Foreign Correspondence

[Amaunet]

Turkish PM says there’s no crisis with the army

There just might be a crisis, I think.

-Am

Published: Sunday, 12 March, 2006, 11:22 AM Doha Time


Erdogan ... no jobs left for crisis engineers
ANKARA: Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan ruled out yesterday tensions between his Islamist-rooted government and the influential military following accusations that the army’s number two acted outside the law in the fight against Kurdish rebels.
A prosecutor dropped a bombshell this week when he called for a probe into land forces commander Yasar Buyukanit on suspicion he might have been linked to rogue elements in the army seeking to stir tensions in the mainly Kurdish southeast and derail Turkey’s bid to join the European Union.
The main opposition and the media have speculated that the prosecutor acted under the influence of Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) to discredit the staunchly secularist general, expected to become chief of staff this summer.
“Turkey is no longer a construction site for crisis engineers. No jobs left for such engineers,” Erdogan said in a televised speech at an AKP conclave.
He praised the army as “one of our most important institutions” and said the government would respect its hierarchy and rules of promotion.
Buyukanit is seen as a hawkish figure and is expected to be more assertive than incumbent army chief Hilmi Ozkok, who has had a relatively peaceful relationship with the AKP, the offshoot of a banned Islamist movement.
In 1997, the army, the self-declared guardians of Turkey’s strictly secular system, forced the country’s first Islamist-led government to step down.
Many AKP members, including Erdogan himself, belonged to the Welfare Party that led the ousted government. They have disowned their roots but sceptics still suspect them of harbouring Islamist ambitions.
The accusations against Buyukanit were part of a charge sheet indicting two soldiers and a Kurdish informer over the November 9 bombing of a bookstore in the town of Semdinli owned by a former Kurdish guerrilla, which claimed one life and sparked deadly Kurdish riots.
The bombing raised doubts on whether Turkey has succeeded in purging rogue elements from the security forces accused of summary executions, extortion, kidnappings and drug-smuggling in the southeast in the 1990s, the peak years of a separatist Kurdish rebellion there.
The EU is closely watching the investigation as a test of the supremacy of law in Turkey.
The indictment, seen by AFP, says Buyukanit should be investigated for setting up a criminal organisation and abuse of power during his term as regional commander in the southeast in the 1990s.
It also argues that the general attempted to influence the judiciary when he said after the blast in Semdinli that he knew one of the implicated soldiers as “a good guy”.
The investigation appeal was based on a single testimony, by a Kurdish contractor, who said that the soldier, with Buyukanit’s approval, extorted money from local businessmen and fabricated documents to present innocent people as supporters of Kurdish rebels.
The indictment demands life terms for the two soldiers and the Kurdish informer for the blast in Semdinli, which it describes as a provocative act to stir unrest in the southeast, discredit the government and undermine Turkey’s EU membership bid.
Buyukanit can be tried only with the permission of the general staff.
While some observers have hailed the indictment as a taboo-breaking move in a country where the army tops opinion polls as the most trusted institution, others have criticised the accusations as shallow and legally defected.
The justice ministry has opened an inquiry into the prosecutor to see whether he abused his powers by levelling accusations against Buyukanit without solid evidence. – AFP


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