Winning the propaganda war

As the region boils with the current crisis between Qatar and its neighbors, Turkey's domestic agenda is still locked in the coup trials and the purges in government. There is no major political breakthrough in the court cases, but another high-level politician's son-in-law has been put behind bars. Former Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arınç's son-in-law, a cardiologist at a university in Ankara was first dismissed from his academic post as part of the Fethullah Terror Organization (FETÖ) investigation, and he is now in jail.

Law professor Ersan Şen recently stressed the separation of two approaches in the FETÖ cases. "One of them is the actual coup trial of whatever happened in the military on that night. The other more important track are the FETÖ trials in more than a dozen cities. There we see the civilian side of the power sharing," Şen said.

Indeed, Gülenists were major allies of ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) local officials in smaller cities. From government tenders to business deals, the partnership was so close and entangled that even now, almost a year after the bloody coup attempt, it is still impossible to break it up. It is not just family ties or intergroup marriages, Gülenists (before they became FETÖ) were the propaganda arm of the AK Party in western capitals for more than a decade.

Brussels has its own share of guilt in the current crisis, because EU officials were aware of the false allegations against military officials, journalists and academics jailed in the Sledgehammer and Ergenekon cases. For people in Washington, however, it is deeply confusing to understand today's vendetta between the AK Party and the Gülen movement. 

That is why Ankara should put more emphasis on places like Capitol...