Turkey braced for the tensest MGK meeting of the year

The MGK comes at a time when distrust between the government and the military is at its peak. The police search of General Staff buildings, conducted this weekend as part of an investigation into an alleged assassination plot against Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç, something that had never happened before in Turkey's history, has contributed to the confidence problem.Arınç, who also participates in the MGK meetings, is expected to make a speech today regarding the latest developments following the civilian search of the General Staff's Special Forces Command and the Tactical Mobilization Group, where two officers initially detained in the investigation as they kept watch outside Arınç's home last week serve.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who came together on Saturday morning with Chief of General Staff Gen. İlker Başbuğ and Land Forces Commander Gen. Işık Koşaner in a surprise meeting following Friday night’s troublesome search attempt that could only completed the next day at the General Staff, also held a meeting with those of his ministers who serve on the MGK board. Erdoğan’s three-hour meeting with Başbuğ and Koşaner, which took place at the Prime Ministry, occurred in an atmosphere of extreme tension, according to sources close to the Prime Ministry, although the official statement said anti-terrorism efforts both at home and abroad were discussed. The same harshness is expected to be reflected at today’s MGK meeting.

Tensions in 2009

Tension between the government and the military is not new. It was ignited for the first time when some retired generals were detained in 2007 as part of an investigation to Ergenekon, a clandestine gang charged with plotting to overthrow the government. The retired generals mentioned in alleged coup plans devised in 2004 -- Şener Eruygur, Hurşit Tolon, Levent Ersöz and Veli Küçük -- were detained and then arrested in the operation. The arrests were initially met with silence from the General Staff. However, tension rose when dozens of caches of weapons buried underground were unearthed during the investigation.

In April 2009, Chief of General Staff Gen. Başbuğ called a press conference about the missing military weapons that were found by the police during the Ergenekon investigation. He referred to a hollow Light Anti-tank Weapon (LAW) excavated as “just a pipe,” and claimed that weapons with similar batch numbers were given to the police force by Turkey’s only weapons’ manufacturer, the Turkish Mechanical and Chemical Industry Corporation (MKE). However, in a statement responding to this, the MKE said the said weapons had been produced for and delivered to the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) alone.

The confidence crisis between the government and the military reached a new high earlier this year when a document allegedly prepared by the military -- and bearing the signature of Col. Dursun Çiçek -- called the Action Plan Against Religious Fundamentalism was leaked to the press. The document laid out a plan to undermine the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government which would make it easier to oust the government. In a press conference on the controversy, Başbuğ said the document was only “a piece of paper.” However, tests run on the documents at the Forensic Council of Medicine (ATK) indicated that the document was an authentic military document, and the signature under it indeed belonged to Col. Çiçek.

In each of these incidents, Başbuğ announced that a military investigation was underway into the supposed perpetrators. But those investigations never uncovered any criminal offenses.

Recently, the alleged plot to assassinate Deputy Prime Minister Arınç has brought the already existing tension to a new height.

The General Staff said this past Wednesday that two military officers who were detained earlier this week on suspicion of plotting to assassinate Arınç were near Arınç’s house on the day of their detention not because they were planning to assassinate him, but because they were monitoring another army officer who is suspected of having leaked confidential military documents to the media. The explanation was hardly convincing for the case’s civilian investigators, who arranged Saturday and Sunday’s searches.

A first in Turkey

The searches at the Special Forces Command’s headquarters in Ankara’s Kirazlıdere is the first ever police raid on a military facility in Turkey. Although the civilian prosecutors were met with great resistance, they have still undertaken a historic search.

The Kirazlıdere command was where politicians, including Bülent Ecevit, Necmettin Erbakan and Alparslan Türkeş, were kept during their arrest during the Sept. 12, 1980 coup d’état. There also used to be a US base at the location at that time. The Kirazlıdere headquarters are believed to be where clashes between left and right groups before the 1980 coup were masterminded and coordinated.

The Tactical Mobilization Group of the Special Forces Command is believed to be the equivalent of Turkey’s Gladio. Turkey’s own Ergenekon is believed by some to be the last living extension of the Gladio, a code name denoting the clandestine NATO stay-behind operation in Italy after World War II, intended to counter a possible communist invasion of Western Europe. Many (including the Italian prosecutor who conducted Operation Clean Hands) liken the legal process against Ergenekon to the “Clean Hands” anti-corruption operation against Gladio in Italy during the 1990s.

Countless writers, journalists and witnesses have claimed that the Tactical Mobilization Group was behind the Sept. 6-7, 1955, pogrom against non-Muslim minorities in İstanbul. This unit was formed in 1952 with US support against the Soviet threat in the north. Witness accounts, past statements from the General Staff and evidence obtained during the Ergenekon investigation indicate that most of the arms and ammunition buried underground were buried by this group.