Turkey's Military Chief Warns Pro-Islamic Government Of Possible Coup

The Guardian (UK) ^ | 5-27-2003 | Jonny Dysmond

[blam]

Turkey's military chief warns pro-Islamist government of possible coup

Jonny Dymond in Istanbul
Tuesday May 27, 2003
The Guardian

The head of Turkey's armed forces warned the government yesterday that the possibility of military intervention still existed and that the government should be sensitive to the country's secularist constitution.

General Hilmi Ozkok, the chief of the Turkish general staff, told a selected group of Turkish journalists that the government's policy of re-employing those expelled from the army for their Islamist activities was offensive.

The armed forces fear the government is appointing religious radicals to important positions in the bureaucracy.

Gen Ozkok also appeared to reject changes to the role of the military in reforms intended to ease Turkey's entry into the EU. The army has carried out four coups in four decades. It still plays a big role in the government through the national security council - an advisory body whose pronouncements are closely monitored in the country.

Criticising the military was until recently a criminal offence. But commentators have now begun to question its role in the government and its secretive nature. Since the Justice and Development party (AKP) was elected last November the relationship between the military and the government has been tense.

The military sees itself as the guardian of Turkey's secular constitution. The AKP is publicly committed to secularism but contains MPs from banned Islamist parties.

In January, Gen Ozkok said the government should halt its attempt to loosen restrictions on the wearing of the headscarf - a flashpoint in the battle between Islamists and secularists - and that it should stop meddling in internal military affairs concerning the expulsion from the army of those accused of Islamism.

Last week Gen Ozkok met the prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The proceedings of the meeting were leaked to the media as a series of warnings from the military leader to the head of the government.

Mr Erdogan denied that the meeting was anything like that. But no such denial was forthcoming from the military.

At yesterday's briefing Gen Ozkok repeated the Turkish military's desire to join the EU. But he suggested that the military's role in the government would not change.

He denied suggestions that junior officers were calling for a tougher line to be taken, reportedly saying that all ranks were "sensitive" to the government's policies.

But his most incendiary remarks were on the question of a repeat of the kind of military intervention which saw an openly Islamist government eased out of power with the military's help in 1997.

"That was cause and effect" he said, "and if the cause is still there then the effect will be there also." Asked if the military would intervene again, he refused to answer.

[blam]

I've been expecting a coup for about three weeks.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

General Hilmi Ozkok, the chief of the Turkish general staff, told a selected group of Turkish journalists that the government's policy of re-employing those expelled from the army for their Islamist activities was offensive.

Boy that is bound to cause trouble!

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[Dog Gone]

You should keep expecting it. The only reason it hasn't happened sooner was the American desire to see if this Islamic government would do the right things.

It hasn't.

[dagnabbit]

More Turkish trouble-makers
(winners of yesterday's Eurovision Song Contest)

[Cicero]

I wish it were a little clearer how deeply complicit the generals were in stabbing us in the back over the northern front in Iraq. It certainly looked as if they approved of, and possibly even orchestrated this treachery.

But I would love to be proved wrong on this, because Turkey is too valuable an ally for anyone to wish for a parting of the ways.

[blam]

"I wish it were a little clearer how deeply complicit the generals were in stabbing us in the back over the northern front in Iraq. It certainly looked as if they approved of, and possibly even orchestrated this treachery."

I don't read it that way. I think we had/have the support of the military. Everything changed when the Islamists won the election.