Something unusual is going on in Ankara

News items reported from the Turkish capital Ankara over the last few weeks are not quite consistent with the political predictability that one may have expected from a single-party government led by a president who recently won a referendum gathering all executive power.

They are not necessarily all linked or interrelated, but listed below are some of those developments:
* The differences between the times cited by Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım to daily Hürriyet editor-in-chief Fikret Bila, in an interview on the anniversary of the July 2016 coup attempt, regarding contacts with National Intelligence Organization (MİT) head Hakan Fidan on the night of the coup attempt, and the times given by intelligence sources to Hürriyet columnist Abdülkadir Selvi. Selvi had included certain times - which were earlier than Yıldırım's statements - in his recent book on the coup attempt, triggering a fresh debate about what actually happened on the night of July 15, 2016. Yıldırım repeated that he only reached Fidan with difficulty, at around 22:40 p.m., but failed to get proper information about the coup attempt.

* As part of that debate, details started to emerge about a meal at the MİT headquarters that evening between MİT chief Fidan, then Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet) head Mehmet Görmez, and Syrian opposition representative Muaz al-Hatib. Selvi wrote - apparently based on information provided by Görmez - that in the middle of the dinner Fidan received a telephone and sent Görmez and al-Hatib to safer places escorted by MİT guards, saying it was an "urgent situation." 

* Selvi wrote that this meal took place after 22:00 p.m., which is not consistent with Turkish customs for evening dinner. But it would not have been usual for an...