. We need to build equal relations with all countries. In no case we should go for confrontation with Russia, it is the second most populated country in the Asian region. It has seven Autonomous Turkic republics.
'If the coup succeeded, I would be among the first three thousand detained statesmen.' Photo: twitter.com
One of these Republics — Tatarstan. Turkey and Tatarstan have long-standing relations that were initially built not only on economic cooperation but also on the development of the spiritual ties and education. However, today virtually all is reduced only to economy. It is the spirit of the times or, maybe, the development of economic relations between Turkey and the Turkic regions of Russia is prevented due to the policy of the federal center of our country?
Thank you for your question. Here I have to be self-critical. We have a saying: start as a Turk, finish as an Englishman. That is, we begin well, but do not bring the case to its logical end. I think that possible ties of Turkey and the Turkic regions of Russia, including Tatarstan, have been largely poisoned by Fethullah Gülen. His schools did not contribute but prevented a very proper and necessary impulse in the development of the spiritual ties between Turkey and Russia. I started to tell about this 8 years earlier than the current ruling party of our country.
Indeed, in the first period of our cooperation we signed many good agreements, achieved very important agreements, held meetings of heads of Turkic-speaking regions and countries at the highest level. But then it stopped. When the current ruling party AK Parti came to power, such meetings were not held for several years and have been resumed only recently. But already in other frameworks. I communicate with many representatives of the ruling party, and they all recognise that we are late, we did it very late, they realize that this is their fault. If we had a good plan, Moscow would not impede its implementation.
You know, a large part of the population of such regions and countries — our fraternal Turkic people. We need to develop a work with them. I believe that in the new period of our relations with Russia the cooperation with the brotherly nations will be a driver for the development of cooperation between Turkey and Russia.