Turkey's government fears second coup attempt as purge removes many army commanders
Turkish leaders are fearful that there may be a second attempt at a military uprising in Turkey following the failure of the recent coup. Several important military units are confined to their bases and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been slow to return to Ankara from Istanbul, apparently because the capital has not been deemed completely secure.
Fears of a second coup attempt stem from the realisation by the Erdogan administration that the infiltration by pro-coup forces of the senior ranks of the 600,000-strong armed forces and intelligence apparatus went far deeper than originally suspected. Some 85 generals and admirals or almost a quarter of the total of 375 were jailed on Tuesday by a court, a sign that the government privately believes that the plot involved many more senior officers than the small clique it has publicly claimed was behind the abortive putsch. Other sources suggest that the true figure for generals detained is 125.
Arrests at a high level are continuing with Mr Edrogan’s advisor on the air force, Lt Col Erkan Krivak, arrested on Tuesday. Soldiers from the Second Army, which is fighting a widespread Kurdish rebellion in the south east of the country, have been ordered to stay in their camps in the embattled region. The Second Army commander, General Adem Huduti, is the most senior military commander arrested. The gates into the main base of the 3rd Corps in Istanbul, theoretically part a Nato rapid reaction force, are blocked by municipal dump trucks and heavy vehicles according to eye witnesses.
“They are fearing another attempt at a coup,” says Asli Aydintasbas of the European Council on Foreign Relations in Istanbul, pointing to the extensive nature of the purge of the senior officer corps and judiciary, a quarter of whose members have been dismissed. Those arrested for secretly backing the original coup include some from Mr Erdogan’s inner circle such as Ali Yazici, his military secretary. Soli Ozel, professor of internationals relations at Kadir Has University in Istanbul and a columnist at Haberturk newspaper, says that “the number of Manchurian Candidates” in the upper ranks of the government is extraordinary – a reference to the film about secret agents and “sleepers” who infiltrated the top political leadership in the US in the 1950s at the height of the Cold War.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/turkey-second-coup-attempt-president-erdogan-military-failure-latest-news-a7145266.html
