Mehmet Ali Birand - English
Mehmet Ali Birand - English
Mehmet Ali Birand - EnglishYazarın Tüm Yazıları

Now we’ll be even more confused

The story of the document alleging military plans against the government has gotten even more confusing. The statement by the General Staff is very clear:

- Since this document is a photocopied version, it is not clear whether the signature is real or fake, or added later. (It would have been easy to copy the colonel’s signature and put it on this document, so to determine whether or not the document is a fake, the original needs to be examined.)

- The General Staff has not released an order pertaining to this document and there has been no document printed on the computers of the General Staff. For this reason, the colonel will not be prosecuted.

This statement will not be accepted by one part of this country, which will say that the General Staff is hiding something.

And the other part will characterize this event as a great conspiracy and produce new scenarios. Right now, minds are very confused. Suspicion grows. Nobody believes anybody anymore.

If a group outside the military prepared this document, then it has achieved one of its goals, namely the ill treatment of the Turkish Armed Forces, or TSK.

But it has not caused the military to fight with the ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP.

I do agree with retired Vice Gen. Atilla Kıyat, whom I hosted on 32.Gün last week and who said if those who prepared the document are preparing for a coup, then they are fools. Until the opposite is proven, I feel obligated to believe what the General Staff has said. I don’t want to think of anything else. Under these circumstances, there are only conspiracy scenarios left.

So what might these people have intended to do?

1. Probably their most basic aim was to wear down the Turkish Armed Forces or impose a blow to the military’s image. Wasn’t it to further strengthen the progressively increasing impression in public since the Ergenekon case that the TSK is after a conspiracy to remove the AKP from power?

2. They might also have been trying to drive a wedge between the TSK and the AKP by creating tension or even a fight between the two institutions.

To tell the truth, if those scriptwriters really exist and these are their aims, then they have reached one of their goals, but not both. They have succeeded in harming the TSK’s prestige.

But they have not succeeded in causing a fight between the TSK and the AKP.

It’s not over yet. We’ll encounter more of these events. Let’s be prepared.



DTP did the right thing

Many of us will now get angry with the Democratic Society Party, or DTP, for recalling its appointment request with the prime minister.

We’ll call the party ungrateful and blame its members for not chasing a solution. We’ll drag them through the mud. I think differently. People get tired of chasing. The prime minister was supposed to give an appointment for weeks now, but has made life miserable for the DTP. He surely has a valid reason for this, but there is a limit to all patience. We too, just like the DTP, want a peace process to start.

The DTP is very right in recalling its request for an appointment. So much chasing made the party tired. And besides, this dialogue was supposed to benefit the whole country, not just the DTP.

If there will be an effort, if there is really an "historic opportunity" present and if we need to make use of it, then the prime minister should not have made the DTP wait like a principal makes his students wait in front of his door.

This is not how peace is made. While we thought everything was back on track, this negative development has been a great misfortune.

What needs to be done now is to give up this appointment game.

The prime minister needs to create a different environment and open a door for dialogue with the DTP.

The important thing is to ensure that not a single human being is killed anymore. Who will account for the loss of even a single child with each passing day? Is it worth losing people due to these types of games?
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