Turkish daily alleges plot to provoke Greece

[Alexandros]

Turkish daily alleges plot to provoke Greece

Thursday January 21, 2010

A report in Taraf, a small-circulation Turkish liberal daily newspaper, yesterday described an alleged plot hatched in 2003 by military authorities in Turkey to create tensions with Greece by staging the shooting of a Turkish fighter jet.

According to the report, military officials had planned to intensify tensions with Greece in the Aegean as well as in the northern region of Thrace, which has a sizable Muslim community, and had aimed to topple the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and impose martial law.

Greek government officials did not comment on the report yesterday. In Ankara, meanwhile, Turkish government spokesman Cemil Cicek was quoted as saying that it would be wrong to make an assessment before the report’s claims are further investigated.

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[Muhaha]

Re: Turkish daily alleges plot to provoke Greece

That means they must be pretty confident in their abilities to win. You don't start a war on purpose unless you know you can handle it for sure.

[hipeter924]

Re: Turkish daily alleges plot to provoke Greece

That means they must be pretty confident in their abilities to win. You don't start a war on purpose unless you know you can handle it for sure.

Well if Turkey declared war on Greece it would be forced out of Nato and if not Greece and many other Balkan nations would leave Nato because of Turkey's membership (basically collapsing the alliance).

I certainly think that Greece could rely on support from Bulgaria and Serbia in the opening stages of such a war and if Turkey got the upper hand then Russia would likely also intervene. As for the diplomatic implications of attacking an EU member state, it would basically ruin all Turkey's hopes for joining and even result in a trade embargo and sanctions on Turkey.

So all in all if Turkey had gone ahead and started a war with Greece then Turkey would have lost the war and would have been shown as a violent aggressor de-stabilising the whole region. Which would have been good for both the Greek position and the Armenian position and an absolute disaster for Turkey and its economy.

[Alexandros]

Re: Turkish daily alleges plot to provoke Greece


Kaan Soyak


Sledgehammer planned to seize minorities’ assets

25 January 2010, Monday

ELIF KAYA/YASEMIN BUDAK İSTANBUL

The Sledgehammer plan, revealed just last week by a daily newspaper, was more than an outline of a plan to kill or injure various bureaucrats, journalists and certainly the government; Sledgehammer plotters had also devised detailed economic and social policies for the post-coup period.

The generals who prepared the Sledgehammer plan had a nationalist-statist economy in mind that would have confiscated the accounts and assets held by minorities, so as to cut off the economy from the rest of the world entirely.

According to the details of the plan published by the Taraf daily, had they succeeded, the coup plotters would have first frozen non-Muslim minorities’ bank accounts and the accounts of companies owned by non-Muslims. Later, these would be confiscated. Another plot, called the Cage plan, was exposed last month and sought to undermine the government’s credibility by staging various attacks and organizing assassinations of non-Muslim minority leaders.

Turkey’s minority communities have been appalled by the plan. Kaan Soyak, co-chair of the Turkish-Armenian Business Development Council, said: “It is extremely appalling that the Sledgehammer plan included a step to confiscate the assets of non-Muslims, in whose memories similar applications of the past such as the Assets Law, still remain fresh. These plans were made to make people who have been living together for thousands of years afraid of each other. About a decade ago, the younger generation wanted to move abroad, and not because they couldn’t find jobs here, but because of fear. It will be very good for everybody when the legal processes into the Cage plan and other alleged plots are concluded. If the plan to seize minority-owned assets in the Sledgehammer plan had been realized, minorities would leave Turkey. Their flight would be encouraged. There are those who want to see minorities gone, but nobody knows who these people are.”

Varujan Sayacıyan, a columnist for the Armenian-language Jamanak, said: “The expressions in the coup plan are fairly anachronistic. Such a mentality, seeing minorities as a threat, is not worthy of Turkey. Foundation assets and bank accounts are human rights. … I don’t think such plans can be applied in our day, but unfortunately there is a mentality that resists change. That mentality has to change. We do not plan to make any applications regarding the plans right now; we are following the developments only as citizens.”

Laki Vingas, a representative of several minority foundations, stated: “I cannot express any opinion but my sadness. All we ever do is think how we can better serve the community. Unfortunately, we are very weak both in terms of numbers and in financial terms. I cannot imagine how such a community can be seen as a risk factor. I don’t know what they were aiming for with such a plan; this question should be directed to them. I am shocked. I don’t even want to imagine that these action plans could be realized. We don’t want to be news material all the time. We want to live normal lives.”

Heads of various Alevi groups also reacted to the Sledgehammer plan. Fevzi Gümüş, head of the Pir Sultan Abdal Cultural Association, recalled that the deaths of 37 Alevis in Sivas in 1993 at the hands of an angry religious fundamentalist mob also seemed to have been orchestrated by similar groups within the military. Gümüş said, “Those who burnt down a hotel yesterday would bomb mosques tomorrow when it is necessary for their aims.” The Sledgehammer plan also included plans to bomb some mosques at the time of Friday prayers as part of efforts to foment chaos. Fermani Altun, head of the Ehlibeyt Foundation, says in addition to Sivas, attacks against Alevis in 1977 and 1978 in Maraş and Çorum were also orchestrated by similar forces. “Now we see the danger invisible powers have placed Turkey in. We don’t want such things to repeat themselves, and we want the plotters to be punished.”

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