A Turkish columnist writes, and the powerful listen

When Turkish members of parliament were asked to vote on whether to allow US troops here as part of a northern front in a war against Iraq - as they may be asked again next week - they could hear the chants of 50,000 protesters marching through the capital.

But the voice politicians are listening to most, many here say, is that of Fehmi Koru, the man Turkey has been reading and hearing a lot more of since November's election of the AK [Justice and Development] Party.

Mr. Koru is a columnist and Ankara bureau chief for Yeni Safak, a conservative, Islamic-bent paper in sync with the ruling AK Party. He is also the sharp-witted moderator of a television show, "Capital Corridors," making him something of a cross between a Turkish Pat Buchanan and Rush Limbaugh.

But his opposition to a war in Iraq and his criticism of press laws that have allowed him to face charges for "inciting hatred" also make him a dyed-in-the-wool liberal, Koru says, on a day when he happens to be wearing a gray tweed jacket.

"This war is an unjust war," Koru told the Monitor after the motion to base 60,000 US troops here was defeated last weekend. "One had to give that opinion to the face of the aggressor. This was an expression of democratic values."

Koru, a round-faced, trim-mustachioed man who is as quick with a turn of phrase in English as in Turkish, says the government should not call another vote to let the US use Turkey as a launchpad for war.

No one here disputes that the pages of Yeni Safak, meaning "New Dawn," have been a great influence on members of parliament in the AK Party, many of them serving in politics for the first time. Secular bureaucrats, military officials, and journalists from larger, more established newspapers read it to get a window into AK Party thinking.

In this diplomats' town, embassy staff say they regularly check Koru's columns - a serious one in his name, and a gossipy one under a pen-name - for the latest scuttlebutt. Along with a growing number of readers around Turkey, they have been reading his case against war in Iraq. The paper's readership, about 10,000 when Koru joined the paper four years ago, is now up to 90,000. Koru attributes the circulation jump to a successful new promotion - a free book on the prophet Muhammad with any subscription.

As for last weekend's failed proposal, Koru says he gets too much credit. "Maybe my opinions on the Iraq issue coincided with the opinions of the members of parliament. Maybe they saw me as the one who represented their views," he says. "But regardless of my existence, they would have voted this way."

Political observers say the ear that is most closely attuned to Koru - and vice versa - is that of Prime Minister Abdullah Gul. Koru acknowledges they are close friends. The two men met 35 years ago as college students in Istanbul and members of the same Islamic-oriented student association - then later studied in London together.

Even while Mr. Gul is expected to vacate the premier's office soon to make way for Sunday's anticipated election of AK Party leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan, putting Gul in the foreign minister's seat, Koru's columns could remain the best barometer of the AK Party government.

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