EARLIER this year, Melih Gokcek, the veteran mayor of Ankara and a member of the ruling Justice and Development (AK) party, hosted a group of foreign journalists at an estate on the capital’s outskirts. Mr Gokcek began by clicking his way through a gruesome PowerPoint presentation on the previous summer’s failed coup, mixing images of bodies mangled by tanks with the soundtrack from the film “Requiem for a Dream”. He finished by claiming that Western powers had been involved in the bloodbath, that the Obama administration had created Islamic State, and that American and Israeli seismic vessels were deliberately setting off earthquakes near Turkey’s Aegean coast. A bewildered reporter asked where Mr Gokcek was getting his information. “I have the world’s best intelligence service at my disposal,” the mayor responded. “It’s called Google.” He did not seem to be joking.
Mr Gokcek’s career as Turkey’s leading conspiracy theorist, a title fought over by many members of...Continue reading
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