Interview with Veli Umut Arslan, leader of the Socialist Laborers Party (SEP) of Turkey

Veli in Buenos Aires with Nicolás Del Caño, PTS/FIT

Interview with Veli Umut Arslan, leader of the Socialist Laborers Party (SEP) of Turkey, and the transport wokers union, which lost more tan ten members during the attack of ISIS in October 2015 in Ankara. Veli Arslan talked with “Kurdistan from the south” about the coup attempt of 15^th July, the international realignment of Erdogan’s regime, and the perspectives for class struggle in Turkey and Kurdish national liberation movement.

Introduce yourself. Your post in the party, your role in Turkish workers' movement

I am Veli Umut  Arslan. Central Committee member of our party, the  SEP-Socialist Laborers Party. The SEP is a Trotskyist party and active in 7 cities working in workers movement and we have also a base in universities

How do you the see the coup attempt? Who do you think was behind it?

Gülen who has very strong sect was behind the coup. We met Gulen at first in 1970s when he was an imam and founder of anticommunist association in the eastern part of Turkey where was a strong rightwing tradition.  His sect was split from another sect-"Nur" movement-and started to organize his own movement. We assume that his relationship with USA-CIA was first established in this turbulent era of 1970s. Then he supported military takeover (which smashed the left and organised by CIA) in 1980.

His sect has become very powerful through the years with the help of every bourgeosie party. Lastly Gulen was a partner of Erdogan against Kemalist. Gulen and Erdogan won over Kemalist bureacracy collectively and after that they start to fight each other.  Gülen has always parallel approaches with USA but Erdogan sometimes act separately especially after he won over Kemalists. Also i should add that after Gülen and Erdogan finished with the Kemalists they supressed the Gezi uprising in 2013 which is anti-AKP and dominated by leftists, Kemalist and some secular liberals. (Read more)