Who rules Turkey?

Cüneyt Ülsever, for his part, questioned in his Feb. 18 article in daily Hürriyet whether the Chief of General Staff Gen. Büyükanıt does not feel any discomfort at all to be at odds with the prime minister of the elected government that he is responsible to on a very critical issue (Iraqi Kurds). There is also a coordinator on terrorism, namely retired Gen. Edip Başer, who though appointed by the government, hangs on the chief of general staff's lips, obeying him blindly, Ülsever went on to say.  

The debate over what I would describe as "Who rules Turkey?" came up again when Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan did not rule out in remarks he made on Feb. 15 that Ankara could take steps to develop relations with the Kurdish regional government in northern Iraq.  Gen. Büyükanıt, however, disputed Erdoğan's remarks, ruling out talks with Iraqi Kurdish authorities whom he accused of supporting Turkey's outlawed PKK terrorists.

The war of words between the elected politicians and the appointed bureaucrats (i.e., the military) continued last Saturday when Foreign Minister Abdullah Gül suggested that soldiers should remain focused on their duties and let the politicians deal with political issues. Gül was clearly recalling the separation of the duties between the politicians and the military in democracies.

Ülsever, meanwhile, in his same article in Hürriyet, rightly asked, "If you are a foreign policy analyst of a foreign country, what would you think of Turkey's northern Iraqi policies?"

I am sure Ülsever knows the answer to his question. But let me continue from what both Cemal and Ülsever commented on Gen. Büyükanıt's latest political remarks and high-profile appearance in the US, and thus the polemic he entered into with the elected leaders.

Firstly, no foreign or internal policy analysts either in Turkey or abroad could make a correct analysis of Turkey if he or she was to ignore the existence of the two Turkeys, not only as regards decision-making mechanisms but also in lifestyle, with the latter making itself obvious with the discrepancies existing between the rich and the poor.

But it is also true that the decision made by European Union leaders at the Helsinki summit in 1999 broke taboos in Turkey to a certain extent when it decided to give Muslim but secular Turkey candidate member status.  This decision has made it possible for serious Turkish intellectuals to question the military's ongoing role in politics, an issue that the majority of the Turks could not dare to speak up openly about before.

Political leaders alike have become more courageous in questioning the military's role in political life, which has long been hampering Turkey's efforts to solve its chronic problems such as Cyprus, relations with its neighbors as well as internal political problems such as the country's almost 12 million Kurdish population.   

I should also state that as Turkey's EU membership process became real despite many hurdles, starting with accession talks in Ankara in 2004, several positive things emerged: transparency, good governance and accountability, all major principles that should exist in democracies, as well political leaderships in the country too became less immune from bad governance. These, thanks to several reforms that the ruling AKP initiated and to which the main opposition CHP had given its support.   

But still the Turkish military does not want to accept that the political leadership is the one which is punished by the public during elections but not the military though the latter continues playing an important role in deciding over the country's destiny.

The military's active involvement in both internal and external policies, instead of concentrating on the defense of the nation from external threats, on the contrary, does weaken the country in both areas, as opposed to what the military thinks.

If it has not been the case, why then has one of the world's largest militaries (i.e., the Turkish Armed Forces [TSK]) been almost 80 percent reliant abroad for military technologies?