Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday condemned a statement by ten retired admirals. She and 94 others recently expressed concerns in an open letter about a possible violation of the Montreux Convention. According to Erdogan, the letter implicitly calls for a coup d’état.
Earlier in the day, spokesman Ibrahim Kalin made similar statements on behalf of the Turkish government: “These retired soldiers have put themselves in a laughable and miserable position with a statement reminiscent of times of military coups.”
Opposition parties have criticized the response of the Turkish government and President Erdogan. They call the criticism “exaggerated” and state that there is “coup paranoia”.
The admirals sounded the alarm because of the construction of a canal parallel to the Bosphorus. This may put the 1936 Convention of Montreux in question. This international agreement gives Turkey control of the Dardanelles and Bosporus (two straits).
According to the retired admirals, it is worrying that a possible withdrawal from the Montreux Treaty is being discussed in the context of the canal. Erdogan argues that critics have nothing to worry about and he does not want to violate the treaty.
In Turkey, statements by the army have more often led to political unrest. In 1971, then Prime Minister Süleyman Demirel had to resign after an expired ultimatum from the army. 26 years later, Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan also had to leave after an announcement from the army command. He is said to have insufficiently guarded the secular character of the state. Because the constitution remained in force and parliament could continue to do its work, this intervention was later called a post-modern coup.
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