Turkey dismissed nearly 1,400 members of its armed forces and stacked the top military council with government ministers on Sunday, moves designed by President Tayyip Erdogan to put him in full control of the military after a failed coup.
The new wave of expulsions and the overhaul of the Supreme Military Council (YAS) were announced in the government’s official gazette just hours after Erdogan said late on Saturday he planned to shut down existing military academies and put the armed forces under the command of the Defence Ministry.
According to the gazette, 1,389 military personnel were dismissed for suspected links to the Islamic preacher Fethullah Gulen, who is accused by Turkey of orchestrating the July 15-16 failed putsch. Gulen, who lives in self-imposed exile in the United States, has denied the charges and condemned the coup.
It comes after an announcement last week that more than 1,700 military personnel had been dishonourably discharged for their role in the putsch, which saw a faction of the armed forces commandeer tanks, helicopters and warplanes in an attempt to topple the government.
It was not immediately clear whether the dismissals referred to in Sunday’s official gazette included any of those dishonourably discharged previously.
Erdogan has said 237 people were killed and more than 2,100 wounded in the coup attempt.
The government also said its deputy prime ministers and ministers of justice, the interior and foreign affairs would be appointed to YAS. The prime minister and defence minister were previously the only government representatives on the council.
They will replace a number of military commanders who have not been reappointed to the YAS, including the heads of the First, Second, and Third Armies, the Aegean Army and the head of the Gendarmerie security forces, which frequently battle Kurdish militants in the southeast. The changes appear to have given the government commanding control of the council.
Erdogan, who narrowly escaped capture and possible death on the night of the coup, told Reuters in an interview on July 21 that the military, Nato’s second-biggest, needed “fresh blood”.
The dishonourable discharges previously announced included about 40 percent of Turkey’s admirals and generals.
So far, more than 60,000 people in the military, judiciary, civil service and schools have been either detained, suspended or placed under investigation over suspected links with Gulen.
Conspiracy theories
On Saturday, Erdogan told broadcaster A Haber that the cleric was a “pawn” being controlled by a greater power.
There is a mastermind behind him. That mastermind is the one who took him to the United States and who helped him avoid any judicial process.”
Conspiracy theories have flourished in Turkey since the attempted coup, with one pro-government newspaper saying the putsch was financed by the CIA and directed by a retired US army general using a cell phone in Afghanistan.
The United States has denied any involvement and any prior knowledge of the failed attempt to overthrow the government.
Rallies in support of Turkish democracy and against the coup plotters were planned in several European towns and cities on Sunday, with the biggest expected in the German city of Cologne. Turkish television showed demonstrators in Cologne waving flags and portraits of Erdogan.
Germany is home to Europe’s largest ethnic Turkish diaspora.
Erdogan has said that Gulen harnessed his extensive network of schools, charities and businesses, built up in Turkey and abroad over decades, to create a “parallel state” that aimed to take over the country.
The government is now going after Gulen’s network of schools and other institutions abroad. Since the coup, Somalia has shut two schools and a hospital believed to have links to Gulen, and other governments have received similar requests from Ankara, although not all have been willing to comply.
