Professor Ahmet İnsel, a member of the faculty of Galatasaray University in Istanbul, finds the silence of the government in the matter of the Aktütün assault of the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) unacceptable.
“One wonders what the Ministry of National Defense does in Turkey. If the soldiers are under the control of the civilian government, then the government should answer the questions regarding the Aktütün assault. If they are not, that is, if there is a military government in addition to the civilian one, then that would mean we are not living in a democratic country.”
“If this operation is a failure, then the government should take the political responsibility for it.”
“Başbuğ is trying to put pressure on...”
Insel says “there is no way to accept” the statement made by Chief of Staff Ilker Başbuğ.
“Some media institutions have very legitimate questions supported by the documents they have and these are very normal questions in democratic societies.”
“The General Staff has two possible answer to these questions: They can either say they are investigating the matter or this information is wrong or not complete. It cannot attack the media, accuse them of treason, treat them as the enemy and put pressure on them.”
Emphasizing that the military administration works under the civilian administration, Insel criticized the government for stepping aside and letting the armed forces to face the media and the public.
Support from Erdoğan
In his speech given yesterday, the Chief of Staff had criticized, without naming anyone, the appearance of the gendarmerie report about the Aktütün assault on daily Taraf, accused those who said the PKK assault was successful of being responsible for the blood that was shed and invited everyone to be on the right side.
The media had been questioning the location of the military post that was assaulted by the PKK, why this disadvantageous position was not changed, and how the assault was carried when the army had been saying that the intelligence flow about the movements of the PKK was very good.
Başbuğ did not answer these questions.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced today that there was a campaign against the armed forces and the media had to hear Başbuğ’s “critique” as he had heard theirs.
“The goal of terrorism is to do its own propaganda. The media is doing this very well.” (EÜ/TB)
