Turkey has to get rid of its military’s iron fist if it wants to join the European Union, a diplomat told New York Times, in reference to the sheer influence of the country’s powerful military on the Turkish government.
According to the paper in its Sunday’s issue, the generals are fighting a tough battle now. They want to bury any call for change and are sweating in their struggle against those who want to remodel the country to enter the European Union.
Europe insists on change before it accepts Turkey as a newcomer to the union. According to NY Times, the outcome of the battle is important to other parties than Turkey because “it will affect the balance of power in a strategic area between Europe and Asia, Christianity and Islam,” for Turkey, a NATO and American ally, fields the region's strongest army and is regarded as a bulwark against instability.
"The Turks, " the diplomat said, "have to find a way to get the pashas out of politics."
Ironically, the offices for the body created to guide Turkey's candidacy for the European Union sit squarely in the shadow of the eight-story headquarters of the 10-member National Security Council in Ankara.
The European Union, however, identified the reduction of the council's role as a top priority for Turkey's membership. Volkan Vural, the country's general secretary for European Union affairs, said that the military supports membership and that the security council is already the advisory body the Europeans demand.
Turkish generals consider themselves as guardians of secularism and Ataturkism. They depict an image of themselves as the true successors of general Mustafa Kemal Ataturk who founded Modern Turkey in 1923.
In fact, the image of the founder still lives in the lives of the Turks who sound obsessed with the man. Thousands of his statues and millions of his photos have been erected or hung all over the country. His name has been given to countless institutions, buildings, streets and parks.
According to the paper, there has been a pattern in the way the army has acted when it smelled dangerous change. Since 1960, three military coups have taken place but on each occasion the military interfered and the generals reinstalled their vision of how the country should be ruled before retreating to their barracks.
According to a Turkish history encyclopedia (Turkishodyssey.com), in 1960, “many officers feared that the Democratic Peak (DP) threatened the principles of the secular, progressive Kemalist state. Some younger officers saw the army as the direct instrument of unity and reform. On May 27, 1960, the army acted… The new constitution was completed and approved by 61% of the votes at a referendum. The first elections were held in October 1961. The army then withdrew from direct political involvement.”
After the most recent coup in 1980, the New York Times added, it was the military-backed government that drew up the 1982 Constitution that still governs Turkey. The document anointed the generals as guardians of Turkey's secular government and territorial integrity, a mandate that has been interpreted broadly to cover almost any issue — from the 15-year war against Kurdish separatists to pushing out an Islamic-led government in 1997.
But the respected military is losing ground to the politicians, according to polls.
The paper cited recent polls as putting President Ahmet Necdet Sezer in the unusual position of being more popular than the military. This threw down the latest of several challenges to the generals, calling for the Constitution to be rewritten.
Deputy Prime Minister Mesut Yilmaz was quoted by the daily as saying that change in the role of the military is inevitable as the country approaches European Union membership, though he carefully added that reforms would take time.
But the generals and their many supporters in government are resisting any major realignment, arguing that the strategic importance of Turkey in a rough neighborhood demands a powerful military, said the paper, which quoted Defense Minister Sabahattin Cakmakoglu as stating in an interview that "the conflicts and relations in the Balkans, Caucasus and Middle East require us to maintain strong armed forces with a deterrence capability."
Winds of change blew stronger when the army was accused this week of meddling in government affairs through an investigation of corruption in the state energy department, according to the report.
Yilmaz has remarked that government under the military would be more corrupt. The angry general staff responded on the spot with a statement accusing Yilmaz of "the greatest slander," according to the paper.
However, to many people the armed forces represent a stable and uncorrupted element in a society whose politicians are often weak and where scandals are routine.
"Believe me, we are not happy to be involved in all kinds Turkey’s problems," Atilla Kiyat, who retired 18 months ago as an admiral told the paper "The lack of civilian authority is forcing us to be involved in those kinds of issues."
The EU is not the only party that wants less military influence. Indirectly, there is pressure to curtail the military coming from the International Monetary Fund, which asked the government last month to trim the $9 billion budget for the armed forces as part of a reform package in return for $7.5 billion in emergency aid – Albawba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
