.png)
CIVILIAN CONTROL: Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan (R) leads newly appointed Commander of Land Forces for the Turkish Army and acting deputy Chief of General Staff Necdet Ozel (2nd L) and Chief of Staff General Isik Kosaner (L). (Adem Altan/AFP/Getty Images)
The era of military interference in politics is ending for good in Turkey. Almost the entire top military brass stepped down last week in protest over what Chief of the General Staff Isik Kosaner called government and government-aligned media efforts “to turn the great nation against their armed forces.” Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan readily accepted the resignations and this week will name the replacements.
But these developments are not black and white. The dated outlook of Gen. Kosaner is telling in itself, but he also formulated an important critique of the procedural flaws in the arraignments without trial of almost 10 percent of Turkey’s generals and about 250 junior officers, pointing out that the lumbering and opaque legal process in Turkey is making it “impossible to solve this situation within a legal framework.”
Kosaner is right to point out that the dragnets by the ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP, are responsible for some military officers being detained for a long time without even a preliminary ruling on the charges.
Given Turkey’s recent history of military coups, it is a great achievement that military leaders now seek retirement instead of making a lunge out of the barracks when there is disagreement or perceived misgovernance on the part of civilian politicians.
The lines between fact, falsehood, and downright fantasy are becoming increasingly blurred..
Yet this failure to meet minimal judicial standards is especially worrying in light of Prime Minister Erdogan’s increasingly self-centered demeanor and his wide-ranging control over his party’s members of parliament.
On the one hand, the recent occurrences signal a rapid transformation of Turkey’s governmental structures toward more democratic institutions such as civilian control of the military. But on the other hand, the moves further the consolidation of power at Prime Minister Erdogan’s office—a development that could raise its own problems in the future.
The major worry at this point is this—the charismatic and popular prime minister is better known for his polarizing leadership style than for his management skills when it comes to the difficult task of creating consensus in a rapidly evolving Turkish society. How he and his party handle this will be telling for Turkey as a regional power and a democracy astride the crossroads between Europe and the Middle East. Some hints of how this will play out are evident in recent developments.
Military Resignations
History is being written in Ankara this week—recall the coups of the past. In 1960 the military overthrew a democratically elected government and hanged Prime Minister Adnan Menderes and Foreign Minister Fatin Rustu Zorlu.
Eleven years later the military forces sent the elected prime minister an ultimatum dissolving the government and forcing a new coalition under military tutelage.
Again, in September 1980, the political process was taken over by force. Chief of Staff General Kenan Evren headed the regime for three and a half years of military rule in which at least a quarter-million Turks were detained and torture was used rampantly. The military implemented 800 laws and a new constitution, which remains in place even today.
Then, in 1997, the military engaged in what has been termed the first “postmodern” coup by placing a statement on their website that forced Islamist Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan to resign his position to a secular leader.
