“This plot is an ambush against the Turkish nation. It has gone beyond a junta activity. It is indecency,” noted Özbek. The retired lieutenant colonel spent two years working with Col. Dursun Çiçek, whose signature appears on the plot, and retired in 2004.According to Özbek, every institution in the country, including the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK), should respect political parties and politicians that swept to power with the support of the public. “No one should dare to prepare a conspiracy plan against the nation over the military. There are army officers who are uneasy with interference in politics and the public will,” he noted.
Özbek was referring to a military plot called the Action Plan to Fight Reactionaryism. The plot was prepared by Col. Çiçek and detailed a plan to damage the image of the AK Party government and the Gülen movement in the eyes of the public, to play down the investigation into the Ergenekon criminal network and to gather support for members of the military arrested as part of the inquest into Ergenekon.
He also claimed that a letter about the plot sent to civilian prosecutors by an unnamed military officer was not produced by a single individual. According to Özbek, the letter was prepared by a group of members of the military who were fed up with the TSK’s desire to interfere in politics.
“A single military officer would not have so much information [referring to information included in the anonymous letter]. I suspect a group of high-level members of the military are disturbed by the recent developments. And they say ‘enough is enough’ to plots against the will of the public. Many army officers have been uneasy with the tendency of the TSK to interfere in politics, and the recent plot has increased the level of this uneasiness,” Özbek remarked.
The anonymous letter reached civilian prosecutors conducting a probe into a criminal organization known as Ergenekon last month. The letter also included the original copy of the military plot. The officer who sent in the plot stated in his letter that the order for the preparation of the action plan came from 1st Army Corps Commander Gen. Hasan Iğsız.
Iğsız was serving as the deputy chief of general staff at the time. “In accordance with a directive by Gen. Hasan Iğsız, necessary work was initiated by Lt. Gen. Mehmet Eröz and Maj. Gen. Mustafa Bakıcı, and the action plan was prepared by Col. Dursun Çiçek,” the letter reads.
