Supreme Military Council Meets On Promotions
Ilker Basbug
Photo from Today’s Zaman
Turkey’s Supreme Military Council (YAS) met to decide this year’s shuffle of military commanders. Land Forces Commander Gen. Ilker Basbug will take the place of Gen. Yasar Buyukanit as the new chief of general staff. Once President Abdullah Gül approves the decisions, they will become effective August 30. Naval and air forces commanders will stay in their posts for another year. Gen. Basbug is expected to assume the position of chief of general staff position for two years instead of four, because of the military’s retirement age.
(Excerpts below, for full article, click here)
Gen. Isik Kosaner, head of the Gendarmerie General Command (JGK), is expected to replace Gen. Basbug as the new land forces commander. .. [Thus] his chance of becoming the next chief of general staff after Gen. Basbug in 2010 has greatly increased, if the military hierarchy is followed….
Like many senior commanders of the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK), Basbug served at NATO and in addition studied strategy and the art of war for a year at the British Staff College almost 30 years ago.
…In theory, the prime minister and the president have the constitutional authority to decide on who will be the chief of general staff. But this right has very rarely been invoked out of fear of upsetting the hierarchy of the TSK, which has toppled four governments in the past…
It would be naive to believe that the TSK will take any steps under Gen. Basbug to withdraw from politics or from its role of safeguarding Mustafa Kemal Atatürk’s secular principles, which have been used by the TSK to interfere in politics, a Western military analyst argued.However, the critical question is whether and how Gen. Basbug will tackle the ongoing cracks that have occurred within the TSK in relation to an investigation over what prosecutors have called the Ergenekon terror organization, which is alleged to have been highly active within the TSK.
In a strongly worded public statement on Friday the TSK denied any links with the Ergenekon terror organization…. Some military sources believe Gen. Basbug will try to bring discipline to the TSK, although they say no immediate purges should be expected…
Ergenekon is an ultranationalist secularist group suspected of planning to trigger a military takeover against the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party). Members under arrest include a retired general and other former officers of varying ranks…
Some Turkish political analysts fear that since the AK Party will be under a psychology of scrutiny by the military-led secular establishment over its alleged anti-secular activities, it might be pushed into further compromises with the establishment, narrowing its room for maneuver in, for example, encouraging an İstanbul court to pursue the Ergenekon investigation as far as possible.
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