“Though there is no demand or plan for a coup d’état, what we are witnessing is politics over coups. This is an abuse of coups and a commercialization of coups,” noted Baykal on Saturday, denying claims that the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) was engaged in plans to topple the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government.The row over coup plans flared up earlier this month after the exposure of a suspected TSK plot to instigate chaos in the country through bomb attacks on popular historic mosques in İstanbul to eventually lead to a military takeover. Titled the Balyoz (Sledgehammer) Security Operation Plan, the document was drafted only a couple of months after the AK Party government came to power.
Baykal, however, categorically denied the existence of such a suspected plot and said Turkey was neither in search of a military coup nor faced with a coup plan. He accused the AK Party, without citing its name, of engaging in demagoguery over “alleged coups.”
“A new claim is brought forward every day. No step is taken against those claims. The prime minister holds many congresses. He brings forward many claims. None of them are proven right. An atmosphere of fear is created through manufactured documents and fake claims. A war has been declared against [state] institutions. What happened to Col. [Dursun] Çiçek? What happened to the genuine signature? What happened to the authentic document? … The colonel is still on duty at the General Staff. There is no coup in Turkey. There is conspiracy in Turkey. There is no coup, but there is an ambush,” the CHP leader remarked.
Col. Çiçek occupied the agenda for several weeks after his signature was found on a document called the Action Plan to Fight Reactionaryism, made public by a daily last year. The document mentions a TSK plot to overthrow the AK Party government. The original document is currently in the possession of civilian prosecutors conducting the investigation into Ergenekon, a clandestine gang charged with plotting to overthrow the government. It had earlier been examined by the Council of Forensic Medicine (ATK), which confirmed that the signature indeed belongs to Col. Çiçek.
