The appearance of a short advertisement for Turkish paramilitary and military consultancy organization SADAT (SADAT International Defense Consultancy) during a Saturday television interview featuring Republican People’s Party (CHP) chairman and main opposition leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu has revived a long-running feud between the two. While officially describing itself as offering ‘strategic consultancy, training, and logistical services,’ the group is alleged by members of the Turkish opposition to be a sort of private army or paramilitary group loyal to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. The group is also widely believed to cooperate closely with Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization.
This past Saturday (14 January), Kılıçdaroğlu sat down for an interview on TV100 with veteran journalist Uğur Dündar, in which a small advertisement appeared on the bottom of the screen for eight seconds advertising the paramilitary group as the CHP Chairman spoke. In a social media post released early the following day (15 January), Kılıçdaroğlu condemned the advertisement and the paramilitary group, saying: “Paramilitary, who do you think you are threatening!”
Dündar had released a social media post on Saturday evening denying prior knowledge of the advertisement or its placement: “I have no knowledge or information on the advertisement that appeared during our program. This SADAT ad, which has been used for about a month, took up only about 8 seconds of our 3 hour broadcast. It has not been removed by management and will not appear again on the screen.” TV100, the channel airing Kılıçdaroğlu’s interview, also released a statement saying “This will be avoided in the future.” İlhan Taşçı, a member of Turkey’s Radio and Television Board (RTÜK), called for an investigation into the matter.
A statement from SADAT Chairman Melih Tanriverdi indicated that the advertisement had been intentionally placed to coincide with Kılıçdaroğlu’s interview, saying jokingly in a Twitter post that the two had combined for ‘excellent ratings’: “When we took a look at our PR efforts in 2022, we found that the combination of Kılıçdaroğlu and SADAT made for the best ratings. Our advertising department paid only 1500 Turkish Lira for this ad and turned it into excellent PR. Congratulations.”
Tanrıverdi’s comments made reference to a highly publicized episode from last year between the paramilitary group and the opposition leader. Last May, Kılıçdaroğlu made a visit to the SADAT headquarters building in Istanbul, where he was denied entry. Outside the building’s entrance, Kılıçdaroğlu spoke to a large number of reporters, saying “The aims of this organization include unconventional warfare, sabotage, raids, destruction, and terror. This is an organization that trains terrorists.” In the news conference the CHP chairman also accused the organization of assassinations and provocation.
SADAT has long been accused of connections to Islamic Jihadism, including providing training to Islamist groups in Syria during the Syrian Civil War. The groups trained by SADAT have also been accused of providing mercenary support in Libya and Azerbaijan, where they are alleged to have provided support to the Turkish side in those conflicts.
