Category: 2023

Abdullah Bozkurt/Stockholm

Yusuf Tekin (50), the recently appointed minister of education, responsible for overseeing the education of nearly 20 million children in Turkey and entrusted with billions of Turkish lira to carry out that task, was red-flagged during a counterterrorism probe into the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Quds Force network, classified documents obtained by Nordic Monitor have revealed.

Tekin’s links to Quds Force operatives in Turkey were exposed during a confidential, multi-year probe into the group, known by its Turkish name, Tevhid Selam. Tekin’s communications with a specially trained Iranian operative were intercepted between December 15, 2012 and November 22, 2013, and the wiretaps were entered as evidence into the case file.

The investigation launched in 2011 by Istanbul prosecutor Adem Özcan under case file No.2011/762 identified 232 Turkish and Iranian suspects, some later designated by the US Treasury under sanctions, after painstaking surveillance of operatives, wiretapping of their phones and internet communications and a review of the shell companies that were used as covers to mask secret operations. The prosecutor’s probe lasted until 2014 before then-prime minister and now president Recep Tayyip Erdogan stepped in to kill the country’s most comprehensive counterespionage investigation in its recent history.

The case file contains 10 intercepted phone and SMS conversations between Tekin and Furkan Torlak (37), a known Iranian asset who was working as an advisor to Numan Kurtulmus, the then-deputy chairman of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and now the speaker of parliament. Torlak was a suspect and a target of the investigators, with the conversations revealing a close relationship between Torlak and Tekin, who was serving as undersecretary of the Ministry of Education at the time.

Wiretap secured by a judge’s approval in the IRGC Quds Force investigation reveals close links between Yusuf Tekin and Furkan Torlak: 

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Judging from the content of the wiretap, Bostan and Torlak had known each other for a long time, possibly going back to their younger years when Torlak had been groomed at an Iranian-run Shiite ḥawzah (seminary) in Syria from 1997, when he was 12, until he turned 21. Turkish police tracked all of Torlak’s visits to Syria, where he had spent his teenage and early adult years under the supervision of his handlers from the Quds Force.

Furkan Torlak, a Quds Force suspect who was groomed at Shiite seminaries in Syria.

A wiretap dated January 15, 2013 shows the two had worked together in the recruitment of an acquaintance for the ruling party, using favors to fast-track the candidate’s employment. Another wiretap dated November 21, 2013 reveals Tekin was sharing confidential government information from the ministry with Torlak by sending documents to his Yahoo email. Torlak had no official position in the government and did not have a clearance to gain access to government information.

Tekin is not the only one Torlak sourced to get his hands on government information. He was also using his wife, Sümeyye Nur Torlak, the daughter of Burhan Kavuncu, one of the leading figures in establishing the Iran-backed Hizbullah in Turkey. Kavuncu helped Torlak land advisory positions in the government as well as in the ruling AKP. He currently works as an advisor to the culture and tourism minister. His connections to the Quds Force came to light one-and-a-half years after the probe was launched, prompting the prosecutor to secure a warrant to wiretap his phone and place him under surveillance.

The wiretaps show that Torlak obtained classified documents illegally through his wife Sümeyye, who was working for the Public Security Institution (Kamu Güvenliği Teşkilatı) at the time. In the wiretap his wife told him that if she sent classified material through the mail, the government might be able to identify her as the leak. Instead, she said she would bring the hard copies home to avoid detection.

Another wiretap between Yusuf Tekin and Furkan Torlak:

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The investigation also revealed how Torlak hid his activities and education in Syria in the CVs he submitted to support his employment in government agencies at the recommendation of Sefer Turan, another suspect in the Quds Force probe. He did not want to raise red flags during background checks. Turan, currently serving as chief advisor to President Erdogan on Turkey’s relations with Arab and Muslim states, especially in the Middle East and North Africa, had worked for the Iranian-financed radical publication Yeryüzü in the 1990s promoting the Iranian mullah regime.

How the entire operation unmasked Torlak’s hidden background and his connections to Quds Force operatives was revealed during a hearing on May 31, 2018 at the Istanbul 14th High Criminal Court by Selman Yuyucu, a police chief who had worked the Quds Force investigation.

Another wiretap between Yusuf Tekin and Furkan Torlak: 

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Tekin’s appointment as minister of education on June 4, 2023 means that he is now responsible for overseeing the entire public education system in Turkey. This vast system employs 1.1 million personnel, predominantly teachers, who work under his leadership to educate children from kindergarten to 12th grade. Additionally, the ministry has a global presence, with education attachés reporting directly to Tekin from Turkish embassies in 63 countries.

The ministry accounts for a significant portion of the central budget, which was 285 billion Turkish lira at the end of 2022. Moreover, it allocated 2.3 billion Turkish lira for overseas operations during the same period. With its authority to license, inspect and utilize administrative tools, the Ministry of Education also exerts considerable influence over private schools, including minority schools.

According to the ministry’s official records, 19.2 million children were educated during the 2021/2022 school year, including 732,000 Syrian refugees between ages of 5 and 17 in various schools, corresponding to 65 percent of all Syrian youngsters of school age. Each year, the ministry publishes 300 million school textbooks, which it distributes to schools after it has monitored their content.

Yusuf Tekin, Turkey’s minister of education.

Levent Kenez/Stockholm

The Turkish parliament’s Human Rights Committee published a report on Islamophobia and racism on March 9. Turkish lawmakers visited the United Kingdom, France, Germany and the Netherlands during the two-year preparation of the report, which includes such chapters as racism, the presence of Muslims and foreigners in Europe, the historical origin of Islamophobia in Europe, the reasons for its rise and the role of politics and media in the rise of racism. The report, which includes accusatory language targeting the Western world, calls European-based right-wing extremist groups “terrorist organizations” while referring to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and al-Qaeda simply as “organizations.”

Stating that many acts alleged to have been carried out in the name of Islam fueled racism and Islamophobia in Europe, the report claims that the murder of 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics turned the opinion of Europeans, which until then had been positive, against the Palestinians and Muslims as well.

The report mentions al-Qaeda and ISIS as “some organizations” that cause Islamophobia.

“Islamophobia has turned into a state-sponsored movement,” the report states. “Islam and Muslims, as victims of an organized network, have been turned into objects of a lynching culture through a media industry based on lies. According to lawmakers, in countries such as France and Germany, all elements of the security sector, especially the law enforcement agency put state power at the service of anti-Muslim movements.

“The effects of the attacks carried out by organizations such as al-Qaeda and DAESH (ISIS) in Europe on the increase of Islamophobia and the formation of prejudices against Muslims in Europe cannot be denied. At this point, September 11, 2001 attacks in the US, the Madrid train station attack in 2004, the London attack in 2005, the 2015 Charlie Hebdo attack, the 2015 Paris attacks and the 2016 Belgian airport attack are among the biggest reasons for the increase of Islamophobia in the West because with these attacks, the perception that Islam is a religion that does not exclude violence has been created,” the report reads.

The report, which describes far-right organizations such as the German-based Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West (PEGIDA) as terrorist organizations, does not make similar references to ISIS or al-Qaeda.

Parliamentary committee chair Hakan Çavuşoğlu argued that violent acts against Muslims were organized but added that they have generally been considered individual crimes and covered up by the European authorities. 

Ruling party lawmaker and committee member Osman Nuri Gülaçar claimed that Islamophobia is entirely of Western origin and was invented to prevent the spread of Islam. Gülacar, who asserted that between 170,000 and 190,000 people a year converted to Islam in the US before the September 11 attacks in 2001, said Islam was deliberately presented by the West as a threat.

The report includes serious accusations against the French and German governments, with French President Emanuel Macron in particular accused of trying to dilute the basic teachings of Islam by creating “French Islam.”

The report also states that the far-right Gray Wolves were discriminated against in France because they were Turkish. In 2020 France banned the group, which is linked to a key ally of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and is seen as the extremist wing of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), a staunch supporter of the Erdoğan government.

Erdoğan often refers to the fight against Islamophobia, telling his followers that European governments discriminate against Turkey because of its Muslim identity,

Erdoğan on February 25, 2022 wanted members of the Union of International Democrats (UID), his ruling party’s organization in Europe, to be united in the fight against Islamophobia and urged them to help other non-Turkish Muslims.

Turkish parliament’s report on Islamophobia and racism:

Abdullah Bozkurt/Stockholm

A secret wiretap obtained by Nordic Monitor reveals how Turkey’s spy chief, İbrahim Kalın, contemplated a decades-long plan to raise a political Islamist generation on the African continent, using Turkish government influence and affiliated Islamist groups.

The wiretap, secured by a court order as part of an investigation into an organized crime network in which Kalın was one of the suspects, details a confidential conversation between Kalın and the late businessman Abdullah Tivnikli, a leading Islamist figure.

The communication, intercepted on January 14, 2013 at 13:08 hours and later incorporated into a criminal case, showed Kalın briefing the businessman on then-prime minister and now president Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s visits to Gabon, Niger and Senegal as part of an Africa tour in January 2013. Kalın said he saw the schools as strategic assets that would be developed for the next 20 to 30 years.

During his time in Africa, Erdogan attended programs organized by Islamist schools run by the Aziz Mahmut Hudayi Foundation, a Turkish entity closely aligned with the Erdogan government. Tivnikli, who passed away in November 2018, was one of the founders of the organization. He was seeking a briefing on the phone about the visits to schools linked to Hudayi.

“It was quite interesting that he [Erdogan] visited only our schools,” Tivnikli told Kalın. “We have just started. For instance, I told [foundation staff] in Ghana that there are around 10,000 [students], like [MTTB] youths. … You should act,” Tivnikli said. “Good [projects] are being carried out, and more will be, Inshallah,” Kalın responded.

Wiretap that features the phone conversation of İbrahim Kalın with a known Islamist figure: 

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The National Turkish Students Union (Millî Türk Talebe Birliği, MTTB), which promotes an Islamic state in Turkey, has played an important role in Turkey in the political education of Islamist youth, including the founders of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), among them Erdogan, 11th president Abdullah Gül and former speaker of the parliament İsmail Kahraman. According to his official biography, President Erdogan was actively involved with the MTTB during his high school and university years.

Kalın was deputy undersecretary of the Office of the Prime Ministry and chief foreign policy adviser to Erdogan at the time of the Africa tour. He later moved to Erdogan’s palace as spokesperson and chief advisor before becoming head of Turkey’s notorious intelligence organization MIT earlier this month.

In the wiretapped conversation Kalın and Tivnikli discuss seeking the support of African leaders during the second Turkey-Africa Partnership Summit in order to build new schools in their countries. The summit, which was scheduled for 2013 in Turkey, was postponed, and Erdogan and African leaders finally met in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, November 19-21, 2014. A declaration and 2015-2019 Joint Implementation Plan were adopted at the summit.

“That is great, Brother. We should discuss those later. The Turkey-Africa [Partnership] Summit will be held here [in Turkey]. We will host all the African leaders,” Kalın told Tivnikli. “Sure. All of them are asking for money [to facilitate the founding of schools in their countries],” stated Tivnikli. “Brother, you should give [money] since you will profit from [the schools],” said Kalın.

The Turkish government not only uses Islamist groups to expand its reach and influence on the African continent but also established an official government foundation called Maarif by a special law in 2014 and handed over its management to known Islamists who harbor jihadist views. Every year the foundation receives huge sums of money from the central government budget. Maarif runs schools in 26 African countries and has plans to expand it to all 54 in the future.

İbrahim Kalın, the new chief of Turkish intelligence agency MIT.

The Erdogan government also tried to tap into the network of schools owned and operated by the Gülen movement, a group that is opposed to the government, but US-based Turkish cleric Fethullah Gülen, who inspired the movement, said the movement rejected the government offer. Then Erdogan turned against the movement, established Maarif and took over some Gülen-linked schools in African countries using bribes, political influence and promises of trade, investment and arms sales.

Today Maarif operates in 67 countries and runs 446 schools and 36 dormitories with a student population of 50,699. In addition to this, Turkish government-backed Islamist groups also operate hundreds of their own schools on the continent to help promote the political Islamist ideology of the Erdogan government. In every election period, African students have been featured in Erdogan government campaigns, portraying Erdogan as a sort of caliph revered by many in Africa.

With a new position as head of the intelligence agency with abundant funding and countless resources at his disposal, Kalın is expected to give a further push to raising an Islamist generation on the continent to use for political objectives and perhaps to employ this human resource as an asset for collecting intelligence and engaging in espionage for the intelligence agency.

A map showing the location of Maarif schools in Africa.

Kalın is grateful to Erdogan for saving him from serious criminal troubles and will do his bidding with no questions asked. In 2013 both Tivnikli and Kalın were suspects in an organized crime network that was involved in fraud, forgery and abuse of power in fixing government contracts, tenders and public property sales. Kalin was acting as an illegal lobbyist for Tivnikli in the Turkish capital, resolving problems in energy deals the businessman pursued. In exchange Tivnikli covered the education expenses of Kalın’s daughter, Rumeysa Kalın (Karabulut). The investigation was made public on December 25, 2013, but Erdogan stepped in and killed the probe before it went to trial.

Rumeysa Kalın Karabulut previously worked as a law clerk at US law firm Saltzman & Evinch. The Wall Street Journal had reported that the Turkish government used Saltzman & Evinch to gather information about Erdogan critics living in the US. Since 2019 Karabulut has been working as a reporter for Turkey’s state-owned TRT World broadcasting network, a government mouthpiece.

In total 41 people, including Erdogan’s son Bilal and Saudi businessmen Yasin al-Qadi, at one-time designated under sanctions by the UN and US for alleged financing of terrorism, were named as suspects in the major corruption case.