Former Chiefs of Staff “Willing to Go to Court”

A diary allegedly belonging to journalist Mustafa Balbay, the Ankara representative of the Cumhuriyet newspaper who has been arrested as a suspect in the Ergenekon trial, has been published on the Internet.

The diary also mentions former Chiefs of Staff of the Turkish Armed Forces, Hilmi Özkök and his successor Yaşar Büyükanıt.

Journalist Fikret Bila of the Milliyet newspaper wrote on 18 March that he had spoken to both retired generals.

Bila asked, “When diaries allegedly belonging to Özden Örnek (former navy commander who is said to have been involved in coup plans which emerged from the diaries published in Nokta magazine) were published, I asked you ‘If a court demands it, will you go?’ Then you said, ‘We will think about it when the time comes.’ If a court today asked you to come, what would you do?”

Özkök: "As defendant or witness"

Özkök, Chief of Staff from 2000 to 2006, is cited as saying, “I would act according to the principle of utility. If the law calls, then I think that call has to be accepted. If a court calls a person as witness or defendant, one can probably not say ‘I will not go.’ I always consider the laws and regulations and act according to them. You know my respect for the law. Of course I would consult the lawyer’s of the Chief of Staff’s office because I was Chief of Staff at that time (the time that the alleged Balbay diary refers to).”

“As I said, if it benefitted the law, I would go and talk. As defendant or witness, it does not matter. But it would not be right for met to comment on today’s news from the newspapers or the Internet.”

He added that he would not want to influence an ongoing trial. 

Büyükanıt: "I would go and tell the truth"

Özkök’s successor Büyükanit, Chief of Staff from 2006 to 2008, said: “Somewhere they wrote that I said ‘How could one carry out a coup with this media?’. I was very upset, those are ugly words. I never said such a thing.”

He added, “The Law is working. Whatever the laws are, that will be done. You cannot say I will observed this or that law. If a court calls, you cannot decline. If the law called, I would go, and I would say whatever the truth is.”

Örnek to give statement in Ergenekon trial

Former Navy Commander Özden Örnek, whose diaries contain information about coup plans by the commanders, is to make a statement in the Ergenekon trial. Özkök’s and Büyükanıt’s names were also in the diaries.

According to texts published in the Nokta magazine on 29 March 2007, Hilmi Özkök opposed the coup plans of Ground Force Commander Aytaç Yalman, Air Force Commander İbrahim Fırtına and Navy Commander Örnek and Gendarmerie Commander Şener Eruygur in 2004. The cited text also accused 2nd Chief of Staff Büyükanıt and 1st Army Commander İlker Başbuğ (today’s Chief of Staff) of “neglecting to do their duty for the fatherland because of their career ambitions.”

The article also said that when the first coup plan, called “Sarıkız” (Blonde Girl), failed to be realised, Eruygur, who is now a defendant in the Ergenekon trial, prepared a second coup plan called “Moonlight” (Ayışığı). (TK/AG)