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Twitter  Newly appointed Turkish Chief of Staff Gen Işık Koşaner addresses guests during a handover ceremony in the Chief of Staff headquarters in Ankara on Friday. AFP photo |
The new chief of the Turkish military outlined his plan of action after he took the reins on Friday, focusing on issues that experts say show his views are in line with those of his predecessors.
Newly appointed Chief of General Staff Gen. Işık Koşaner voiced four demands in his speech made during the handover ceremony Friday.
Without naming the Peace and Democracy Party, or BDP, or the party’s call for autonomy, Koşaner focused on the need to take action in the face of demands for autonomy.
The four issues underlined by the new army commander and published in newspapers can be summarized as follows: taking effective legal measures against any initiative to build a second structure in the country; ensuring the central Iraqi government and the regional Kurdish administration will take measures against the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, based in northern Iraq; preventing the support provided to the PKK and its members by some European countries; and continuing to give the Turkish Armed Forces, or TSK, authorization to launch military strikes at the terrorist bases in northern Iraq.
Koşaner is expected to focus on those four areas during his tenure. The first message reflects the military’s approach toward the demand for autonomy frequently brought to the agenda by the pro-Kurdish BDP and the PKK’s imprisoned leader, Abdullah Öcalan.
Political observers say Koşaner’s views are in harmony with his predecessors and reveal the military’s approach on sensitive issues. Most believe Koşaner’s tenure comes at a tough time and may even be the military’s toughest period. They say civil-military relations and the fight against the PKK under the umbrella of the 2011 general elections will postpone new developments until the Supreme Military Council, or YAŞ, meeting next year.
After stressing that the PKK — which is listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union — is targeting Turkey’s nation-state and unitary state structure, Koşaner said the TSK would continue to be in favor of protecting the nation-state, unitary and secular state structuring.
The general felt the need to explain what he means while referring to the “unitary state” and said: “The unitary state represents the unity of the legislative, executive and judiciary within the country’s borders. The same laws are valid in any part of the country.”
He continued to say that the judiciary process takes place according to the same procedures in any part of the country. “The unitary state is the guarantee of protection of the principle of equality and of not being engaged regionalism or ethnic discrimination and not creating a minority,” said Koşaner, in what could be interpreted as an answer to the demands for autonomy.
While defining the unitary state structure, Koşaner also implied that there were attempts to bargain with the state. “Divisive and separatist movements threatening our country’s integrity, security and peace have entered in a new phase of realizing [their goal] in recent times,” warned the general. He said there were attempts to bring individual demands to the political sphere by hiding them behind a demand for collective rights.
Hurriyet
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