Many entangled tails of the ‘rat king’ in Turkey

In a 2015 interview by journalist Fehim Taştekin, published in the newspaper Radikal, Fevzi Zakiroğlu, the speaker for Turkey of the Syrian National Council (SNC) -- which does not have the same influence it once had -- said the following: “The course of the war and Nusra (Al-Nusra Front, a Salafist jihadist organization fighting in Syria) have raised the Islamic sensibility.”

“If a secular army is formed, the project will die before it is born. It should be a national but Islamic army. Paying regular salaries will make this army a center of attraction,” he added. 

The public met Zakiroğlu for the first time in 2011 at the demonstrations staged in front of the Syrian Consulate every Friday. In the press releases he read out loud, he said that Bashar al-Assad was a murderer and that he should be taken down. Then, he started appearing on pro-government media outlets. He was a Turkish citizen of Syrian origin, a graduate of prestigious Bosphorus University. 

Well, what happened to Zakiroğlu, who was promoted as “the voice of the civilian opposition”? We will come to this, but let us recap the Kızılay scandal that marked this week:  

Ankara’s natural gas distribution company Başkentgaz donated 8 million dollars to the controversial Ensar Foundation (known for a rape scandal) but the money was first sent to Kızılay (the Turkish Red Crescent), and then Kızılay sent it to Ensar. Somehow the questionable project of the Mall of Istanbul, built by Torunlar GYO, appeared in the donation process. The land Torunlar wanted for the mall was facilitated by Aziz Yeniay, the then-mayor of Küçükçekmece, a western district of Istanbul, who was also the head of the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality Development Commission. The metropolitan plan blocked the usage of the land for individual owners, and then TOKİ (the Mass Housing Administration of Turkey) stepped in to buy the small plots at a low price. Finally, Torunlar got hold of all of the land, including the plot that belonged to the treasury. Yeniay was sued for the whole process, but the Interior Ministry did not allow Yeniay’s trial to go ahead. (In Turkey, a civil servant can only be tried after being given the relevant ministry’s permission.) The case was closed in September 2019. What happened to Aziz Yeniay, who was thought to be the successor of former Istanbul mayor, Kadir Topbaş? We will come to that also, after telling the story of one of the biggest development games in Küçükçekmece.  

The construction of a project called “Cadde 24” was started by Ema Joint Venture in 2014 in Küçükçekmece, and was to be built on 40,000 square meters of land and consist of luxury offices, apartments and shops. Members from the opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) in the municipal council filed a lawsuit stating that the construction license dated Feb. 6, 2014 and the modification license drafted on Dec. 12, 2014 were against legislation. Istanbul’s 8^th Administrative Court found the objection justified and annulled the licenses. In the justification of the court, it said it was determined that the construction area should have been 10,351 square meters, but the licenses increased this area to 18,059 square meters. Also, the court file stated that, despite the fact that the construction was erected on an empty plot, it was given “risky building” status and thus fell under the urban transformation system, exempting it from taxes and fees.

Let us ask one more question: What happened to Cadde 24, which was proven to have been unlicensed by the court? 

Now, let us see how these questions are related to one other…

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Cadde 24 is now in the portfolio of a company named 24 Gayrimenkul. This company has an interesting journey. Cathay Gayrimenkul, one of the partners in the project building company Ema, changed its name on July 4, 2014 to 24 Gayrimenkul AŞ. Its partners were Ahmethan Yılmaz and Erdem Güler. On Sept. 30, 2014, they moved to an office at the Mall of Istanbul built by Torunlar. On March 4, 2015, the company again changed its title to 24 Gayrimenkul Portföy Yönetimi AŞ. 

However, change was not limited just to this. Its partners increased and six new names were added to the two previous ones. Aziz Yeniay (the former Küçükçekmece mayor) became the head of the company with a 20 percent share. Another partner with a 10 percent share was the former spokesperson of the SNC, Fevzi Zakiroğlu. At the beginning of this year, the company was allowed to fund transactions by the Capital Markets Board (SPK). Its title was again changed on Jan. 9, 2020 to 24 Gayrimenkul ve Girişim Sermayesi Portföy Yönetimi AŞ. 

Thus, former mayor of Küçükçekmece, Aziz Yeniay, became a member of the executive board at Torunlar GYO after the Mall of Istanbul business, and then in one year became a major partner in its rapidly growing real estate company. The company is still continuing to sell units of the unlicensed Cadde 24. The company has 16 projects worth 3.9 billion Turkish lira. Some of them are Stüdyo 24, İstasyon 24, Airport 24, Halkalı 24, Atakent 24, Arena 24, Express 24, Marina 24, Prestige 24. Başakport 24, and Merkez Halkalı 24. The Flat 24 project is in the planning stage. The company has four investment funds operating within the stock market.

The person who is marketing these projects and funds as the CEO of the North Africa and the Middle East region is Zakiroğlu, who was saying, “Bashar al-Assad should leave Syria,” and “An Islamic army should be formed.”

What comes to one’s mind is the chorus of the song President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan loved to play at presidential election rallies: “Look at how far Turkey has come…”

Can’t a mayor form a company after they’ve served their term? Or course, they can. Can a person who has been the civilian speaker for a part of Syria go into commercial business? No doubt, he can. However, as journalist Çiğdem Toker wrote in her book “Ordinary Business,” the basic norm is how and for whom the public power that has been entrusted is being used. 

Does anyone see a public benefit here? 

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In the case in which too many rats are trapped in a confined space, their tails get tangled together after a while. The more they try and use their strength to save themselves, the knot tying them all together becomes tighter. They are unable to sacrifice even one tail to open up just a little bit of comfort space. At the end, they turn into a single creature, the “rat king.” It becomes uncertain which tail belongs to whom.   

Governments that only have kleptocratic relations left are like this. What we see on stage is the tail of one creature, from transferring money to Ensar through Kızılay, to land grab ploys in Küçükçekmece, from an actor playing a role in Syrian policies, to urban transformation. The issue is whether or not those outside of this scene find the courage to pull that tail…