Posted on 04/28/2007 6:15:07 PM PDT by blam
Turkey faces military crisis
EU warns generals as army threatens to step in if Islamist minister wins presidential election
Helena Smith and Ned Temko
Sunday April 29, 2007
The Observer (UK)
Turkey came under mounting pressure from the European Union last night to rein in the influence of its generals, after the country's powerful pro-secular military threatened to intervene in the Islamic-oriented government amid growing turmoil over the election of a new President.
Olli Rehn, the European Union enlargement commissioner, who has been a keen supporter of Ankara's eventual accession to the bloc, warned the military to stay out of politics, saying the election was a 'test case' for the Turkish military's respect for democracy.
Rehn issued the salvo after Turkey's general staff weighed in on the dispute, saying they would not flinch at intervention if it meant upholding the Muslim state's cherished secular values.
The country's secular elite has voiced grave concerns over the government's choice of Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul as a presidential candidate, given the politician's Islamist beliefs - his wife and daughter wear the headscarf.
'The Chief of the General Staff is answerable to the Prime Minister,' declared Cemil Cicek, justice Minister in the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is a former Islamist but has pledged his commitment to Turkey's secular political system. Military intervention would be 'inconceivable in a democratic state,' Cicek said.
Within hours of Gul's failure to win enough votes in a first round of balloting on Friday, the military, which has staged four coups in the past 50 years, posted a statement on its website invoking its role as defender of the country's secular traditions as laid out by Turkey's modern soldier-statesman founder, Mustafa Ataturk.
(Excerpt) Read more at observer.guardian.co.uk ...
Unusual situation but apparently not all that unusual for Turkey.
Can the EU really think Turkey will remain secular with an
Islamist government?
Crazy!
Protect separation of church & state & tell the EUnichs to go F-— off.
It’s not nice when Generals interfere in politics and depose elected officials, but unfortunately in Turkey it is necessary.
Olli Rehn, the European Union enlargement commissioner, is a moron, and so are all the other Brussels bureaucrats. Do they really want a terrorist Islamic state in the EU?
Reality wins.
The European are idiots.
The only reason Turkey isn’t run by the same kind of lunatics who run most other Islamic states is because of their military.
Europe deserves to sink into the ocean. These people are a disgrace to the memory of their ancestors who fought Islam like men, instead of kissing Islamists feet and posteriors like the current brood of socialist capons.
Isnt Pakistan overdue for a coup?
I think its only a matter of time before the islamists get their hands on pakis nukes.
The EU is deluded. It actually thinks that its sterile bureaucratic state can contain Islamism.
..European enlargement commissioner..
I think I have seen ads for those things
but do the euroweenies actually need a commissioner to oversee them?
faggots are everywhere these days
Well, at least the Turkish Generals get it. I hope they stay on top of the issue.
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