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Gül urges change to Article 35 of TSK Internal Service Code
The president spoke to a group of Turkish reporters on Wednesday on the plane taking him back to Turkey from Belgrade, where he was to attend a trilateral meeting with the leaders of Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.
According to the president, there is agreement among political parties on the abolition or amendment of Article 35. “If you read the content of the article, you will see that it does not pave the way for such attempts [military coups.] I mean if a jurist reads it, he will not receive such a message. But as the interpretation of the article leads to misunderstandings, it needs to be rewritten,” he stated. Gül also said agreement among political parties presents a good opportunity to make changes to the article.
The article is frequently criticized for effectively paving the way for the military to intervene in domestic affairs under certain circumstances and carry out coups. “The duty of the TSK is to protect and watch over the Turkish motherland and the Turkish Republic as delineated by the Constitution,” reads the article. Though the article does not contain a clear provision facilitating military coups, it has frequently been used to legitimize coups.
In addition, Gül referred to reforms undertaken over the past couple of years in different fields, saying Turkey has been going through major structural changes. “I am referring to the change Turkey has undergone when I say the ‘old Turkey’ and the ‘new Turkey.’ We need to strengthen reforms in the economic field in a manner to overcome new global financial crises with the least damage possible. We also need to deepen reforms in the political and legal fields. … We still have problems in the distribution of income and underdeveloped regions. Can you imagine what would have happened in Turkey if the latest global financial crisis had hit at the beginning of 2000?” he asked.
The president also said the new Parliament to be formed after the June 12 parliamentary elections should focus on Turkey’s bid to become a full member to the European Union. For him, the EU negotiation process is a “chance” for Turkey to make up for its deficiencies in many fields. “Turkey should use this chance wisely,” he said.
‘E-memo a thing of the past, we need to derive lessons’
In response to a question about his thoughts on the April 27, 2007 military statement, or “e-memorandum,” which has an impact on the presidential election in Parliament at the time, Gül said the statement is a thing of the past, and Turkey will not witness something like it in the future.
“There are significant political lessons we need to derive from April 27. Incidents similar to what happened on April 27 belong to the old Turkey,” the president noted. He also said he was informed about the General Staff statement about an hour before it was posted on the TSK website.
The e-memorandum came amid a political crisis over the election of the country’s president. In a statement it posted on its official website, the General Staff threatened “action” if the government did not do more to preserve the republic’s secular tradition. The statement mainly targeted the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) after its decision to nominate then-Foreign Minister Gül, whose wife wears a headscarf, as a presidential candidate. The military believed that a headscarf-wearing first lady would threaten the secular order in Turkey.
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