Fehmi Koru

Fehmi Koru     (journalist)
Born	24 July 1950 İzmir, Turkey
Nationality	Turkish
Alma mater	Harvard University
Spouse	Nebahat Koru
Interests	• Turkey/Deep state • Bülent Ecevit
Party	Justice and Development Party
Relatives	Naci Koru
Turkish journalist and writer on "democracy and Islam". The pioneer of the Justice and Development Party. Attended the 2006 Bilderberg conference, although subscribing to several "conspiracy theories", including being the first ever to write about the deep state Ergenekon.

Fehmi Koru is a Turkish journalist and columnist. He attended the 2006 Bilderberg conference.

Background

Koru's parents are from Prizren in present day Kosovo. Koru studied theology in Institute of High Islamic Studies in Izmir (1973). He received his doctorate from the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard University (1982) and then worked as a research fellow at the Center for International Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In between, he spent 15 months in London (1977–1978) to study English and a year in Damascus in Syria to improve his Arabic, at Dar-es Selam Arabic Language Center (1979).

His brother Naci Koru is currently Deputy Foreign Minister, and he was previously Turkey's Ambassador in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. He will takeover his position as permanent representative of Turkey in United Nations Office in Geneve.

While he was in London he shared a flat with Abdullah Gül, who later on became Prime Minister and then President of Republic of Turkey.

He is married with Dr. Nebahat Koru and has five children.

Career

He worked as a consultant in the State Planning Organisation (1985–1986).

He was the editor of the daily Milli Gazete (1984) and worked at daily Zaman from its inception (1986), first as the editor in chief (1986–1987) then as the chief editorial writer as well as Ankara Bureau Chief (1995–1998). He wrote for ‘Turkish Daily News’ (1999–2000), and ‘The New Anatolian’ (2006); both are English language dailies.

He then joined in daily Yeni Şafak as Ankara Bureau Chief (1999) and was also its chief columnist until 2010. He later joined daily Star (2011–2014).

He was a columnist in daily Haberturk (2014–2016).

Currently, he is a freelance writer and blogger. He continues writing in his personal webpage.

He was a regular commentator on Turkish TV Kanal-7 (1995–2015). He has appeared regularly on various TV political programs.

He was the recipient of several prestigious press awards including one from Turkish Journalists Association (2003) and another from Progressive Journalists Association of Turkey (2003).

Opinions

According to Fehmi Koru, the Mossad was behind 9/11, the murder of Uğur Mumcu, the assassination attempt on the leader of Ankara’s tiny Jewish community Yuda Yürüm, and the death of Princess Diana. He thinks Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit's illness in 2002 was a deep state conspiracy because he talked too openly of Ergenekon.

He also believes Rahmi Koç had secretly become a Christian, the video of Nicholas Berg's beheading was a fake and the Illuminati rules the world,according to "conspiracy theory researcher" Rıfat N. Bali.

Because he said in a television program in 1999 that the people were divided into "believers and unbelievers", Koru was charged with hate speech but acquitted. With his articles of April 30 and May 1, 2001 in Yeni Şafak, Koru was the first ever to write about the secret organization Ergenekon, albeit under a pseudonym. He is said to have been on the organization's death list.

For a long time, Koru was regarded as the pioneer of the Justice and Development Party (AKP), always emphasizing that it is not about democratizing or modernizing Islam, but about Muslims. He wrote in 2004 that if the AKP pushed ahead with democratization and developed into a “government reconciled with its own people and its own history”, it could become a role model for the whole world and remove the basis for terrorism.

2008 saw the first conflict with then Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, whom he later accused of having “started like Obama and ended up like Bush". Koru is now clearly disappointed in Erdoğan and accuses him of not adhering to the constitutional limits of the office. In January 2017, he called on the AKP to return to the "factory settings of 2002", i.e. to the "democratic values" of their early days.

Fehmi Koru is one of the signers of the Amman Message, calling for religious tolerance.

Books

His journalistic work has been published in seven books in Turkish and one in English.

• Ben Böyle Gördüm: Cemaat'in Siyasetle Sınavı (Thus I Have Seen: Test Case for Gülen Group in Politics)
• Mekke'de Ne Oldu? (What Happened in Mecca)
• Taha Kıvanç'ın Not Defteri (Diary of Taha Kivanc)
• Terör ve Güneydoğu Sorunu (Terror and the Kurdish Problem)
• Yeni Dünya Düzeni (New World Order)
• Tabana Kuvvet (On the Road)
• 11 Eylül: O Kader Sabahı (9/11: That Fateful Morning)
• One Column Ahead

His article ‘Democracy and Islam: The Turkish Experiment’ came out in Sept/Oct 1996 issue of ‘Muslim Politics Report’ of the Council on Foreign Relations.

 

Event Participated in

Event	Start	End	Location(s)	Description
Bilderberg/2006	8 June 2006	11 June 2006	Canada Ottawa	54th Bilderberg, held in Canada. 133 guests

Many thanks to our Patrons who cover ~2/3 of our hosting bill. Please join them if you can.