A NEW MILITARY COUP IN TURKEY COULD DERAIL PROTOCOLS, SAYS EXPERT

Asbarez
in-turkey-could-derail-protocols-says-expert/
Feb 23rd, 2010

YEREVAN (Combined Sources)-There is an internal war being waged in
Turkey between its secular military and Islamist rooted government
and that conflict may prompt another military coup in the country,
a leading Armenian expert on Turkey said Tuesday, adding that the
increased tension may bring an end to the Western-backed Turkey-Armenia
normalization process.

"There is an internal war taking place in Turkey," said Ruben
Safrastyan, the director of the Oriental Studies Institute at Armenia’s
Academy of Sciences. He was referring to the ongoing Ergenekon
investigation, launched in 2007, against a clandestine group with
links to the army accused of seeking to topple the Islamist government.

Speaking to reporters in Yerevan, Safrastyan, was quoted by Armenian
Public Radio as saying that recent developments in the Ergenekon
case could likely lead to a fifth attempt at a military takeover and
Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) would try and "use
this situation to continue dragging out the process of ratification
of the Armenian-Turkish protocols."

"The possibility of a military coup is not great, but if there is one,
there will be a lot of victims," he said. "Under these circumstances
would the US continue pressuring Turkey to ratify the protocols?"

"Washington may understand that the Armenian-Turkish relations may
further strain the situation and I do not rule out the possibility that
they may stop pressuring the government to ratify its agreements with
Armenia," Safrastyan said, adding that the US is "closely watching the
developments in Turkey" and could intervene in "one way or another"
if it escalates.

The Turkish military sees itself as the guardian of the pro-Western,
secular, form of government established by the Turkish Republic’s
founder, Kemal Ataturk. The army has overthrown elected governments
four times in the country’s modern history (1960, 1971, 1980, 1997),
imposing or re-imposing its own brand of political correctness on
the nation.

The AKP party this week dramatically upped the stakes in its showdown
with the military by detaining more than 50 current and former military
commanders. The detentions have electrified Turkey as the most sweeping
move to date by the AK to redefine the Turkish republic by challenging
the traditional dominance of the military.

On February 22, 21 generals were detained, including former navy chief
Admiral Ozden Ornek, former air force chief General Ibrahim Firtina,
and former 1st Army commander General Ergin Saygun. Most of the others
detained were colonels. The arrests are linked to a plan by Ergenekon
members to carry out a military coup against the party in 2003.

Code-named "Balyoz" (Sledgehammer), the plot allegedly involved
plans to spark unrest by bombing two major mosques in Istanbul and
staging an assault on a military museum by attackers disguised as
Islamic fundamentalists.

Safrastyan said the growing clampdown has broken the unity of Turkey’s
military. He did not, however, give concrete predictions of what he
thought would unfold as a result. "The processes are still developing,
and today it’s hard to say what is going to happen."