EurasiaNet Eurasia Insight - Policy Differences Strain Relations Between Turkey's Government, Military Establishment

EURASIA INSIGHT

POLICY DIFFERENCES STRAIN RELATIONS BETWEEN TURKEY’S GOVERNMENT, MILITARY ESTABLISHMENT
Igor Torbakov 7/02/03

The policy priorities of Turkey’s government and those of the country’s military establishment are diverging. The nexus of the building dispute is connected with the country’s need for modernization and the military’s insistence on maintaining Turkey’s secularist tradition. Recent developments are prompting fresh discussion in Turkey of a possible military intervention in the country’s political life.

At present, Turkey finds itself in the middle of its "annual military coup discussion," suggests Sedat Bozkurt, the news coordinator at the ATV television station. Speculation about possible military intervention has intensified in the days since a June 26 meeting of Turkey’s all-powerful National Security Council (MGK). At that meeting, which focused on efforts to promote Turkish membership in the European Union, the government, which is dominated by the Justice and Development Party (AKP), was unable to find common ground with military leaders on key policy matters.

Turkish military leaders are irked by the AKP’s political course, which has established Turkey’s full membership in the EU as a key goal. To achieve this aim, the AKP has aggressively pushed reforms aimed at aligning Turkey’s legislative framework with EU standards. The problem is that the proposed changes are seen by many in the officer corps as detrimental the military’s interests, especially in limiting the influence that generals can exert over the political process. Military leaders have claimed that implementation of the proposed legislation could "endanger Turkey’s national security."

Some commentators say the military is also concerned that the AKP government is steering the country away from the secularist tradition established by Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the modern Turkish state. The AKP’s origins are rooted in Islam and the party continues to enjoy the firm support of devout Muslims, especially those in the Anatolian heartland. The military has long believed itself to be the guardian of Turkey’s "Kemalist" political philosophy.

"Those who see the European Union and its lofty ideals as a means of realizing their archaic and separatist goals are doomed to be disappointed," Gen. Yasar Buyukanit, Deputy Chief of the Turkish General Staff, stated in a May 29 speech.

Buyukanit is not the only military leader to have recently alluded to a possible intervention. At the end of May Turkey’s top general cautioned the government about the need to adhere to the country’s secularist constitution, while pointedly declining to rule out the possibility of the military’s re-entry into politics. In what appeared to be a thinly veiled threat, General Hilmi Ozkok, the chief of the Turkish General Staff, referred to the so-called "post-modernist coup" when an openly Islamist government was eased out of power with the military’s help in 1997.

"That was cause and effect," General Ozkok said, "and if the cause is still there the effect will be there also." Significantly, in 1997, one of the main complaints brought by the military against the ousted Islamist government was that it has tried to divert Turkey from its European path by advocating the formation of a "Muslim NATO and common market."

Ironically, now it is the AKP � a successor to the banned Islamist Welfare Party � that is the chief backer of EU-inspired, liberal reforms. Meanwhile, it is the army � which is viewed by some as a modernizing force in Turkey � that appears intent on stalling legislative reform.

In attempting to explain the military’s seemingly paradoxical position, some analysts point out that the Kemalists’ views on modernization are, to a great extent, superficial. While Kemalists, especially those in the officer corps, have been quick to embrace the trappings of modernization, particularly those found in Western society, they have traditionally been wary of embracing the core principles of Western dynamism: democracy, pluralism and genuine secularism envisaging freedom of expression.

Some political analysts are quick to emphasize that the secularist tradition played a vital role in transforming traditional Ottoman society. But this heavy-handed style of modernization "enshrined a deeply authoritarian military-bureaucratic establishment, creating the main impediment to Turkey’s successful evolution into a fully developed democracy," argue political scientists Mujeeb Khan and Hakan Yavuz in the March issue of Current History.

"While the goal of becoming a �European’ nation was always the central ideological pillar of this [Kemalist] elite, it was quite unwilling to implement the requisite political and juridical reforms which would undermine its monopoly on power," Khan and Yavuz add.

Other observers believe that although the military’s secularist zeal may be excessive, the generals do have a point. Since sweeping into power following November’s parliamentary election [for background see the Eurasia Insight archive], the AKP has been keen to portray itself as a "conservative democrat" � rather than an Islamist � party. Nevertheless, public opinion surveys suggest that pious Muslims constitute the AKP’s core constituency.

"There is no doubt that both [Prime Minister Recep Tayyip] Erdogan and most AKP voters want changes in the role that Islam plays in public life," contends Turkey analyst Gareth Jenkins in the Spring issue of Survival.

Developments over the past eight months in Turkey, including an ongoing feud with the United States [for background see the Eurasia Insight archive], have brought increasing domestic political pressure to bear on the AKP government. Unable to quickly fulfill its pre-election promises of putting the economy back on track and raising living standards, the AKP government has been willing to play the religion card to reinforce its grassroots popularity.

Such moves have naturally caused concern in secularist circles. Earlier, the military was rattled by a government decree that authorized Turkish diplomatic missions to engage Turkish Islamic groups operating abroad. The General Staff also described as offensive the government’s policy of re-employing those expelled from the army for Islamist activities. In addition, a late June proposal to appoint thousands of Muslim clerics to the General Directorate of Religious Affairs, a state body supervising religious service in Turkey, provoked anger in the secularist establishment.

The AKP’s latest move has caused some analysts to say the party is repeating the mistakes of its predecessor � the Welfare Party � which was forced from power by the military in the 1997 "soft coup." "Is the AKP Playing With Fire?" asked one newspaper headline. "The AKP should clear up � its stance on secularism, and thus ease the atmosphere in the country," suggested Murat Yetkin, a columnist for the Radikal daily. "Doesn’t civil society harbor the same concerns as the military has on the secularism issue?"

The answer is: maybe not. The majority of Turkish society is "disturbed" by rumors of a possible military coup, according to the results of a poll conducted in May by the Ankara Social Research Center.

Editor�s Note: Igor Torbakov is a freelance journalist and researcher who specializes in CIS political affairs. He holds an MA in History from Moscow State University and a PhD from the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences. He was Research Scholar at the Institute of Russian History, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow; a Visiting Scholar at the Kennan Institute, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington DC; a Fulbright Scholar at Columbia University, New York; and a Visiting Fellow at Harvard University. He is now based in Istanbul, Turkey.

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