The Palace's "Command" Communiqués

Rastinews — As you know, Mehmet Uçum, deputy head of the Presidency's Board of Legal Policies, publishes a "communiqué" almost every Sunday, one that carries hints of the social and political engineering under way inside the palace. These communiqués also dole out correctives to various segments of society. They speak in a thoroughly condescending, chiding tone; they do not express an opinion, they state what the state has decided and who must do what. Because this posture — coming from someone who chairs a body attached to the executive branch — fits neither the law nor the state's institutional workings, calling it "social engineering" is the fitting term.

Uçum surely isn't issuing these communiqués on his own initiative because he happens to think that way. Erdoğan is briefed first, his approval is secured, and only then does action follow. By "action" I don't mean Uçum stepping up to preach; I mean which instructions go where, who does what, and every button that needs pressing to carry out the decision. That is why Uçum's communiqués are not texts to be read and set aside — they should be weighed as clues to what the entire regime is doing, and plans to do, on a given matter.

One of the most striking Sunday communiqués came on December 14, 2025, on "left-wing politics." Then, on January 3, 2026, with a communiqué defending Maduro as though the government had an anti-American policy, he made plain exactly what he meant — what the palace wants from "left-wing politics."

Supposedly, the left has failed to meet its responsibility for a multi-layered democracy centered on the people's will, has not upheld the principles of social justice, has not been patriotic, has not defended the country's territorial integrity and political unity — its "homework" — and has not been anti-imperialist… And after all these grand words, as expected, he steered the argument to the CHP, revealing his real purpose.

He had said the CHP has no class-based or society-based leftist line; that certain movements calling themselves leftist have become vehicles for imperialist projects; that no political current can be called leftist unless it is anti-imperialist; that such currents have no connection to social justice, the people's will or patriotism; that an outlook opposed to the country's history, values and social heritage cannot be leftist; and that approaches glorifying hostility to the state have nothing to do with leftism either.

He had added that unconditionally supporting the goal of a "terror-free Turkey" is the duty of the patriotic left; that democratic and legal reforms strengthening the people's will and reinforcing national unity are the core responsibility of patriotic left-wing democrats; and that contributing to the new constitutional process is a historic duty.

Can you imagine — he talks about "the people's will," he says "high democratic standards," he says "social justice," and his face probably doesn't even flush.

His definition of "left-wing politics" is really a definition of "nationalist left." What he calls "hostility to the state" is opposing Erdoğan and standing as a candidate for power. The regime's message has in any case long been clear: "Let no one set their sights on power, let no one try to make the regime lose an election."
What is under way is nothing but attacking the party with the greatest potential to win power and criminalizing it.

Indeed, this is also the purpose of the operations against municipalities and the trustee-appointment cases. The whole point of that wordy performance is to steer the argument toward the CHP and attack it. That is why he is going to all this trouble. Is there nothing true in it? Of course there is — some of his observations echo the left's own self-criticism. Debates within the left are already carried on without limit. Because of factional infighting, those debates play out excessively in public. Uçum, like everyone following this, knows it, and cunningly sprinkles it through his column to target the CHP, accusing it of not being left and trying to criminalize it.

If the goal were really to criticize the left, he could criticize his own past too. Given his own history, he is no stranger to leftist theory — which is why he handles the concepts well — but he surely isn't troubled by "the left's success." Had the CHP not finished first in the last election, had it not won nearly every metropolitan municipality, and had XYP done it instead of the CHP, the target would have been XYP. So neither for us nor, in particular, for Uçum is the CHP the real subject — the subject is power.

The Board of Legal Policies, too, is a creature of the Erdoğan regime; though it was set up to steer the judiciary and construct the regime's legal framework, Uçum does not limit himself to law and the courts. Beyond that, he represents the palace's thinking and its plans. His only concern is consolidating and sustaining one-man rule.

He occupies the most important seat in the palace after Erdoğan himself; he maps out the authoritarian regime's roadmap through proceedings dressed up as judicial, laying the paving stones of Erdoğan's path with the hand of the judiciary. In other words, the most important engineering of entrenching power inside the palace is done from this seat. That engineering work has one sole purpose: to legitimize and serve the existing authoritarian power, and to brand whoever stands against it as unpatriotic and an enemy of the people. A figure cut off from the people, with no standing among the people, declaring Turkey's left an "enemy of the people" from inside the palace could have been an example of black comedy — except it isn't, because now the "palace" decides everything.

It is no exaggeration to say that "who may do politics, and how" has been, or will be, decided too. The problem is not confined to left-wing politics and the CHP — and classifying the CHP as part of the left in the first place is quite problematic; at most, one could say it has pursued a social-democratic line in recent years. Indeed, in his columns on the peace process, he keeps preaching about how Kurds should do politics and what they may or may not want.
He issued his latest communiqué on the peace process on March 29. All the Sunday communiqués share a similar tone, but his piece on the "left" and the text he wrote on the process on March 29 showed just how far authoritarianism can reach — or that it has no limit at all.

He had begun by showering praise on the ruling coalition's partners as the architects of the process, saying the commission had duly carried out its task and that, based on the framework its report proposed and pending further findings and confirmation, steps on transitional-process legislation were now on the agenda — and then set about handing out lectures from on high.

He went on to brand those objecting to the process's procedure and substance as "separatists," and, speaking on the Kurds' behalf, to declare what was "best" for them — again invoking anti-imperialism. He continued: "Those who claim the Kurds have a problem of political representation and equality, that their status rights must be recognized, that they should be acknowledged as a sovereign nation, are deliberately reducing the matter to ethnic-identity politics. Their concern is not securing the Kurds' existence. On the contrary, they are exploiting Kurdish ethnic identity and putting Kurds at risk in pursuit of a pro-Israel satellite state, or autonomous regions moving in that direction. The permanent servants of Zionist and imperialist projects, who want to turn the Kurds into material for the region's power struggles, are once again trying to exploit the Kurds."

What does this mean? Isn't it an open declaration that the process is not one aimed at "solving the Kurdish question"? No one objects to ending the violence. The objection is to abandoning political demands and positions — yet, in his view, even saying "the Kurds have a problem of political representation and equality" counts as exploitation, as separatism. Which means these things will play no part in whatever steps the process takes. How else could they say it? They are all saying it with one voice, in chorus. Credit where it's due on this point — they are being perfectly candid.

Are the actors on the Kurdish side of the process not hearing this? If they are, what should one make of Kurdish actors issuing statements about their so-called "maximalist demands" in a way that creates the impression these will be met at some later stage? It is quite clear that what is under way is nothing but a legitimization and perception operation. Worse than trying to deceive the public is trying to deceive both oneself and the public.

It would be wrong even to accuse the government of stalling, dragging out the process, or peddling false hope; that too would be self-deception, and deception of the public. The process is not just about laying down arms and dissolving the organization. "Demanding nothing" is itself one of the government's conditions. What Uçum meant, in his piece on the process, by "securing the existence of Kurds" is plain enough.

In his view, the path runs through making no demands for autonomy or federation, indeed asking for nothing tied to identity at all. But if they do ask, who threatens their existence? Certainly whoever tells them not to ask. Who is that? The US and Israel? When he says "pledge not to raise any demand rooted in Kurdishness, or you will be destroyed," is it really hard to see who would do the destroying?

The government is rolling out plans to purge the opposition and shelve electoral democracy altogether, clearing itself a garden free of thorns. At the same time, it forces the Kurds into a crippled, will-less politics with no alternative. So no one should imagine that democratic politics can now be practiced, or that demands once pressed through violence can this time be pursued through peaceful, democratic channels. If you think otherwise, try telling that to the very people who, these days, snap "don't lecture us" at anyone who reflects on or comments on the process. If that line is going to be used on someone, it should surely be aimed, in every register, at Uçum — yet not a word. Just as Uçum speaks with Erdoğan's approval and inspiration, those staying silent are waiting for Godot: "if there's something to say, he'll say it," or "he'll tell us what we're supposed to say too," and so they stay quiet. Is this not speechlessness in its purest form?