Syria conflict: Turkish ultra-nationalist suspected of killing Russian pilot may have ties to his country’s ’deep state’
▻http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/syria-conflict-turkish-ultra-nationalist-suspected-of-killing-russian
Celik is a member of MHP (Millyetci Hareket Partisi or Nationalist Action Party), the political wing of the Grey Wolves. His father, Ramadan Celik, is a former MHP district mayor who has talked of his pride in his son’s decision to fight in Syria.
The funeral Alparsian Celik attended in Istanbul was of Ibrahim Cucuk, who had held senior positions in the MHP: party members who have been killed at the same Syrian frontline include Burak Misinci, Selani Aymur and several others.
The Grey Wolves have been accused in the past of being part of Turkey’s ‘Deep State’, a secret cabal of the country’s military and the extreme right-wing which conducted a secret war against its opponents: left-wing activists, trade unionists and Kurdish groups.
The organization is pan-Turkic and its links with the armed forces would not make it natural allies of the ruling AKP party, which has been traditionally opposed to the country’s former military rulers and has put a large number of former senior officers on trial for allegedly planning coups.
Celik, however, belongs to a faction of the MHP which puts more emphasis on Islam, and is said to have forged links with the Islamic government of President Erdogan. Ankara has been backing the Turkmen militias in Syria and projecting them as a counter-weight to Kurdish groups taking over territories being vacated by regime forces and Isis.