Turkey's AKP government is about to miss a big chance

Turkey's social democratic main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) filed a complaint to the Constitutional Court on Sept. 23 requesting the annulment of a number of articles of government decrees on the suspension and dismissal of public officials in the ongoing state of emergency. The affected officials are accused of having links to the network of Fethullah Gülen, the U.S.-resident Islamist preacher accused of orchestrating the bloody failed coup attempt of July 15.

CHP spokesman Levent Gök said his party had stood against the coup attempt and has been giving all kinds of support to fighting against the secretive Gülenist organization within the state apparatus. But he stressed that this fight should be carried out within the constitutional boundaries of a state of law. Gök also said the government was trying to carry out permanent amendments to legislation, despite the fact that any changes from decree laws should only be valid during the state of emergency period, according to the constitution.
Ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Parti) spokesman Bülent Turan reacted to the CHP's move with a strongly worded statement. Turan accused the CHP of acting in parallel with the "Fethullahist Terror Organization" (FETÖ), the name used by the government for the Gülenist organization, "after being in line" with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

This tension between the two parties was not there one day before, when Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım and CHP leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu met on Sept. 22. The CHP said it wanted (as Gök repeated on Sept. 23) the AK Parti government to avoid taking the solidarity between them that emerged after the July 15 coup attempt for granted, while also avoiding using the state of emergency as an...