A pro-Russian Turkish general?

31.05.2007

A retired general and former head of the National Security Council (MGK) Tuncer Kılınç, speaking at a meeting in London organized by the Kemalist Thought Association (ADD), declared that Turkey should leave NATO. He said, “to emancipate us from Western hegemony and colonization Turkey should put an end to its NATO membership.” The retired general also added that the US is not Turkey’s friend or strategic ally. His speech received huge applause from the ADD crowd at the meeting.

Such a call by a Turkish general who has served at the top post of the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK), an armed force that has been deeply integrated into NATO structures for the last 50 years, maybe shocking to many. But it would be a mistake to assume that the military’s commitment to the Western alliance is as solid as it used to be.

Co-speaker at the conference in which Kılınç made this remark was another retired general, ADD President Şener Eruygur. We remember Gen. Eruygur from the allegations that he was planning a coup against the government in 2004 when he was the commander of the gendarmerie.

An increasing number of critical statements have been coming from the security establishment against the West.

This is certainly an important trend that is becoming increasingly visible. Given the fact that the ADD -- an NGO very popular among the retired army officers -- is now headed by a retired general, I wonder if Gen. Kılınç’s call for abandoning NATO reflects the view of a significant portion of the Turkish military. Does this call have anything to do with the claims of the Washington-based journalist Yasemin Çongar, who argued the other week that there are pro-Putin generals in the military? It is hard to believe this, but she points to the unusual practice of broadcasting the Russian President Vladimir Putin’s Munich speech challenging the US in global politics on the TSK Web site. Now Kılınç’s call to leave NATO confirms that there could be such a formation in the TSK. Let’s remember when Kılınc first put forward his thought that Turkey should seek an alternative alliance to the EU in the East, pointing to Russia, China, and Iran. It was in early 2002. If Kılınç, as an influential figure at the top of the National Security Council (MGK), was not just toying with an extreme idea, but also organizing a formation within the security establishment with the aim of reorienting Turkish foreign and security policy away from the West, by now they must have secured some important positions within the military. Is the April 27 military statement -- the “e-memorandum” -- a product of this group? We do not know. Regardless, a Eurasianist anti-NATO move within the security establishment would be alarming for at least one reason, in that it signals a possible division between the conventional pro-NATO elements and the Eurasianists with pro-Russian inclinations. I think it is time to reassert that Turkey’s Western orientation is vital to its defense, its economic development, and its modernization and democracy. An adventurist course of action would be deadly for Turkey. An alliance with Russia against the West will be more devastating than the alliance of the Unionists with Germany in 1914. I am afraid the hawks see a confrontation with the US over northern Iraq as an opportunity to break away from NATO and the West at large. I really wonder about the role of the Russians. Do the Russians want to sell weapons worth billions of dollars to replace the NATO equipment of the Turkish military? Well, a bankrupt Turkey, following an all-out confrontation with the West, could not afford to pay for the Russian military equipment. Instead of cash the Russians, in return, may settle for something else. Who knows?

31.05.2007