Today’s Zaman, Turkey
April 12 2009

Generals’ backtracking on boycott for Obama hypocritical, commentators
say

Chief of General Staff Gen. Ä°lker BaÅ?buÄ? and the
commanders of Turkey’s land, air and naval forces were all present in
Parliament to listen to Obama’s speech.

Senior members of the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) who ended a long
boycott of Parliament on Monday to listen to a speech from visiting US
President Barack Obama acted hypocritically and inconsistently in
terms of their reason for the longstanding protest, opinion leaders
have said.

Chief of General Staff Gen. Ä°lker BaÅ?buÄ? and the
commanders of Turkey’s land, air and naval forces were all present in
Parliament to listen to Obama’s speech, ending a boycott they have
maintained for the past 21 months against the election of Abdullah
Gül as president and the presence of deputies from the
pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP), which has been accused of
having links to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
Obama’s visit to Turkey on April 6 and 7 was extensively covered by
Turkish and world media. The US president delivered important messages
to both Turkey and the entire Muslim world.

Senior TSK members, who traditionally attend ceremonies held in
Parliament, have not been to Parliament since the election of former
Foreign Minister Gül to the presidency because of their
concerns over his secular credentials.

In the process leading up to Gül’s election — as the nominee
of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) — the TSK
strongly voiced its opposition to Gül on the grounds that he
lacked secular credentials and the General Staff even issued a
memorandum on April 27, 2007, warning the AK Party to withdraw its
candidate. A quorum deadlock over Gül’s presidency was settled
after early general elections, which also paved the way for the DTP
deputies to enter Parliament, prompting the TSK leaders to start their
boycott against Parliament.

The DTP entered Parliament in compliance with Turkey’s laws, so it is
wrong for the TSK to boycott it, just as it was wrong for the TSK to
boycott the presidency of Gül, who was elected in compliance
with the law, by not attending his oath-taking ceremony, according to
Altan Tan, a prominent Kurdish intellectual. He said the commanders
who imposed the boycott on legitimately elected politicians did not
take a stance against Obama, even though he talked about things that
the TSK does not approve of, such as the reopening of the Greek
Orthodox Halki Seminary, the opening of borders with Armenia and the
fulfillment of demands from the Kurdish public. `This is very
contradictory. Their visit to Parliament in order to not be seen as
boycotting Obama meant a big surrender for them,’ Altan argued.

The Turkish generals’ failure to accord their new commander-in-chief,
President Gül, traditional signs of respect on several
occasions since Gül took office and their absence during his
oath-taking ceremony in Parliament drew widespread criticism at the
time, even from Gül’s opponents, given the fact that Gül
had a wide base of support and that in the end his presidency was the
will of Parliament.

According to Mehmet Altan, a columnist for the Star daily, the
generals’ coming to Parliament to listen to Obama was a
scandal. However, he does not think the boycott was against the DTP,
but against President Gül.

`It is a scandal peculiar to Turkey for the generals to boycott
Gül’s speech in Parliament after assuming office, but come to
Parliament to listen to Obama. This attitude shows that the commanders
embraced Obama more than they embraced Gül,’ he said.

On whether the TSK members had any right to boycott Parliament, Altan
said members of the armed forces do not have any right to make
official statements on issues other than security in a normal
democracy. `I lived in France for five years and I returned to Turkey
without hearing anybody uttering the name of their chief of general
staff,’ Altan noted.

Will the TSK continue to boycott Parliament?

Yasemin Ã?ongar, a columnist for the Taraf daily, said time will
tell whether the TSK members will give up on their boycott against
Parliament and attend the events there that are relevant to them.

She said although it was problematic for the TSK members who did not
come to Parliament to listen to their own president to come to
Parliament to listen to a US president, it was still a good step
regarding the removal of the embargo on the DTP.

`There is nothing wrong about military members coming to Parliament
and being present there while issues relevant to them are being
debated. What is abnormal here in Turkey is the fact that members of
the military make statements with political messages,’ Ã?ongar
underlined.

A columnist from the Bugün daily, Adem Yavuz Arslan, said last
week that he hoped the generals’ `meaningless boycott’ against the
nation’s will has ended. `Otherwise, a picture will emerge in which
the military does not heed their president as much as they heed Obama,
which I think will not be a good one. Ignoring the existence of the
DTP does not make any contribution to the settlement of problems,
either,’ he wrote.

12 April 2009, Sunday
FATMA DÄ°Å?LÄ° Ä°STANBUL