Turkey faces military crisis

EU warns generals as army threatens to step in if Islamist minister wins
presidential election

Helena Smith and Ned Temko
Sunday April 29, 2007

The Observer

Turkey came under mounting pressure from the European Union last night
to rein in the influence of its generals, after the country’s powerful
pro-secular military threatened to intervene in the Islamic-oriented
government amid growing turmoil over the election of a new President.

Olli Rehn, the European Union enlargement commissioner, who has been
a keen supporter of Ankara’s eventual accession to the bloc, warned
the military to stay out of politics, saying the election was a
‘test case’ for the Turkish military’s respect for democracy.

Rehn issued the salvo after Turkey’s general staff weighed in on the
dispute, saying they would not flinch at intervention if it meant
upholding the Muslim state’s cherished secular values.

The country’s secular elite has voiced grave concerns over the
government’s choice of Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul as a presidential
candidate, given the politician’s Islamist beliefs – his wife and
daughter wear the headscarf.

‘The Chief of the General Staff is answerable to the Prime Minister,’
declared Cemil Cicek, justice Minister in the government of Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is a former Islamist but has
pledged his commitment to Turkey’s secular political system. Military
intervention would be ‘inconceivable in a democratic state,’
Cicek said.

Within hours of Gul’s failure to win enough votes in a first round
of balloting on Friday, the military, which has staged four coups
in the past 50 years, posted a statement on its website invoking its
role as defender of the country’s secular traditions as laid out by
Turkey’s modern soldier-statesman founder, Mustafa Ataturk.

‘In recent days, the problem during the presidential election has
focused on secularism discussions,’ the statement said. ‘This situation
has been anxiously followed by the Turkish armed forces. The Turkish
armed forces maintains its firm determination to carry out its clearly
specified duties to protect these principles and has absolute loyalty
and belief in this determination.’

The statement then went on to list the ruling AK party’s perceived
violations of secularism, including the fact that some headmasters
had been allowed to order the celebration of the Prophet Muhammad’s
birthday.

The military made the announcement after the secular opposition
appealed to the state’s constitutional court to cancel the election.

Many fear that if elected, Gul would be in a position to do away with
the checks and balances built into system by eroding the secular
nature of the courts and other autonomous bodies and appointing
Islamic-oriented candidates to powerful civil service positions.

Recently, hundreds of thousands demonstrated against the prospect of
the Prime Minister running in the election, whose second round takes
place this week.

According to Professor Ahmet Evin, who teaches political science
at Istanbul’s Sabanci University: ‘People fear that if someone who
is suspected of having Islamist leanings takes control of the post,
it will allow the AK party to move ahead on its Islamist agenda.’

A former firebrand, Erdogan has fiercely denied that he has a hidden
agenda, but critics say his actions often speak louder than words.

Since assuming office nearly five years ago, he has publicly endorsed
the lifting of restrictions on women wearing Islamic-style headscarves
in government offices and schools, attempted to outlaw adultery and
approved of alcohol bans by AK party-run municipalities.

In the first round of the election last week, Gul failed to reach
the two-thirds vote he needed to win. A second vote is scheduled for
Wednesday, when he will need a simple majority.