TURKEY: The Armed Forces will continue to do their duty in a spirit of unity, the office of Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan says in a statement issued after the military's top four commanders quit

Record ID: 217534

  • Title: TURKEY: The Armed Forces will continue to do their duty in a spirit of unity, the office of Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan says in a statement issued after the military's top four commanders quit
  • Date: 30th July 2011
  • Summary: ANKARA, TURKEY (FILE) (REUTERS) VIEW OF SUPREME MILITARY COUNCIL MEETING NEWLY APPOINTED HEAD OF GROUND FORCES NECDET OZEL (ON LEFT) SEATED WITH FORMER COMMANDERS MORE OF GENERAL OZEL BEING SEATED
  • Embargoed: 14th August 2011 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Turkey, Turkey
  • Country: Turkey
  • Topics: Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA9EZRY8YKI66ELIQCDPM7357VN
  • Story Text: Turkey's top military brass resigned on Friday (July 29), in the latest and possibly decisive round of a long battle between the traditional secularist establishment embodied by the army and the Islam-rooted government of Tayyip Erdogan that has dominated Turkey for nearly a decade.
    The head of Turkey's military quit on Friday along with the army, navy and airforce chiefs in protest against what he called the unjust detention of over 200 military officers held on charges of conspiracy against Prime Minister Erdogan's government.
    The office of Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan released a statement on their website that the Turkish Armed Forces would continue to do their duty in a spirit of unity.
    The statement also named gendarmerie General Necdet Ozel, newly appointed as head of the ground forces, as deputy chief of the general staff.
    Ozel was subsequently expected to be appointed the chief of the General Staff in place of the retiring General Isik Kosaner.
    Tradition dictates that only the ground forces chief can take over the armed forces.
    The statement also said a key Supreme Military Council meeting to decide promotions would go ahead as planned on Monday (August 01).
    The retirements appear to reflect a deep rift between the secularist military and a government with roots in political Islam.
    State-run Anatolian news agency said the head of the armed forces General Isik Kosaner and the commanders of the ground, naval and air forces were all stepping down, in what some Turkish media initially described as resignations.
    The reason for the generals' move was not immediately clear, but tensions between the military and the government of Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan have run high in recent years.
    The Supreme Military Council is due to hold a major twice-yearly meeting next week dealing with key appointments and President Abdullah Gul and Erdogan met Kosaner on Friday to discuss the matter.
    Following the announcement Erdogan met Ozel and they subsequently went separately to the presidential palace to meet President Abdullah Gul.
    The "Sledgehammer" case, arising from an alleged coup plan presented at an army seminar in 2003, is one of several setting Turkey's secularist establishment against Erdogan's ruling AK party. Critics say AK has a secret Islamist agenda, an allegation it denies.
    Some 165 military personnel, including more than 40 generals, are in custody in the coup plot trials, severely damaging the military's operational ability.
    The Turkish armed forces carried out three coups between 1960 and 1980 and pressured the country's first Islamist-led government out of power in 1997.
    Such intervention is no longer regarded as feasible, as the power of the military has been curbed sharply under reforms carried out by Erdogan's government with the aim of winning European Union membership.
    Kosaner, who took over as head of the armed forces in August 2010, is regarded as a hardline secularist, but he has kept a lower profile than previous chiefs of the general staff.
    The announcement comes amid an upsurge in violence in southeast Turkey in the military's battle against separatist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) guerrillas.
  • Copyright Holder: FILE REUTERS (CAN SELL)
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2011. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
  • Usage Terms/Restrictions: None
Register