Turkey faced turmoil within its military on July 30 after the country’s four most senior commanders quit in protest over the detention of 250 officers on charges of conspiring against Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan’s government. Chief of General Staff General Isik Kosaner stepped down on July 29 along with the army, navy and air force commanders, plunging NATO’s second largest armed forces into uncertainty.
In a farewell message to “brothers in arms,” Kosaner said it was impossible to continue in his job as he could not defend the rights of men who had been detained as a consequence of a flawed judicial process. Though the sudden departures are embarrassing, they could give Erdogan a decisive victory over a military that sees itself as guardian of the secularist state envisioned by the founder of modern Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. Analysts see little political threat to Erdogan’s supremacy. AK won a third consecutive term, taking 50 percent of the vote in a parliamentary election in June.
Erdogan marked out Kosaner’s successor on Friday, as his office put out a statement naming paramilitary Gendarmerie commander General Necdet Ozel as new head of land forces, and acting deputy chief of general staff, effectively making him next in line when Kosaner handed over the baton.