Erdogan: Journalist will pay 'heavy price'
The Turkish president is furious with the editor of Cumhuriyet for publishing photos of the contents of the infamous MIT trucks stopped en route to Syria, but even more outraged that his policy of intimidation is failing to silence media criticism.
On the evening of May 31, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan publicly threatened journalist Can Dundar, the editor-in-chief of daily Cumhuriyet, a secularist paper that is no fan of his. Erdogan was interviewed on TRT, Turkey’s state TV, by three supportive journalists. “He will pay a heavy price for this,” Erdogan said, referring to Dundar. “I will not let go of him.”
Three days before, Cumhuriyet had published photographs of the cargo of the controversial “MIT trucks,” including machine gun ammunition and shells for mortars and other cannons. MIT is the acronym of Turkey’s National Intelligence Agency, and the trucks in question were chartered by MIT and stopped by Turkish police and gendarmerie on their way to the Syrian border in December 2014. It was the height of the intra-state war between the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government and the Fethullah Gulen movement, and many had assumed that pro-Gulen prosecutors were trying to expose yet another misdeed by the government in addition to corruption and other charges.
The AKP government denied that the trucks carried ammunition, insisting that they were loaded with humanitarian aid for the Turkmens in Syria, a destination that would find sympathy in many Turks. But now with Cumhuriyet’s exposure, just 10 days before the June 7 elections, the issue has been reignited. Both Erdogan and the government accuse anyone they see complicit in the exposure — from the Gulen movement to Cumhuriyet — of treason. In return, the opposition blames the government for supporting terrorists in Syria — especially the Islamic State (IS).
If one takes a step back from Turkey’s heated politics, however, both of these charges look overblown. As for MIT, it is no secret that Ankara is an avowed supporter of the Syrian opposition, and many believe that this support include arms for select groups. But there is no evidence to believe these groups include IS. It seems thus more plausible that the MIT trucks were destined for more moderate groups, such as the Free Syrian Army, or Islamist factions such as Ahrar al-Sham, which have been still a matter of concern for the West but do not share IS’ brutal tactics and even oppose them.
