Major Political Turmoil in Turkey

Political turmoil has broken out inside Turkey. It is sometimes hard to follow the developments and determine “who is on which side,” but the outcome of this turmoil could have major effects on the alignment of nations in the Mideast. The first link details that the crisis erupted when there were 52 arrests of people inside Turkey as part of a corruption investigation with three of the arrested persons being sons of cabinet members in the Turkish Prime Minister’s cabinet. Also, the headquarters of a major Turkish bank were raided and police found $4.5 million in cash hidden in shoeboxes in the home of the bank’s general manager. That sounds awfully incriminating, doesn’t it?

The second link reports that eight people of those detained were formally arrested, and it is evident that the corruption investigation is aimed at allies of the ruling Islamist Turkish Prime Minister. It also reports that large numbers of investigating policemen have been fired, which appears to be an attempt to stop the investigation from finding out any more than it already has. The third link reports that Turkey’s PM has reshuffled his cabinet in an effort to head off the scandal.

The reports reveal that a power struggle is going on within the ruling political party headed by Turkey’s Prime Minister. Prime Minister Erdogan heads one side, but the other side seems headed by an Islamic leader who is now living in the USA and whose followers include many key officials within the ranks of Turkey’s police and judiciary. The fourth link shows the plot has continued to thicken considerably. Thousands of demonstrators have taken to the streets to demand Erdogan’s ouster, and a police investigator has arrested 30 more individuals, including members of Parliament from Erdogan’s ruling party. This effort was opposed by another police investigator, but Turkey’s “Higher Board of Judges and Prosecutors” has sided with those investigating Erdogan’s allies. The AlJazeera media outlet comments on this power struggle in the last link, and concludes that Erdogan’s actions are looking ever more like those taken by the head of a “banana republic.”

I can’t help making an observation on the timing of this internal political insurrection against Erdogan. A recent post noted that Turkey’s Prime Minister had heavily meddled in Egypt’s internal affairs when he took the side of the Islamic Brotherhood, the Islamist radicals who had been ousted from power. Egypt’s government was furious and expelled Turkey’s ambassador. Not long after he made trouble for Egypt’s moderate Interim Government, Turkey’s Islamist Prime Minister suddenly finds himself and his allies targeted by an internal corruption investigation and an insurrection within his own political party. I’m sure the timing is all coincidental.

Turkey is a member of NATO and its location astride the only maritime access route between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean Sea give it a great deal of geopolitical importance. The outcome of Turkey’s internal struggles could determine whether Turkey is in the Gog-Magog alliance or the western alliance led by the modern nations of the ten tribes of Israel. The previous name of Turkey was the Ottoman Empire, and the consonants of the word “Ottoman” (TT-M-N) are the same as the consonants of Teman (T-M-N) one of the main tribes of the Edomites, the descendants of Esau, a son of Isaac (Genesis 36:8, 11, 15, 34). I believe Turkey is an Edomite nation. Significantly, no nation descended from Abraham is listed as being in the Gog-Magog alliance, prophesied to come into being in the “latter days” of this age (Ezekiel 38:16).  That infers that Turkey will remain in the western alliance, but the outcome is not yet certain.