Turkish army: Coup is their creed and loyalty is for whoever pays

Mahmoud al-Batakoshi

The coup is the Turkish army’s ideology. The Ottoman army was formed from the prisoners of war to ensure the full loyalty to the sultan. With their successive victories and the Ottomans’ reliance on them, the Janissary army realized their importance in consolidating the pillars of government, until they even had the upper hand in resolving conflicts over the throne between sultans.

The increasing influence of the Janissaries negatively affected the state, and the sultans were no longer able to rule without their consent, as the soldiers were in control whether the sultan remained or not. The Janissaries forced Sultan Bayezid II to abdicate in 1512 due to his reluctance to go to war, which resulted in the soldiers not receiving the wealth they had previously gained from looting, plundering and retributions. It was the custom of the Ottoman sultans that whenever a new sultan came, he increased soldiers’ pay in order to earn loyalty.

Four coups and a farce

In the modern era, Turkey has been subjected to four military coups and the 2016 farcical performance that Erdogan has since exploited to tighten his control of the country.

The first military coup struck the Turkish Republic on May 27, 1960, carried out by military officers and students from military colleges in Istanbul and Ankara.

The coup leaders formed a junta, the 38-member National Unity Committee headed by the commander of the ground forces, General Cemal Gürsel. More than 600 people were tried, and 464 of them were convicted.

Three former ministers, including Prime Minister Adnan Menderes, were executed, while the sentences of 12 others, including President Celal Bayar, were reduced from execution to life imprisonment.

After the execution of Menderes, Turkey witnessed a turbulent decade characterized by economic stagnation and security and political turmoil, which led up to the second coup on March 12, 1971, known as the “Coup by Memorandum”, as the army sent a memorandum to then-Prime Minister Süleyman Demirel asking him to step down. Demirel preferred to resign instead of resist, and a coalition of conservative politicians and technocrats was established to restore security under the supervision of the army.

Then, on September 12, 1980, Turkey witnessed the third coup, led by General Kenan Evren. Senior political leaders were arrested, the parliament was dissolved, and political parties and trade unions were banned.

The cycle of military coups did not end there, as the so-called “post-modern coup” occurred on June 8, 1997, when Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan was forced to resign under pressure from the army, business, judiciary and other politicians.

Turkey has subsequently been subjected to some attempts with Erdogan’s blessing and planning to slowly swallow the state. In June 2007, the name of the Ergenekon group appeared for the first time when a quantity of explosives was discovered in a police raid on a house in Istanbul. Hundreds of people were subsequently tried for allegedly attempting a coup against Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who was prime minster at that time, and 275 officers, journalists, lawyers and others were convicted. They were later found innocent after the Court of Cassation concluded that there was no Ergenekon network.

The major performance was the theatrical coup of July 15, 2016 by a military group calling itself the Peace at Home Council, which declared it had seized power.

Turkish security forces arrested senior army leaders and killed one of them in a scandalous sham revealed by a secret Turkish military document confirming the detention of more than 7,000 people within 72 hours of the failed coup. Tens of thousands of civilians and military personnel were expelled from their jobs, reinforcing the hypothesis of a plan to transform the Turkish army into a barracks loyal to Erdogan, his party and his militant government.

Six wars in 99 years, three under Erdogan

In the modern era since Mustafa Kemal Ataturk announced the establishment of the Republic of Turkey and the fall of the Islamic caliphate, the Turkish army joined World War II on February 23, 1945 after being sure that the battle was in favor of the Allies, declaring war against Germany and Japan in order to win a seat at the United Nations.

On July 20, 1974, the Turkish army invaded Cyprus and occupied a large area in the northern part of the island, helping to establish a local government for the Turkish Cypriots there, which only Turkey recognizes.

Turkey has also long been battling the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) since 1984. The 1980s and 1990s were the bloodiest years for the two parties, until a ceasefire was agreed to in 2013.

The Turkish army also launched Operation Euphrates Shield on August 24, 2016, a month after the failed theatrical coup. Turkey entered northern Syria with US and Russian blessing to achieve goals related to reducing the Kurdish expansion. Then in January 2018, Turkey launched Operation Olive Branch in Afrin, which resulted in the displacement hundreds of thousands of Kurds and Ankara taking control of more Syrian territory with the help of the Free Syrian Army in order to save the popularity of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) amid increasing popular discontent domestically.

Turkey launched Operation Peace Spring unilaterally in October 2019, without regional or international support and with broad rejection from world capitals, especially the United States and European Union countries; even Russia rejected the war against the Kurds in Ras Al-Ayn and Tell Abyad, in contrast to the support Ankara received during the Euphrates and Olive Branch operations.

Erdogan’s means to control the army

Erdogan trembles at the army’s moves, fearing a repeat of the Erbakan scenario, which ended with the latter’s isolation, the marginalization of his party, and the seizure of Turkey’s power.

To this end, Erdogan took a number of steps, at the forefront of which was reducing the number of military officers inside the National Security Council (MGK) to five, making the MGK’s decisions non-binding, and subjecting the actions of the army to the control of the parliament. The MGK’ secretary-general also became an appointed civilian subordinate to the prime minister.

Erdogan distracted the army in wars, the Syrian crisis and the failed coup as a gift to extend the rule of his government, taking advantage of this to amend the constitution to a presidential system instead of parliamentarian. He has also suppressed the Hizmet movement, claiming that he is preserving the values ​​of secularism before an Islamist social movement that was only recently his ally.

After the attempted coup, Erdogan mastered the art of disposing of his political opponents in the judiciary, army and police. Turkey became an authoritarian state, especially after the constitutional amendments that made Erdogan president and abolished the post of prime minister, at the same time diminishing the powers of the judiciary, army, intelligence, and parliament. He reduced the Turkish state to himself, establishing a dictatorial rule, while muzzling of the voices of the opposition.

Operation Euphrates Shield represented a good cover for the Islamization of the state and reducing the influence of the military in political life, taking advantage of the military’s concern with the war in Syria.

Erdogan used the same strategy with Operation Olive Branch, which served as an electoral card for the AKP to obtain a parliamentary majority and not repeat the loss of the June 2015 elections. The real goal was to neutralize the military establishment before the elections.

With Operation Peace Spring, Erdogan attempted to break up the Turkish army and its capabilities through external wars, before which he had decided to get rid of the opposition officers.

Nevertheless, the issue of the clash between the army and Erdogan is subject to international changes and his political failure, either by him being replaced with another more prudent and less reckless Islamist or by the experiment of political Islamism being demolished by clashes with the Turkish army again.