Turkish leaders hail the new Victory Day protocol

Turkey’s president and prime minister have hailed the new Victory Day protocol, which saw the president receive greetings at army headquarters in the top general’s place, as a sign of ongoing “normalization” in civilian-military ties.

“Turkey has changed a lot … Those latest arrangements should be seen as normal, as normalization,” President Abdullah Gül told reporters Wednesday, following the ceremony the previous day.

“The Turkish Armed Forces are very precious to us. Their strength means confidence and pride for us. But those new arrangements must be seen as the arrangements of a country that has come a long way in terms of democracy,” the president said.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan gave credit for the move to the new chief of General Staff, Gen. Necdet Özel, who personally made the proposal to the president to host the Victory Day reception at the General Staff headquarters in his capacity as commander-in-chief.

“That was an important step in the process of change. [Özel] came up with a very mature, special proposal. I congratulate him for that,” Erdoğan said.

The prime minister also welcomed the removal of the “e-memorandum” from the army’s website earlier this week as an indication of Gen. Özel’s democratic credentials.

“We had conveyed our wish [for the removal of the statement] to previous commanders. They did not take that step but our incumbent chief of General Staff did. I congratulate him for having done the right thing,” Erdoğan said.

In the online statement issued April 27, 2007, the army had threatened to step in to protect Turkey’s secular system, hours after Parliament began voting on a new president, with Gül as the sole candidate.

The opposition, however, expressed skepticism about the recent moves, with the Nationalist Movement Party, or MHP, charging that the government was aiming to erase the legacy of Turkish Republic founder Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, who led the defeat of invading Greek forces Aug. 30, 1922, which Victory Day marks.

Gül’s hosting of the Victory Day ceremony is “unacceptable” and “a sign of a continuing operation to discredit and disable the national values and traditions that the Turkish Republic has established to date,” said MHP chairman Devlet Bahçeli, who boycotted the reception.

Birgül Ayman Güler, deputy chair of the main opposition Republican People’s Party, or CHP, said it was “ironic” that Gül took over the Victory Day ceremony in his capacity as commander-in-chief at a time when army commanders were being wiretapped by unknown parties and put on trial in connection with alleged coup plots.

An illegally obtained recording of comments by former Chief of General Staff Gen. Işık Koşaner hit the Internet recently. There are currently 46 generals behind bars and prosecutors have issued arrest warrants for seven more, totaling 15 percent of all generals in the military. These generals have been charged with plotting against the government.


/Hurriyet Daily News/