Turkish president Receb Tayyeb Erdogan is increasingly relying on loyalists to hold the reins within the ruling Justice and Development party AKP, consolidate support from hard-core Islamist voters against challenges by party defectors and align the government’s policies even further with the political Islamist ideology.
At the AKP party convention on March 24, 2021, President Erdogan secured a seat for his long-time confidant Metin Kulunk, who led an armed Islamist faction in late ’70s and was red-flagged for links to a Turkish al-Qaeda terrorist group.
Kulunk was profiled as a radical Islamist militant who was also a member of the Islamic Liberation Army, an illegal organization that adopted the Iranian Khomeini regime as a role model.
Kulunk’s name also came up as a suspect in several police investigations, from a pro-Iran organized crime syndicate to al-Qaeda and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) between 2008 and 2013. However, his legal troubles disappeared when Erdogan intervened in the cases and whitewashed his crimes.
In recent years, Kulunk has run his operations from Istanbul, mainly focusing on youth groups in Turkey and abroad with support from Erdogan.
Kulunk functioned as one of the key operatives who provided money to a right-wing gang called Osmanen Germania in Germany to purchase weapons, organize protests and target critics of the Turkish leader.
He was also involved in supporting the Union of European-Turkish Democrats (UETD), which was renamed the Union of International Democrats (UID), in Europe.
Apparently Kulunk’s selection to the top management of the ruling Justice and Development Party and his shady past and notorious record of criminality did not bother the president or his party faithful.
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