BY YIGAL SCHLEIFER | BRIEFING
Friday’s mass resignation by Turkey’s top general, Isik Kosaner, and the commanders of the country’s army, navy and air force was a clear sign that the long-running battle between the military and the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has been decisively won by the government and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. But the neutralization of the Turkish military as a political force will also bring with it greater pressure on the increasingly powerful AKP, which must now demonstrate that it can continue Turkey’s democratization process — particularly the drafting of a new, civilian-minded constitution — in an inclusive manner.
Kosaner and his colleagues resigned just before today’s start of the twice-yearly meeting of the High Military Council (YAS), where military promotions are determined. The move, in which they technically submitted their early retirements, was a protest against a number of ongoing court cases that have led to the arrest of some 250 military personnel, among them several generals and admirals.
In a country where previously the pattern had been for the generals to force the politicians out of office by making their life unbearably miserable, the commanders’ walkout certainly represented a dramatic turn of events, though not a surprising one. Since coming into office in late 2002, Erdogan and the AKP had slowly whittled away the military’s power, while increasing the amount of civilian oversight over the previously unaccountable Turkish armed forces.
Among the most significant changes was a law passed by the AKP in June of 2009 that allowed for serving military officials to be tried in civilian courts if they were deemed to be threatening national security or to be part of an organized crime network. Previously they could only be tried in military courts. Since then, several large-scale court cases have been initiated, all alleging that various members of the Turkish military were engaged in conspiracies to overthrow or undermine the government.
Only days before Kosaner’s resignation, an Istanbul court accepted an indictment in yet another case against the military, one that alleges that several generals and other officers were involved in a clandestine project to launch anti-government websites.
In a statement released after his resignation, Kosaner sounded like a man who realizes he is powerless in countering the forces arrayed against him.
“One purpose of interrogation and long detentions has been to keep the TSK (Turkish Military Forces) on the agenda all the time and so give the impression that [the military] is a criminal organization. And it has not gone unnoticed that the [pro-government] media, which sees this as an opportunity, has published all kinds of false news, smears and accusations to turn our honored nation against the military forces,” he said in his statement.
“Because this situation has not been prevented and addresses to the relevant institutions have been ignored, and because it is an obstacle to my protecting the legal rights of my personnel, it has become impossible for me to continue serving in the noble position I occupy.”
With its victory over the military, the AKP government is now turning its attention to the drafting of a new constitution, something it had said would be a priority prior to June’s parliamentary election, which it won with close to 50 percent of the vote.
“In such a period where Turkey is undergoing a transformative process from politics to the economy, from justice to freedoms and from a social-state understanding to cultural initiatives, the major need is a civilian constitution reflecting the spirit of these changes and the will of our nation,” Erdogan said in a televised address Saturday.
Erdogan also promised a constitution that “will meet the demands of the whole society,” but achieving that could prove to be extremely challenging. Tensions on the Kurdish front are mounting, with the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) — which won 36 seats in the June election — currently boycotting parliament because several of its members were denied their seats on legal grounds. Meanwhile, the secularist and nationalist opposition parties could use the crisis with the military and the generals’ resignation as a rallying cry against the AKP.
This could embolden Erdogan, with his big win at the polls, to act on his own in terms of pushing through a new constitution, perhaps one that establishes a powerful executive presidency that he would eventually fill. Erdogan’s desire to create such an office is well known.
“You have a completely different . . . atmosphere in just two months,” Hugh Pope, an analyst with the International Crisis Group in Istanbul, told the New York Times. “It’s extraordinary. One assumes that the prime minister feels very strong and very powerful.”
The question now is, Just how emboldened does Erdogan feel? Having vanquished the once-mighty generals, the answer may be, Very much so.
Yigal Schleifer is a Washington-based journalist and analyst covering Turkey and the surrounding region. He is also the author of “Istanbul Calling,” a blog covering Turkish foreign and domestic affairs.
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