Turkey and its army - Military manoeuvres

Military manoeuvres (secular democracy as practised by Armenia's neighbour)

The Turkish army continues to play a big role in the country's domestic and foreign politics—too big, say its critics

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THIS week's flurry of stories about a purported Turkish invasion of northern Iraq confirmed again the special position the army has in Turkey. The reports turned out to be exaggerated, but troops and armour are massing on the border (see picture), and fears of a large-scale intrusion into Iraq remain (see article). For now, though, attention will revert to the army's part in domestic politics.

It is brought home over tea in Istanbul's posh Galata district by Tayfun Mater, a left-wing activist, as he describes being tortured after the coup in 1980. “The worst bit was when they hung me from the ceiling by the arms and applied electric shocks to my penis and testicles,” says Mr Mater, who spent five years in prison. By the time the army handed back power to the civilians in 1983, over half a million Turks had been put in prison; 50, including a 17-year-old boy, were executed.

Until recently most Turks believed the days of coups were over. But that belief was shattered late on April 27th, when a threat to intervene against Turkey's mildly Islamist government was posted on the general staff's website, touching off a political earthquake that still reverberates.

The “cyber coup” eventually led the prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to call an early general election on July 22nd. Abdullah Gul, the foreign minister, had to withdraw his bid to replace President Ahmet Necdet Sezer, who was due to step down in May. Yet the polls suggest that Mr Erdogan's AK Party may return with even more than the 34% that, thanks to most other parties missing the 10% threshold for seats, catapulted it to sole power in 2002. What might the generals do then?

The question echoes around the Ankara cocktail circuit, but it raises a host of others. Was the ultimatum delivered under pressure from hot-headed junior officers threatening to take matters into their own hands? Does the army really believe that the AK government is steering Turkey away from Ataturk's revered secular republic towards religious rule? Was it all a crude stab at wrecking Turkey's chances of joining the European Union? And, again, will the army invade northern Iraq?

The diary of Ozden Ornek, a retired naval chief, leaked in late March to Nokta, a Turkish weekly, suggests several factors may have been involved. Excerpts include details of two separate planned coups concocted in 2004 that were quashed by the then chief of the general staff, Hilmi Ozkok. Conversations between the plotters show suspicions of both AK and General Ozkok. Indeed, his enthusiasm for democracy and the EU leads them to conclude that he is an “Islamist” too.

Mr Ornek insists the diary is fake and is suing Nokta for libel. But General Ozkok has hinted otherwise, saying that the claims “needed to be investigated”. Meanwhile, military prosecutors have filed separate charges against Lale Sariibrahimoglu, a respected military analyst, for her comments to Nokta (which has since been closed down). She could spend two years in jail if convicted on charges of “insulting members of the military”.

The notion that “the army knows what is best for the people and that they cannot be trusted to govern themselves lies at the heart of their continued meddling in politics,” observes Umit Kardas, a retired military prosecutor. It was such thinking (drilled into young officers early on) that led the generals to enshrine a right to intervene in the regulations that they drafted for themselves in the 1980s.

The EU insists that any such right must be scrapped if Turkey is ever to join its club. So must the system of military courts, which shield soldiers from prosecution by civilians. The chief of the general staff should be answerable to the defence minister, not the other way round. Not surprisingly, the generals' feelings towards the EU are now mixed. Joining the EU would crown Ataturk's dream of cementing Turkey's place in the West. Yet they want this “only if it can be on their own terms—and that means retaining all their privileges,” according to Ali Bayramoglu, a long-time observer of the army.

Mr Erdogan became the first political leader to have trimmed the army's powers, when his government reduced the National Security Council (through which the army barks orders) to an advisory role. This and other dramatic reforms helped to persuade the EU to open membership talks with Turkey in 2005.

Fears that their influence might be watered down even more have transformed some generals into the EU's fiercest critics. None more so than Yasar Buyukanit, who took over from General Ozkok last year. His salvoes against creeping Islamisation are often accompanied by veiled claims that the EU is trying to dismember Turkey by supporting Kurds and other minorities.

The army's sense of vulnerability has been heightened by a deepening rift with America over Iraq. During the cold war, the generals (in charge of NATO's second-biggest army) were America's chief interlocutors, which bolstered their influence at home. Anti-American feelings exploded among Turks in 2003, when American soldiers arrested 11 Turkish special-force troops in northern Iraq, on suspicion of plotting to murder a Kurdish politician. Most Turks saw the move as punishment for Turkey's refusal earlier that year to let American troops cross its territory to open a second front in Iraq. Trust between the two armies has yet to be restored. Tuncer Kilinc, the last general to head the National Security Council, told an audience in London recently that Turkey should pull out of NATO and make friends with Russia, Iran, China and India instead.

The army's anti-Western stance resonates well with ordinary Turks, who are disgusted by America's behaviour in Iraq and by the EU's dithering over Turkish membership. The army is still rated as the country's most popular institution. To the millions of urban middle-class Turks who staged anti-government protests last month, the army remains the best guarantor of Ataturk's secular republic.

Yet, as Mr Ornek reportedly noted in his diary, the deliberate isolation of officers from civilian life has confined them to an artificial world in which civilians are “unpatriotic, lazy and venal” and the armed forces are “industrious, selfless and worthy”. As he then mused, “What can we achieve with such thoughts?” Yet if the army is to continue to command the affection of its citizens it needs to change with the times. The generals could not have missed the many placards during last month's protests that read “No to sharia, No to coups.” A drive to weed out corrupt officers launched under General Ozkok is an encouraging sign that the army is prepared to be more self-critical. But respecting the election result, no matter what it is, remains the biggest challenge of all.