US diplomats suggest Turkey's Erdogan is ill informed

Nov 28, 2010, 20:51 GMT

Berlin - US diplomats believe Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is ill-informed and advised by a foreign minister with little appreciation of politics outside Ankara, leaked cables claimed Sunday.

In a summary of despatches dealing with Turkey, the German news magazine Der Spiegel said the Americans believed many leading figures in Erdogan's ruling AKP party were members of a Muslim brotherhood.

They reported that Erdogan mainly read the news from newspapers sympathetic to the Islamist movement and was surrounded by an iron ring of flattering but stuck-up advisers.'

Other cables charged that Erdogan had promoted Islamic bankers into prominent positions and said Turkey's leadership was feuding, according to the Spiegel summary.

Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, the key contact for the US embassy in Ankara, was also criticized in the despatches, with diplomats saying he had a 'neo-Ottoman' vision and little awareness of what went on outside Ankara, according to Der Spiegel.

It quoted a senior Turkish official who told a US diplomat in a chat that Davutoglu exercised Islamist influence on Erdogan and added about Davutoglu, 'He's dangerous.'

The London newspaper The Guardian quoted cables that quoted Davutoglu giving a 'spirited' answer in November 2009 to visiting US Assistant Secretary of State Philip Gordon, who visited Ankara to ask Turkey not to meddle in diplomacy over Iran's nuclear programme.

The despatch said the US official warned of the danger to Turkey if Iran obtained a nuclear weapon.

'Davutoglu gave a spirited reply, that 'of course' Turkey was aware of this risk. This is precisely why Turkey is working so hard with the Iranians,' the cable said. 'Only Turkey can speak bluntly and critically to the Iranians, Davutoglu contended.'

However at talks in Paris, Gordon chided the French for blocking Turkish efforts to join the European Union.

'Gordon said that Turkey was caught in a vicious cycle and it is not completing necessary reforms because the Turks do not believe that their EU candidacy will be allowed to progress,' the cable said.

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