The visit and photo that didn't make the agenda

The new Minister of Justice, Akın Gürlek, and the Minister of Interior, Mustafa Çiftçi, took their oaths and assumed their new offices 9 days ago, on February 11.

One of the first visitors to Mustafa Çiftçi, who was appointed to the Ministry of Interior from the Governorship of Erzurum, was former Minister of Interior and Justice Mehmet Ağar. When this visit became a topic of discussion for days following Çiftçi's social media post, Ağar was forced to make a statement.

Perhaps because there was already enough of an agenda due to the incidents during the swearing-in ceremony in Parliament, Akın Gürlek's visitors did not attract any attention at all.

For instance, one of his first visitors was not someone from Gürlek's circle, but İsmail Kahraman, the former Speaker of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (TBMM) and Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Birlik Foundation, who is rumored to have been influential in the appointment of the new Interior Minister, Çiftçi.

On February 13, the second day of his new post, Gürlek hosted former Minister of Justice and AKP Group Deputy Chairman Abdulhamit Gül at noon.

Gürlek had another visitor before the live broadcast on A Haber, which he attended that evening at 21:00.

Before we get to who this visitor—whom we said "didn't attract any attention"—is, we need to recall some debates.

GÜRLEK'S ARTICLE REGARDING THE CHP

As is known, with the appointment of Akın Gürlek to the Ministry of Justice, discussions regarding the transfer of the CHP to a trustee and the return of Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu have accelerated once again.

The reason for these discussions is clear: Gürlek was the one who carried out the operations in Istanbul and prepared the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality (İBB) indictment.

Indeed, during the live broadcast on A Haber, Gürlek defended the İBB indictment as zealously as if he were still the Chief Public Prosecutor of Istanbul.

However, the Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor's Office had done something else just 4 months ago; along with the İBB indictment, it had written a letter to the Court of Cassation Chief Public Prosecutor's Office for "the necessary actions to be taken within the scope of the Law on Political Parties." The subject of the letter was the allegations that "it was understood that election ballot data regarding 11 million 360 thousand 412 citizens were published from the CHP legal entity through irregular methods," and furthermore, that "it was understood that the CHP was engaged in systematic and continuous interference aimed at influencing the will of the voters and the democratic order." Because the articles pointed out in the letter are the articles related to the dissolution of political parties, this development was interpreted as a "criminal complaint for the dissolution of the CHP."

Upon this, the Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor's Office issued a statement saying, "No notification has been made towards the dissolution of the CHP; as clearly stated in the indictment, the notification was made in accordance with the Law on Political Parties."

This topic became one of the questions asked during the live broadcast on A Haber, and Minister Gürlek said the following:

"It is the AK Party that made dissolving parties difficult in the constitution. In other words, the dissolution of political parties does not happen. That was just a notification. What is a notification? You know, a prosecutor is obliged to do what is necessary. There (in the CHP), we found an irregularity regarding the purchase of the provincial building and the party congress processes in the party's accounts. The Chief Public Prosecutor's Office of the Court of Cassation is responsible for auditing political parties. We reported this to the Chief Public Prosecutor's Office of the Court of Cassation. But of course, they unfortunately took the event to different places. The subject has nothing to do with party dissolution."

This answer also caught the attention of Fatih Atik, the Ankara Representative of TGRT Haber, known for his closeness to the government. In the article he wrote three days later, after stating that Minister Gürlek, whom he had visited to congratulate and interviewed before the A Haber broadcast, mentioned that Erdoğan's first instruction was "Work, Akın," he commented on his statements on A Haber as follows:

"Actually, the question was about the interpretation of the letter they sent to the Court of Cassation Chief Public Prosecutor's Office as being related to the dissolution of the CHP... Even though he said, 'The subject has nothing to do with party dissolution,' the sentence that caught my attention, 'We found an irregularity in the congress processes,' could it be a sign of absolute nullity? Although CHP members are now evaluating that there could be new developments based on this sentence, if the Court of Cassation finds a problem as a result of the investigation it will conduct, the CHP's Treasury aid could be cut."

Fatih Atik also emphasized the following:

"It is known that former Minister of Justice Yılmaz Tunç was cold towards the issue of 'absolute nullity.' Let's see what kind of changes will occur in the nullity case with the new Minister of Justice taking office; we will watch and see."

ERDOĞAN HAS "LOST HOPE" IN THE CHP

To understand the discussions regarding the CHP, let's also look at the statements Erdoğan made two days ago while returning from Ethiopia, in response to questions from the journalists accompanying him.

The first question was:

"We have witnessed many times that the CHP has conducted politics with a language of threat, blackmail, and insult until today. But at the point reached now, the CHP Chairman even cursed at his own party's mayor. Immediately after that, CHP deputies attempted to attack the swearing-in ceremony of the ministers in our Gazi Parliament. How do you evaluate this point to which the main opposition is trying to carry politics?"

Erdoğan gave this answer:

"This is how much their friendships can be trusted. If you are a politician operating in the CHP, the moment you criticize the Headquarters management and those who direct and manage them even in the mildest way, you are doomed to be cursed at, to face lynching and insults, and to be threatened. If this is the case, what should be done? You will stand tall. You will be patient. And when the time comes, you will do what is necessary. This is what we are doing. There is no backing down. We will stand tall, we will not become arrogant. But we will not leave the field to the CHP either."

Then, the question was asked: "You have seen three CHP chairmen in the 24 years you have been in power and you have engaged in politics during the same period. You have had very harsh criticisms of the first two from time to time, but your attitude towards Özgür Özel, whose connection with Silivri has intensified in recent days, has changed quite a bit. Both your criticisms have become much harsher and you have made a determination like 'I have lost hope.' What does this mean, what is happening today that was not in the CHP in the past, in your opinion?"

Erdoğan, who in the past shook the earth and sky with the address "Mr. Kemal," asked "Would this nation entrust this state to you?", and engaged in propaganda through images with the terrorist leader in Qandil, "whether it's a montage, or this or that," praised Kılıçdaroğlu upon this question and accused the CHP in summary as follows:

"Now the CHP is actually in a very different vice. Corruption, theft, bribery gangs on one side, and the figures who are the embodiment of incompetent and unqualified politics on the other side have surrounded the CHP... We look at Mr. Kılıçdaroğlu's period. It is very different from this period. In that period, we competed fiercely with the CHP on the political ground. With the support of our nation, thank God, we crossed the finish line in all of these races. We did not experience any problems. But now, the situation the CHP has fallen into is too complicated to be explained by the dynamics of politics. Footwork, the well-known daggers, intra-party conspiracies have shifted the ground on which the CHP sits in politics quite a bit. It is not possible to explain this only as lack of vision, incompetence, and lack of foresight. But things are really going bad. The Chairman insults me and my friends everywhere he goes. You cannot get anywhere with these insults. That is why we are not interested in the swamp the CHP has fallen into. We are just looking at our work. And we are continuing on our path like this, hopefully."

THAT VISITOR WAS MUHSİN ŞENTÜRK

After these notes, let's come to the person who visited Gürlek on the second day of his new office.

That visitor was;

Muhsin Şentürk, who, while serving as the President of the 3rd Criminal Chamber of the Court of Cassation, not only did not comply with the "rights violation" decision given by the Constitutional Court regarding Can Atalay, but also filed a criminal complaint with the Court of Cassation Chief Public Prosecutor's Office against the members of the Constitutional Court,

Who was a candidate for the Presidency of the Court of Cassation in the elections held a few months later, but later withdrew his candidacy in favor of the former President Mehmet Akarca,

And who was appointed as the Chief Public Prosecutor of the Court of Cassation by Erdoğan, even though he came in second in the subsequent voting.

Minister Gürlek also shared this visit on his social media account with the words: "We met with the Chief Public Prosecutor of the Court of Cassation, Mr. Muhsin Şentürk, at our Ministry. I thank him for his kind visit."

Well, what comes to mind first when "Court of Cassation Chief Public Prosecutor's Office" is mentioned? Of course, party dissolution cases.

But while the fate of the CHP was the first thing to be discussed with Gürlek's appointment to the Ministry of Justice, for some reason, this visit by Şentürk did not attract as much attention as Mehmet Ağar's visit to Interior Minister Çiftçi, nor the visit to Gürlek by Osman Gökçek, who caused CHP's Mahmut Tanal to bleed during the swearing-in ceremony. Interesting, isn't it?!

Let us also note that the President of the Court of Cassation, Ömer Kerkez, paid a "congratulatory" visit to Minister Gürlek exactly five days after Chief Public Prosecutor Şentürk.