Still not sure of what's going on in Turkey.

[agamemnus]

The following article might be of interest to Hazir.

I'm very doubtful of this so-called democracy in Turkey. I wouldn't be surprised if there was a coup planned. I think that would be for the best interests of both the Turkish people (eventually) and the rest of the world. However, what seems likely is the government just took a few people with possibly incriminating taped statements and then criminally blew it out of proportion. Specially-built courtrooms?

Further: From the various reports in US news outlets, it looks like the war between the Kurdish rebels in the south and the army is being completely mishandled due to government interference: disproportionate force by the government, violation of Iraqi sovereignty, and a complete inability to actually find their targets. I think those Kurdish rebel attacks on innocent Turkish soldiers, and possibly civilians, would not have happened if the army wasn't weakened.


http://www.jpost.com/VideoArticles/V...aspx?id=252493 :

ISTANBUL - Former Turkish armed forces chief General Ilker Basbug spent his first night behind bars on Friday, charged with trying to overthrow the government in an unprecedented development likely to exacerbate tensions with the military.

Basbug, who retired in 2010, is the highest-ranking officer to be caught up in the so-called Ergenekon case, a long-running crackdown on EU candidate Turkey's once all-powerful military and secularist establishment.

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The former general was taken from an Istanbul courthouse in the early hours of Friday for a health check before being transported in a police convoy to Silivri prison, some 80 km west of the city, where hundreds of defendants in the Ergenekon case are being tried in a specially-built courtroom.

"The Republic of Turkey's 26th general chief of staff has been remanded in custody for forming and directing a terrorist group. I leave it to the great Turkish nation to judge," Basbug said as he was lead from the courtroom.

The decision to send Basbug to jail came hours after prominent Turkish journalists on trial over alleged ties to the ultra-nationalist Ergenekon network said the charges against them were "a massacre of justice".

Ergenekon is accused by prosecutors of being behind multiple conspiracies against Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's AK Party government, and several hundred suspects, including retired senior military officers, academics, lawyers and journalists, have been detained in cases related to the network.

Investigations into Ergenekon have spiralled since they first opened in 2007, and critics accuse Erdogan's government of scaremongering to silence opponents. The government denies any such motives.

Basbug, facing charges of "gang leadership" and seeking to unseat the government by force, told the court after seven hours of questioning by prosecutors that he rejected the charges and described them as "tragicomic", broadcaster NTV reported.

"To hear such an allegation hurts my pride as a general who has done his duty to the country and state with honor. Accusing a chief of general staff of forming a terrorist group is the biggest punishment I could be given," he was quoted as saying.

Basbug's lawyer said he would challenge the decision to jail him pending trial, state-run Anatolian news agency reported.

"The fact that prosecutors are now touching senior generals is a turning point in the democratisation process of Turkey. Many were skeptical that prosecutors would go this far," said military affairs analyst Lale Kemal.

"I would not be surprised if we see some commanders resign (if Basbug is remanded in custody) but I do not expect this to bring serious instability to Turkey," she said.

Turkish media reports this week suggested senior commanders could resign if Basbug was charged in the case. The General Staff subsequently issued a statement denying those reports but speculation about possible resignations continued.

"There is every possibility there will be resignations if cases continue to be brought like this," said security analyst Gareth Jenkins. "Morale is already at rock bottom. It is already affecting operational capability," he said.

Last July, Basbug's successor and the heads of the army, navy and air force resigned in protest at the detention of more than 200 officers charged in a separate alleged conspiracy against the government, dubbed "Operation Sledgehammer".

[CitizenCain]

More proof that politics is too important to be left to the politicians... or the people, for that matter.

Of course, one has to ponder the ramifications on their EU membership, if the military were to set things rightish in Turkey. Better a useless democracy than a functional non-democratic government, at least as far as the bureaucrats in Brussels think.

[Hazir]

Hard to tell really what is going on in Turkey. There are a few things that would raise my eyebrows. The arrest of Basbug is one of those things although it is not quite as shocking as it looks at first sight; the power of the army over the state was broken about 2 years ago already. This arrest is a bit of an afterthought in that process. An utterly bodged military killing of 35 smugglers is a lot stranger; people who basically were on the side of the army in their anti-PKK fight (even though they were breaking the law) got accidentally killed by the very same army they were helping. That kind of a fuck-up is suspicious in a country where some terrorist attacks were actually carried out by the state.

I hear around me that this might have to do not so much with the army-government divide but with the fact that inside de governing AKP people are positioning themselves for the succession of Erdogan. There are some rumours that Erdogan's medical situation is much worse than he wants to admit; he was operated upon last month, but there is very little information about what was wrong with him.

As for the fact that people charged in the Egernekon case are being shut up; that is not really the AKP again. It is a rotten part of the Turkish legal system where it is way too easy to lock a suspect away for way too long. It even leads to situations where judges sentence people in order for not looking bad for having kept them in lock-up. It's a remnant of the stupid etatism of the constitution of 1980. I am very much against yet another coup which would only throw back this country to more authotarian government, not less.

P.S. I am not a fan of the Padisah.

[agamemnus]

Wouldn't a military coup weaken the rest of the government, including these so-called judges, etc.?

[Hazir]

It is not so easy to tell which parts of government are on which side these days.