{"id":31392,"date":"2011-03-24T05:14:48","date_gmt":"2011-03-24T03:14:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turkishforum.com.tr\/en\/content\/?p=31392"},"modified":"2014-01-06T01:13:32","modified_gmt":"2014-01-05T23:13:32","slug":"us-fears-millions-of-potential-terrorists-in-turkey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/2011\/03\/24\/us-fears-millions-of-potential-terrorists-in-turkey\/","title":{"rendered":"US Fears Millions of \u2018Potential Terrorists\u2019 in Turkey"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>ISTANBUL\u2014\u201cA leading Turkish national security analyst\u201d told US diplomats that seven percent of Turkish citizens support \u201cradical forms of Islam,\u201d adding that \u201cin a country of 70 million [people], even if half a percent of the population supports al-Qaeda-type terrorism, this would mean 350,000 potential terrorists,\u201d according to US State Department cables released by Wikileaks, reported Hurriyet Daily News, quoting the whistleblower Web site\u2019s Turkish partner Taraf newspaper.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_31394\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-31394\" style=\"width: 474px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-31394\" title=\"Muslims at prayer in Turkey\" src=\"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/0323muslimprayer.jpg\" alt=\"Muslims at prayer in Turkey\" width=\"474\" height=\"353\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/0323muslimprayer.jpg 474w, https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/0323muslimprayer-300x223.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 474px) 100vw, 474px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-31394\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Muslims at prayer in Turkey<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The Sunni Islamic doctrine has changed so little since the Middle Ages that there is not much difference between the Taliban in Afghanistan and Turkey, the Religious Affairs Directorate\u2019s research office director, Niyazi Kahveci, told U.S. officials during a visit on Nov. 14, 1996, according to another recently leaked cable, reported Hurriyet.<\/p>\n<p>Later, as more cables revealed, US diplomats have observed that Islam in Turkey is not \u201cmonolithic\u201d and is politically divided, with both secularists and conservative Islamists trying to manipulate religion\u2019s role in public affairs to their own ends.<\/p>\n<p>A June 27, 2003, diplomatic cable, released Wednesday by WikiLeaks\u2019 Turkish partner, daily Taraf, also claimed the country\u2019s Religious Affairs Directorate is suppressing Islamic beliefs that do not fit the official version.<\/p>\n<p>The Turkish version of secularism is \u201c180 degrees opposite\u201d of the U.S. version as it is not one embraced by the people and protected by the Constitution but \u201cdivinized\u201d by the Constitution and forced on the people, the cable also said.<\/p>\n<p>According to the cable, Turkey\u2019s Religious Affairs Directorate and the institutions within its scope are not separated from the state but are to the contrary, an indivisible part of it.<\/p>\n<p>It noted that the directorate was among the biggest official institutions in Turkey, with 90,000 personnel as of 2003, and that it employs all the imams in Turkey and controls the contents of their preaching.<\/p>\n<p>The directorate produces a \u201cKemalist Islam\u201d that has little to do with the beliefs held in the \u201cless elite\u201d corners of Anatolia, the cable said, adding that the directorate is oppressing forms of Islam, including the pro-secular faction of Alevism, that do not fit the official version, according to Hurriyet.<\/p>\n<p>via US Fears Millions of \u2018Potential Terrorists\u2019 in Turkey | Asbarez Armenian News.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>ISTANBUL\u2014\u201cA leading Turkish national security analyst\u201d told US diplomats that seven percent of Turkish citizens support \u201cradical forms of Islam,\u201d adding that \u201cin a country of 70 million [people], even if half a percent of the population supports al-Qaeda-type terrorism, this would mean 350,000 potential terrorists,\u201d according to US State Department cables released by Wikileaks, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":31394,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[89],"tags":[4540],"class_list":["post-31392","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-turkey","tag-wikileaks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31392","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31392"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31392\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31394"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}