Gürak said at a press briefing in Ankara that efforts to replace conscripts with professional commandos are continuing, adding that the Land Forces Command is set to complete the establishment of five professional commando brigades to replace conscripts in the fight against terrorists in 2010.
The army earlier said it had planned to complete the project by the end of 2009. Chief of General Staff Gen. İlker Başbuğ announced in 2007, when he was commander of the Turkish Land Forces, that six professional commando brigades would be set up by the end of 2009.
Başbuğ's announcement had come in the midst of increased criticism that using conscripts with inadequate training in the fight against terrorism should come to an end and that they should be replaced with a professional team to be set up as part of an effective fight against the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).
Accordingly conscript officers, privates and enlisted specialists would not be used in the fight against terrorism, and the newly established professional commando brigade would comprise specialized sergeants. Conscript officers would be given tasks within internal security battalions.
In Turkey's decades-long fight against the PKK, the Turkish Armed Forces' (TSK) decision to start fighting terrorism with professionals has been seen as a positive step, though it came quite late.
Gürak also underlined yesterday that efforts to professionalize one gendarmerie battalion were completed in 2008 and 2009 in two phases. “All of our gendarmerie special units are composed of professional personnel,” he added.
During his press briefing, Gürak also discussed recent internal security incidents and said two members of the terrorist PKK had surrendered to security forces and one had been captured since Sept. 18. “One of our citizens was killed and another wounded in acts of terror against civilians and one more has been abducted by terrorists since then,” he remarked.
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