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Is a Power Struggle Brewing Between Erdogan and Gulen?

A major struggle between the two most important players in Turkish politics could be on the horizon.
Fethullah Erdogan.jpg
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Today, this question takes precedence in Turkish politics: What will New Turkey be like? In today’s Turkey there are two key political actors who have extraordinary potential to enact change. Any foreign reader, politician or intellectual who wants to understand the New Turkey has to grasp these two actors' mindsets. All other analyses on Turkey are bound to be futile and meaningless.

The first actor is the Justice and Development Party (AKP) under Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The second is "The Service," a movement under the leadership of Fethullah Gulen, a man of religion currently living in the US. This Islamic movement calling itself The Service is known in Western circles as the Gulen Movement. In Turkish media it is called “Cemaat,” meaning the Community or Congregation. The Gulenists don’t like the label “Cemaat,” though it is very much in vogue in Turkey.

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