Why There Is A Coup In Turkey

The news tonight is that there is a military coup happening in Turkey. The plan is to remove President Erdogan from office. So how did we get here?

On 29 October 1923, the Republic of Turkey was proclaimed. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, a Turkish Army officer, was the first President of Turkey. His goal was to set up a secular state rather than an Islamic state. The Ottoman Empire, which Turkey had been part of, was an Islamic Caliphate. Ataturk was looking toward the future and felt that it was in Turkey’s best interests to become a secular state aligned with the West. Ataturk banned the growing of beards by men and the wearing of headscarves by women. He banned the call to prayer by muezzins, abolished the Turkish script and replaced it with the Latin alphabet. In response to the secularization of Turkey, Hassan al Banna founded the Ikhwan al-Muslimin, the Muslim Brotherhood, in Egypt with the goal of forming a new Islamic caliphate.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been in office since 2014. From 2003 to 2014 he was the Prime Minister of Turkey. During his time as Prime Minister and during his time as President, he has attempted to move the country back to an Islamic state. He has purged military leaders that opposed him, and moved his diplomatic ties away from Israel and toward the Arab countries in the region. In June 2015, the election in Turkey undermined his control of the nation and the direction in which he was going. The Justice and Development Party (AKP) lost its majority in parliament.

When Ataturk set up the secular state in Turkey, he regarded the military as the safety valve in case the democracy was in danger. In recent years, President Erdogan has removed military leaders that he believed would be a threat. Evidently he missed a few.

The latest story I have is from the UK Daily Mail Online. The UK Daily Mail reports:

The Turkish military has announced it has taken control and overthrown the government of Recep Erdogan as troops round up police and attack the capital Ankara

Eyewitnesses have reported attack helicopters firing machine guns in the capital Ankara in a bid to depose the Islamic government.

The military said they have taken control in order to protect human rights, however, prime minister Binali Yildirim said only a ‘faction’ was involved. 

Fast attack jets and helicopters were heard above Ankara and Istanbul after the military confirmed they had seized control of the country,.  

Istanbul’s Bosphorus Bridge and Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge were both closed after the military deployed roadblocks. 

Tracer fire from Turkish military helicopters was spotted over Ankara with fast attack jets flying combat air patrols over the city.

President Erdogan is reported ‘as safe’. A spokesman for the Turkish government claimed the coup has been unsuccessful and they are still in power. 

Erdogan used FaceTime to talk to a journalist on a privately run TV station to stress he was still in control of the country and warned of retaliation.  

If this coup is successful, it changes the balance of power in the Middle East. Before President Erdogan, Turkey was aligned with Israel in fighting terrorism. Turkey is a member of NATO, but as Turkey moved toward an Islamic State, that became an uneasy alliance. There have been reports that military aid given to Turkey under President Erdogan has been used to fight the Kurds–not to help in the battle against ISIS. A successful coup would be good news for the war against terror and good news for the freedom of the Turkish people.