TurkeyTurkish military seizes power in Turkey

The Turkish military announced a few hours ago (Friday afternoon, EST) that it has seized power, and that the government of President Tayyip Erdogan, in power since 2003, has been deposed.

Prime Minister Binali Yildirim, however, said in a hastily arranged press conference that while it was not clear who was in charge in Turkey, he was confident the attempted coup would be put down.

There is no information about Erdogan and his whereabouts, but the Turkish sister channel of CNN said he was “safe” in an unknown location.

The military has declared martial law in the country, imposed a 10:00 p.m. (Turkey time) curfew, and placed soldiers in the offices of all TV stations and major newspapers.

Military jets are flying over major Turkish cities, and the bridges across the Bosphorus have been closed.

Al international airports in the country have been shut down, and all flights into and out of the country cancelled.

No high-level officers appeared before the TV cameras to announce who was behind the coup, but in an e-mail sent from the official e-mail account of the high command of the Turkish armed forces, the high command said the military felt compelled to take power in the country in order to protect the democratic order and maintain human rights. The e-mail was sent to several Turkish TV channels.

The Turkish military high command also said in the e-mail that all of Turkey’s existing foreign relations would be maintained, and that the rule of law throughout would remain a top priority.

In an indication that the coup may have been staged not by the very top echelon of the military command, but by officers immediately below them, the state-run Anadolu news agency said the chief of Turkey’s military staff was among the dozens of political, military, and business leaders being held “hostage” at the military HQ building in the capital Ankara. CNN Turk, the CNN Turkish affiliate, reported that individuals associated with Erdogan and his political party have been taken from Ankara and are being held in military bases outside the capital.

Turkey has been at war with the pro-Kurdish independence PKK since the early 1980s. More than 40,000 Turks have been killed in the war. When Erdogan became prime minister in 2003, and president in 2004, he initiated peace negotiations with the PKK, and it appeared for a while that the Kurdish campaign had come to an end.

The Syrian conflict has scrambled all that. The Syrian Kurds used the weakening of the Assad regime to create an autonomous Kurdish zone in northern Syria – run by the Syrian-affiliate of the Turkish PKK – and the PKK itself, emboldened by the success of the Kurds in Syria, resumed its deadly attacks against the Turkish military and police.

Erdogan, who used his first decade in power to limit and weaken the Turkish military, and remove it from key positions of power and influence, found himself turning to the military for help in the renewed war with the Kurds. He increased the military budget, expanded its role, and allowed it more freedom to combat the Kurds both inside and outside Turkey.

The military may also have been emboldened to take power by Erdogan’s increasing authoritarianism and his increasing effort to move Turkey away from its secularist roots toward a more Islamist direction.