An army group in Turkey says it has taken over the country, with soldiers at strategic points in Istanbul and jets flying low in the capital, Ankara.Count me among those who are not terribly surprised. The Turkish military is largely secular and very respectful of the memory of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, who is the father of modern and secular Turkey.
A statement read on TV said a "peace council" now ran the country and there was a curfew and martial law.
It is unclear who the army group is. There are reports some senior army officials have been detained.
Some in the Turkish military might have taken the view that President Erdogan's moves to make turkey into a religious state was an implicit defiling of the memory of Atatürk.
We shall see what happens.
Erdogan had been using his office to exile rivals, take over the media and stifle various civil liberties, and pretty much be a dictator-in-training.
ReplyDeletein order to protect himself from the possibility of coups, he'd tried and convicted a group of generals that he feared would lead such efforts. Looks like he missed some. And no military EVER likes getting mistreated like that, so he kinda made his own monsters here...