This event is of particular importance for Turkey since it has raised expectations that it has to set an example for the Turkish military as well as for the political authorities to do the same when they are involved in wrongdoings. And that the political authorities should also be able to enable the civilian democratic oversight of its armed forces.
Turkey’s politically powerful armed forces have long been at the center of an ongoing debate in the country over the alleged involvement of many top retired generals as well as active officers in the deep state investigation and trial named Ergenekon. Several retired generals and active officers together with some academics and journalists are currently on trial over charges of instigating armed action to topple the government.
In addition, there has been an ongoing separate probe launched against some officers allegedly involved in plots to discredit the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party). The recently publicized plan targeting non-Muslims in Turkey as a means to undermine the AK Party has come as blow as it allegedly involved a plan to detonate a bomb during a children’s visit to a museum in İstanbul. The responsibility for the assassination attempts on prominent non-Muslim figures as well as causing the deaths of children were allegedly planned to be blamed on the ruling party.
This operation is named the Cage Operation Action Plan. Three members of the military, including a lieutenant colonel and two colonels, were arrested last Thursday as part of the investigation within the Naval Forces Command.
Another plan named the Action Plan to Fight Reactionaryism, and signed by a colonel, again to discredit the ruling party, has already been under debate. The existence of internal memos to discredit some Turkish journalists as well as non governmental organizations has already been confirmed by then-top commanders.
There is a long list of unconstitutional acts that the military has been at the center of in addition to its heavy involvement in politics in Turkey, an EU candidate country.
And yet the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) deplores the leaking of those plans to the media, filing complaints against the papers concerned. In Germany, it was not the daily Bild that was threatened after it had reported that information on civilian casualties in Afghanistan had been withheld from the public and from prosecutors, but the top commanders and two senior political figures who have been obliged to resign.
The Turkish political authority, meanwhile, has failed to display a stance to stop the military from getting involved in unconstitutional acts targeting an elected government, i.e., itself.
Ferai Tınç of the Hürriyet daily was right to ask in her recent column about the silence and indifference displayed by Turkish National Defense Minister Vecdi Gönül in the face of military-linked acts of coup plans and smear campaigns.
However, the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) is neither subordinated to the Ministry of Defense nor is it subject to any civilian democratic oversight though on paper it is responsible to the prime minister.
News coming from the EU countries where their military personnel are either sacked or resign due to their political statements or acts withholding information from civilian authorities, are increasingly being covered in Turkey with the hope that we will adopt similar democratic standards.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel summarized the latest incident involving her top commander by saying, “If we want trust we must also have full transparency.”
Trust and transparency that Turkey needs the most.
