Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan met Turkey’s military top brass on Monday to choose a new high command after the most senior generals in NATO’s second-biggest armed forces quit in protest over arrests of officers linked to alleged coup plots.
Long-running strains between the secularist military and Islamist-rooted government boiled over on Friday when Chief of General Staff Isik Kosaner stepped down, along with the army, navy and air force commanders.
The resignations will enable Erdogan to consolidate control over a once-omnipotent military, which has staged a series of coups since 1960 but whose power has been curbed by EU-backed reforms since pushing an Islamist-led government from power in 1997.
At the heart of the matter is the alleged “Sledgehammer” plot, based on events at a 2003 military seminar. Officers say evidence against them has been fabricated and that allegations concern what was merely a war games exercise. Erdogan launched the four-day Supreme Military Council (YAS) meeting on Monday and then joined the generals in paying respects to modern Turkey’s soldier-statesman founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, visiting his imposing mausoleum high on a hill above the capital.
Erdogan strode into the mausoleum in front of the generals and placed a wreath in front of Ataturk’s tomb, before standing briefly in silence, a regular traditional ceremony which marks state occasions.
Only nine of the 14 generals who would normally attend the YAS meeting were there. Aside from the four who resigned on Friday, another commander was missing because he is in jail.
Erdogan sat alone at the head of the table where normally he would sit beside the chief of staff. Defence Minister Ismet Yilmaz also attended the meeting.
Erdogan has moved quickly to designate former gendarmerie chief General Necdet Ozel as acting chief after Kosaner quit, but he is not expected to be confirmed as the overall commander until the key promotions are announced on Thursday.
