No immediate Ergenekon impact on normalization of military-civilian relations

 Among those who have hypothesized about a consensus with the US over ending the TSK’s tradition of interfering in the political system through coups and memorandums under which the Ergenekon investigation has received implicit support from international circles has been retired Col. Ümit Kardaş, a former military judge. 

“I do not believe that Ergenekon marks the start of a general cleanup operation within the TSK because the TSK will resist such a move. It is not that easy to change the TSK. But behind the Ergenekon operations may be a consensus with the US to bring the TSK in line with NATO standards, under which interventions into politics through military coups are unacceptable,” Kardaş said in an interview with Sunday’s Zaman.

The military of Turkey, a member of NATO, has staged five interventions into the political system since the establishment of the Turkish Republic 85 years ago. These interventions have taken various forms, from direct coups to e-memorandums and “postmodern” coups.

There is a firm belief in Turkey that the nation’s most devastating military coup in terms of seriously interrupting the democratic process, staged on Sept. 12, 1980, was made possible when the US lent its support to the Turkish generals. But the past decade has witnessed a considerable shift in the attitudes of Turkish generals from being loyal to NATO -- and thus the US -- to seeking alliances to Turkey’s east with countries such as Iran, Russia and China.

US support for the Kurdish administration in northern Iraq, starting with the first Gulf War in the early 1990s, may have been an important factor in the Turkish military’s shift toward the east. Turkey still fears that an independent Kurdish state in its backyard would have a spillover effect on its 12 million Kurds.

It is possible to see that the US has been uneasy with the Turkish military’s search for alliances to the east in an article written on Oct. 30, 2002 by retired US Lt. Col. Steve Williams.

In his article, titled “The New Face of the Turkish Military” and published by the US-based Western Policy Center, Williams applauded Gen. Hilmi Özkök’s appointment as the Turkish chief of general staff in 2002.

“With leaders such as General Özkök, the new face of Turkey’s military has become more confident and capable, as well as closer to the United States. With threats to NATO, Washington and US allies increasingly emanating from Turkey’s neighbors, Turkey’s strategic value has increased correspondingly,” Williams wrote at the time.

As a sign of Washington’s displeasure over Gen. Özkök’s predecessor, Gen. Hüseyin Kıvrıkoğlu, Williams described Kıvrıkoğlu as a reclusive commander who never traveled to the United States during his four-year term as Turkey’s top-ranking general, preferring to travel to places such as China.

Williams also believed that Gen. Özkök was at the forefront of a generation of Turkish military leaders who would have a more pro-Western outlook. Interestingly, the majority of retired generals who have so far been detained or arrested over their alleged links to the Ergenekon terrorist organization represent the hawkish, ultranationalist, anti-American and anti-NATO camp. For example, retired Gen. Tuncer Kılınç, a former secretary-general of the National Security Council (MGK) who was detained last Wednesday in the Ergenekon investigation, once suggested that Turkey should set up alliances to its east.

If Turkey were to shift its focus toward the east and loosen its ties with NATO, this would be a concern for the US military.

Therefore, it is possible that the US has been lending its implicit support to Turkish efforts to cleanse the TSK of extremists alleged to have been plotting coups against the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party).

With the latest detentions, widening a 19-month-long probe into a plot by staunch secularists to overthrow the government, nine former generals, 11 active duty or retired colonels and 12 lower-ranking officers, either active duty or retired, have been detained or arrested. One retired general being sought in the investigation is still at large and is believed to be in Russia.

The retired generals detained under the 10th wave of Ergenekon operations on Jan. 7 were Tuncer Kılınç, former Defense Ministry undersecretary and former MGK secretary-general, former 2nd Army Commander Kemal Yavuz and former legal counsel to the Turkish General Staff Erdal Şenel, while the nine active duty officers included four colonels.

The Turkish General Staff was informed about the detentions.

Fine-tuning by top commanders

Despite some heightened expectations last Wednesday that top commanders would come up with a strong statement criticizing the detentions after a six-hour emergency meeting, no such statement was issued. Instead, Chief of General Staff Gen. İlker Başbuğ met with both President Abdullah Gül and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. A brief statement released after the meetings said Gen. Başbuğ expressed his views and assessments of Wednesday’s developments.

Başbuğ’s meeting with his top commanders followed by his meeting with Turkish political leaders may be seen as an attempt to satisfy his officers who were spooked by the detentions. This is because Turkish officers are trained and educated to safeguard the country’s secular foundations and they believe that, if necessary, coups can be staged. A retired colonel speaking to Sunday’s Zaman said he and his colleagues had expected the General Staff to release a harsh statement criticizing the detentions.

This colonel’s reaction reflects a serious division within the military between pro-coup and anti-coup sides, with the latter perhaps preferring a more Western outlook for the TSK.

According to a Turkish military analyst, the TSK will avoid being implicated as an institution involved in illegal activities and it is likely ready to make some sacrifices from its own ranks for the sake of protecting itself.

This also explains the General Staff’s silence over the Ergenekon investigation.

Now the serious question is whether the Ergenekon investigation will contribute to the normalization of Turkey’s highly controversial and problematic military-civilian ties and whether civilian oversight of the TSK will be enabled.

Professor Ümit Cizre of Ankara’s Bilkent University, currently at Princeton University, told Sunday’s Zaman following last summer’s operations as part of the Ergenekon investigation that without a conscious and reflective intellectual commitment by the civilian political class to a moral restoration of democratic civilian management of military affairs, the AK Party government cannot stand up to the extremes of militarism in Turkey consistently.

The Ergenekon investigation will help the TSK cleanse the extremist elements from within the institution. But democratic civilian oversight of the TSK will only be possible by making changes to the law and ensuring that they are felt on the ground so that the TSK does not violate the rule of law through coups. Ankara Today’s Zaman