"WHAT HAVE ARMED FORCES SUSPENDED WITH FRANCE?"
by Fikret Bila

Milliyet, Turkey
Nov 17 2006

Turkish paper details impact of freezing military ties with France

Ground Forces Commander General Ilker Basbug, after the French
parliament had passed a resolution recognizing the Armenian genocide,
announced that they had suspended military relations with that country.

The Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) thus took a clear stance immediately
following this decision by France.

Upon the orders of Chief of the General Staff General Yasar Buyukanit,
the TSK cancelled all of its military activities involving France. The
order was published within the TSK structure.

So what did the TSK suspend?

Plans halted

Turkey plans, on an annual basis, joint or mutual activities with
various countries, including France. The planning is done a year
in advance.

When France passed the Armenian genocide resolution, the remaining
activities of 2006 were cancelled upon orders of General Buyukanit.

The 2007 activities plan that was being drawn up was also halted.

What was cancelled?

Included among the activities that Turkey halted were bilateral
military studies of an academic nature. The programme of reciprocal
visits by military delegations was also frozen.

Also included among the important activities cancelled were joint
exercises. The exercises that the navies of the two countries were
going to conduct jointly in 2006 were cancelled, and the French naval
forces that were going to come for the exercises were told not to come.

Commander visit

It had been planned, on the basis of reciprocity, for Air Force
Commander General Faruk Comert to visit France in 2007. Following
the Armenian resolution, the commander’s visit was cancelled along
with the rest of the 2007 programme.

Yet another decision taken by the TSK against France was the halting
of bilateral activities by their military attaches. Turkey’s military
attache in France was ordered to take part in multilateral activities,
but not to participate in bilateral activities and contacts.

Likewise, it was decided that France’s military attache in Ankara
will be invited to multilateral activities, but will not be invited
to bilateral activities.

Return of decorations

In addition, the generals to whom France had given decorations returned
these decorations upon their own initiative.

Lieutenant General Hayri Guner, who was awarded France’s medal of
honour and who currently commands the corps at Gelibolu, returned
this decoration. Similarly, Sirnak Division Commander Major-General
Ahmet Yavuz also returned the French medal of honour.

Former General Staff Chief General Ismail Hakki Karadayi was also
among those returning this award.

Difficult to take part in bidding

France also seems to have lost the chance to take part in bidding on
contracts opened by the Defence Industry Undersecretariat in order
to meet the needs of the TSK.

In major purchase such as tank and helicopter contracts, it is now
virtually impossible for French companies to take part in the bidding.

Thus the military relations between Turkey and France have been frozen,
in the full sense of the word.

This decision taken by the military, and the reaction thus shown,
are seen as being of sufficient moment to be reflected in economic
relations in the civilian realm as well.

Thus, unless France prevents the resolution accepting the claim of the
Armenian genocide from becoming law and going into implementation,
and changes its stance on this topic, it is not expected that the
military relationship will return to normal.