PodcastAKP has always kept its distance from religious sects: Deputy chair
The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) deputy chairman Mahir Ünal has said that the AKP-led government has always had a tradition of keeping religious sects away from the state structure. "In our tradition, the state has always kept a certain distance to these groups, but maintained its respect [for them]," he said.
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The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) deputy chairman Mahir Ünal has said that the AKP-led government has always had a tradition of keeping religious groups away from the state structure.
Asked if the government has been putting effort into stopping religious sects from taking over the state “once again,” Ünal said: “In the Ottoman [Empire's political] tradition as well, the state has kept religious structures away from its structure and religious groups have not been close to the state. In our tradition as well, the state has always kept a certain distance to these groups, but maintained its respect [for them].” Ünal made these comments in an interview on Dec. 21 with CNN Türk TV channel.
The AKP deputy chairman said that authorities should not allow religious groups to form an organization within the state. “The state has its own internal hierarchy, law and regulations. The moment you allow that, you annihilate what you call the state anyway,” he said.
The AKP and Gülen movement, which Turkish authorities now refer to as Fethullahist Terrorist Organization, have long maintained an alliance, until a political conflict between the two broke out in 2013. The Turkish authorities later branded the movement as a “parallel structure” and started to purge the movement's followers from all state institutions.
"After Dec. 17-25 [corruption investigations of 2013], the AKP went over its congresses as well as municipal and general elections with a fine-tooth comb and kept everyone who had a relation with this structure away from the party. Those who had a relation with this structure left the AKP anyway after Dec. 17-25,” Ünal said, referring to the 17-25 December 2013 corruption and bribery probe, which targeted the sons of government ministers, high-level bureaucrats and prominent business people.
In the aftermath of the 2013 probe, the AKP refused to let its high-level elite to be investigated, with the then-Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan characterizing the investigations as a judicial coup designed by the Gülen movement and waging a full-fledged war against the “state-like formations” within the state bureaucracy.