SIGNS of a growing rift between the civil administration and the Turkish military are emerging in the north, with the Chief of Turkish armed forces calling on the ruling Republican Turkish Party (CTP) to “prove its Turkishness” after the party failed to play the national anthem and hold a minute’s silence for Ataturk and the martyrs at its AGM on Sunday.
The army’s displeasure with the CTP became apparent when ‘prime minister’ Ferdi Sabit Soyer sought to shake the hand of Turkish general Hayri Kivrikoglu at a function held in honour of a retired Turkish officer, whose wife and children were killed during intercommunal troubles on the island in 1963.
The retired medical officer, Nihat Ilhan, was on the island for the first time in 44 years in an attempt to put records straight over the death of his family members after a flurry of speculative articles in the press suggested his family may not have been victims of Greek Cypriot paramilitaries but of Turkish paramilitaries keen to stir up hatred among the Turkish Cypriot population towards Greeks.
During the function, Soyer’s outstretched hand was rejected by Kivikoglu, who allegedly then turned to Soyer to berate him for not playing the Turkish national anthem or holding a minute’s silence for Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey, and the martyrs at his party’s latest AGM. Soyer was further berated for having the audacity to hold his party’s AGM on what is known in Turkey as Martyrs’ Day and for not having a picture of Ataturk displayed at the event.
Soyer is said to have responded to Kivrikoglu’s criticism by asking the military leader whether his party’s “Turkishness” was being called into question, to which Kivrikoglu apparently said, “If you are [Turkish], prove it.”
It is not the first time the Turkish military has exchanged harsh words with the current administration. In January, the Turkish Cypriot leader, Mehmet Ali Talat, was seen to go against the wishes of the Turkish military Chief of Staff Yaser Buyukkanit when he removed a controversial bridge at the proposed central Nicosia crossing point at Ledra Street. Following Talat’s refusal to go along with military wishes, Buyukkanit accused him of lying about the contents of discussions they had held in Ankara.
However, speaking to the press after the handshake incident, Soyer attempted to play down the existence of the rift and blamed the spat on what he called a “fabricated crisis” on current pre-election tensions in Turkey.
Turkey is barely a month away from a presidential election that is causing deep tensions between the military and the civilian government. The tension stems from military fears that the moderately Islamic Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan will stand for the presidency. Erdogan has not yet announced his decision, but the army is known to be deeply concerned that the position could go to someone, like Erdogan, who is not part of the military elite that still holds sway in the country.
Such tensions are set to continue throughout the year in the run up to parliamentary elections in Turkey in November.
But while claiming relations between his ‘government’ and the military were good, Soyer also made it clear he was not going to take orders from the general over how to conduct politics.
“We gain our power from the people. We do not need endorsement [from the military] to govern,” he said on Tuesday.
But Soyer also appeared keen to prove that he truly was a Turk by saying, “Nobody should doubt that we are Turks. We are Kemalists.”
Naturally, politicians from both sides of the political spectrum gladly joined the affray, with those on the right joining Kivrikoglu in his criticism of the administration.
“We also condemn the gaffe of not playing the national anthem and not holding a minute’s silence. It is not possible to understand such a mentality,” leader of the National Unity Party (UBP) Tahsin Ertugruloglu said.
On the left, the condemnation was reserved for the military, with Peace and Democracy Movement (BDH) leader Mustafa Akinci accusing the general of “insulting all Turkish Cypriots” by refusing to shake Soyer’s hand.
He added that “it is not by having more and bigger flags and more anthems that we reach a higher level of civilization”.
