Turkish democracy challenges army influence

Popularity of Turkish government leaves little room for interference by army in politics.

ANKARA - Turkey's army is in danger of losing its prestige according to analysts, after charges of conspiring against the democratically elected government.

"Times change", journalist Mehmet Ali Birand said, arguing that the army occupies a less central position in Turkey today.

Since the so-called Ergenekon trial began in 2007 over a suspected major plot against the government involving many officers, the press and lawmakers have disclosed a dozen other alleged attempts to destabilize Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government.

The unease in the military is so strong that the chief of the Turkish general staff, General Ilker Basbug, said at the end of January that coups d'etat, carried out four times by the army in 50 years, "belong to the past".

Writing in the liberal newspaper Hurriyet, Birand said "losing prestige in the public's eye may cause cracks in the military".

The military will have to change, he argued, it will have to "get used to criticism" and "get used to not engineering politics".

The media for its part, "will have to get used to stop provoking the military", he added.

As well as the lengthy Ergenekon trial, the Turkish courts announced at the start of February that 19 people including nine naval officers, would be on trial in May accused of "belonging to an armed terrorist organization".

They are accused of planning assassinations to provoke chaos in the country.

Fifteen more navy officers and two retired soldiers will go on trial accused of planning attacks in April.

In an unprecedented move in January, police investigating a suspected assassination plot against vice-prime minister Bulent Arinc searched a special forces barracks in the capital Ankara, where secret archives were held.

"This ultimate audacity shows that no military man, however high-ranking, is protected from arrest or at least receiving a humiliating summons", academic Jean Marcou, head of a think tank on Turkey, said on his blog.

Erdogan's government is pursuing very active "zero-sum game" diplomacy with all of Turkey's neighbors.

The so-called "two and a half wars" in the nineties, with Turkey's main threats coming from Syria, Greece and the Kurdish uprising, have lost their pertinence.

Relations with Athens and Damascus have notably improved while the Kurdish conflict has become less intense.

"The army will rediscover its prestige and role as referee if Turkey falls back into an unstable coalition regime", says Birand, but this is not the case at the moment, with Erdogan holding a comfortable majority in parliament.

Source: Middle East Online.
Link: http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=37379.