CHP to save Ergenekon suspects; Turkish PM says stress causes harsh rhetoric (!)

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has said that recent comments he made regarding Turkish alcohol consumption arose out of a moment of great stress.

Republican People?s Party (CHP) Deputy Chairman Süheyl Batum, who said he wanted to nominate Ergenekon suspects Mustafa Balbay and Tuncay Özkan as CHP candidates in the upcoming general elections and that he would defend their nomination at the CHP Party Council, was emphasizing that this gesture has a symbolic meaning. What is the purpose of this gesture?

I think the CHP is pro-military because it has no other choice. I am really surprised at the silence of the CHP, which defines itself as a social democratic party, regarding the recent Council of State decision to ban the wearing of headscarves at the Selection Examination for Academic Personnel and Graduate Studies (ALES) and the Sledgehammer coup probe case.

The prospects of the Republican People?s Party (CHP) nominating a number of Ergenekon suspects in the general elections slated for June became stronger after CHP Deputy Chairman Süheyl Batum made statements in support of the suspects over the weekend.

In order to correctly read Turkey right now, the past 15 years of the country should be read correctly. A book that came out yesterday claims that [jailed head of the Kurdistan Workers? Party (PKK) Abdullah] Öcalan was told by the military that he had to up the intensity of the armed fight because nobody would take him seriously with a low-intensity war.

A flashback — not to the last election in 2007 but the election before that. It was the summer before the 2002 election and not all that long after the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) had been formed. This was a time when most of the media?s attention was on World Bank Vice President Kemal Derviş, who had parachuted, Dirty Dozen-style, behind the lines of the crisis-torn Turkish economy and was fighting a rearguard action to restore the country?s credibility.

Desperate case of the CHP

The end of ?liberal? literature

The disclosure of new military documents outlining alleged coup plans reminds us yet again how Turkey has been engulfed by dirty plans that need to be addressed with a strong resolve and a determination to create a better future.

Those who question or deny the existence of the coup plan codenamed Sledgehammer have been greatly disappointed with the emergence of documents seized at the Naval Forces Gölcük Command last year.

Original and handwritten documents emerged in connection with the ?Balyoz? coup plan from bags discovered in a raid on the Gölcük Naval Command. Some details from these documents made it into the papers yesterday, and if you note that there are 43 folders full of evidence, more news about this matter is clearly going to continue to come in the coming days.

Let us ask the 8th Chamber of the Council of State, which stopped the implementation of rules that would have allowed headscarved women to enter take university exams with their headscarves on for security reasons, about this situation.

The masterminds of the Sledgehammer case had set out to finish what members of the Committee of Union and Progress started. An order to kill Hrant Dink was issued within this scope, and if plans stayed on track they were going to kill other important figures in Turkey such as Etyen Mahçupyan and Sevan Nişanyan.

Liberal intellectuals have systematically supported the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party). Their support was crucial partially in counterbalancing the groups who hold secularist concerns regarding the AK Party.

Freedom of expression, the PM and the silencing of writer Ahmet Altan (2)

Elections and the CHP
Today’s Zaman
According chatter in the corridors of Ankara, the CHP may nominate some Ergenekon suspects who are currently under arrest for seats in Parliament in order

A large number of confidential documents seized from the Gölcük Naval Command by the police on the orders of public prosecutors last month and presented as additional evidence in the ?Sledgehammer? case last week indicate that the coup plan drawn up by the 1st Army Command in İstanbul (in collaboration with the Air Forces War Academy Command and the Naval Forces Command) in 2003 involved, among other things, measures to force the Air Forces Commander to resign, and to arrest 17 admirals including the Naval Forces commander, expected to oppose the plot.