The plan was detailed in a CD seized in the office of retired Maj. Levent Bektaş, who was arrested in April for suspected links to a large cache of munitions unearthed during excavations on land owned by the İstek Foundation in İstanbul’s Poyrazköy district. That discovery came as part of the investigation into Ergenekon, a clandestine gang whose suspected members are currently standing trial on charges of having plotted to overthrow the government.Police raided Bektaş’s office shortly after the discovery and seized a large number of documents and CDs. A technical analysis showed that a sinister plan against the country’s non-Muslim population was detailed in one of the CDs, called the Cage Operation Action Plan. The plan was signed by Lt. Col. Ercan Kireçtepe and was planned to be put into operation by a team of 41 members of the Naval Forces Command. The hoped-for result from the assassinations of prominent non-Muslim figures and propaganda and would be an increase in internal and external pressure on the AK Party, leading to its demise in politics, according to the plan.
The action plan would be implemented to lend support to the suspects arrested so far as part of the Ergenekon investigation; render ineffective so-called psychological warfare waged by the AK Party and its supporters (against the military); change the course of the agenda in Turkey; boost the morale of the junta within the Naval Forces Command; and win the appreciation and support of the public. The blame for each of the assassinations by the junta was to be put on the AK Party.
Nov. 14 SaturdayTurkey’s Alevis continued to slam the remarks of Republican People’s Party (CHP) Deputy Chairman Onur Öymen, who last week referred to the Turkish government’s response to a 1937 rebellion in the predominantly Alevi city of Tunceli, then known as Dersim, as an example of fighting terrorism. Forty-three civil society organizations in the eastern province of Diyarbakır made a joint statement calling on Öymen to resign.
Nov. 15 Sunday
Four children and their grandmother died as a result of carbon monoxide poisoning from a leak in a coal-burning stove in the Ümraniye district of İstanbul.
Ankara firmly rejected recent news reports which suggested the existence of an agreement between France and Turkey that would establish an alternative to the latter’s European Union membership prospects and it presented the Turkey-France bilateral relations as “free” of the issue of Turkey’s EU membership. “Turkey considers its bilateral relations with its friend and ally France as a whole, not solely connected to one issue. Turkey’s accession process to the EU is, without a doubt, one of the most important elements of these relations,” said a statement released by the Foreign Ministry.
Turkey’s strong desire to end the decades-old Cyprus conflict does not mean it will accept a resolution at any price, Turkey’s Deputy Prime Minister Cemil Çiçek said, warning that nobody should force Turkey to make a choice between its own EU aspirations and its support of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus’ (KKTC) right to exist. In a speech delivered at a ceremony held in Lefkoşa marking the 26th anniversary of the KKTC’s declaration of independence, Çiçek reiterated Ankara’s support for the ongoing United Nations-led reunification negotiations between Greek and Turkish Cypriot leaders.
Nov. 16 Monday
A coalition known as 70 Million Steps Against Coups staged a demonstration in İzmir to demand the trial of all junta members in the Turkish military. Making a statement on behalf of the coalition, Mualla Damarsardı criticized the release of Col. Dursun Çiçek last Friday while demanding the trial of all junta members in the armed forces. Çiçek’s signature appears on a military plot to destroy the government.
Health centers started vaccinating people in high-risk groups in the second round of the vaccination campaign against H1N1 influenza, popularly known as swine flu. Individuals suffering from chronic diseases and children under the age of 5 were eligible to receive swine flu shots.
The İstanbul Metropolitan Municipality Transportation Coordination Center (UKOME) raised the prices of Metrobus tickets by 33 percent. Full fare Metrobus tickets now cost TL 2 instead of TL 1.50, while discounted fare tickets rose from TL 0.85 to TL 1.
A CD recently sent to prosecutors conducting a probe into a criminal organization by an anonymous military officer revealed that the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) planned to make a film to end the anti-Islam image of the military. The TSK also detailed a plan to destroy the image and undermine the credibility of the Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation (TESEV) and the Human Rights Association (İHD).
A third letter mailed to civilian prosecutors in İstanbul by a military officer revealed that the TSK had devised more plans to destroy the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government and reshape the society. The officer, who refused to disclose his identity, sent a CD with his letter which included 590 files containing of confidential military documents. In his letter, the officer defined himself as “among a team that examined computers at the Information Support Unit [of the General Staff] as part of a military investigation launched into a military plot of Col. Dursun Çiçek.”
The mayoral election in Yusufça, a town in Burdur’s Gölhisar district, resulted in victory for Yılmaz Akkaş, the AK Party candidate, who received 587 of 1,310 votes and took up the post for the third time.
Turkey’s budget deficit in the January-October period soared to TL 43.23 billion, running up a TL 2.42 billion deficit in October alone, an enormous increase compared to the same month last year, the latest data showed. According to a report released by the Finance Ministry covering budget deficit figures for the month of October along with the January-October period, the state spent TL 21.43 billion in October 2009, while its revenues amounted to TL 19.1 billion.
The consumer confidence index for October, released by the Turkish Statistics Institute (TurkStat), was 80.46, a decrease of 1.76 percent compared to September. The index, which is calculated by conducting computer-based “Consumer Tendency Surveys” with individuals above the age of 15 who at the time of the survey are participating in the economy, is carried out on a monthly basis by TurkStat in cooperation with the Central Bank of Turkey.
Contrary to the signs of economic recovery taking place in the markets, Turkey’s unemployment rate increased to 13.4 percent in August, representing a 0.6 percentage point rise over the previous month along with a 3.2 percentage point rise over August 2008. According to the latest Household Labor Survey, released by the Turkish Statistics Institute (TurkStat), the number of unemployed in Turkey increased by 927,000 in August over the same month of 2008 and reached 3.43 million, representing a 3.2 percent increase.
Nov. 17 Tuesday
Health Minister Recep Akdağ said the risk of H1N1 infection is relatively high in extended families when compared to nuclear families and added that two of his children have been diagnosed with swine flu. “My children were infected with H1N1 before they were vaccinated. Members of my family will be vaccinated when the public vaccination campaign begins. In extended families such as ours, the risk of swine flu is high,” Akdağ said at a press conference held at the Ministry of Health to inform the public about the H1N1 virus.
Backed by his visiting Italian counterpart, Giorgio Napolitano, President Abdullah Gül called on the EU to keep its membership promises to Turkey. Asking EU leaders to honor their signatures on a December 2004 EU summit decision which gave the go-ahead for opening membership negotiations with Turkey in October 2005, Gül said: “There is no legal ground for creating problems out of the blue now. Europe destroyed the Berlin Wall 20 years ago. Will it now build new Berlin walls? This is openly a lack of vision.” Gül said the 2004 decision was “no joke,” adding that “there was a unanimous decision to open talks after lengthy debates. Honoring promises is a main principle of law, and it is binding on all.”
The leader of the terrorist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), Abdullah Öcalan, who has been serving a life sentence in solitary confinement on an island in the Marmara Sea since his capture in Kenya in 1999, will no longer be the sole inmate of the prison after five new convicts were transferred to the prison complex on İmralı Island.
Nov. 18 Wednesday
Although Justice Minister Sadullah Ergin dismissed claims on Tuesday about the alleged wiretapping of members of the judiciary, lawyers from the İstanbul Bar Association held a demonstration in protest of the alleged wiretapping in a scene reminiscent of similar protests held during the Feb. 28, 1997, postmodern coup.
Robert Mueller, the director of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), had talks with several senior Turkish officials during a one-day visit to Ankara. Mueller met with Deputy Prime Minister Cemil Çiçek, Justice Minister Ergin and Oğuz Kağan Köksal, the head of the Security General Directorate. Officials at the US Embassy in Ankara contacted by Today’s Zaman said the visit was part of “regular contact” between the two countries.
Nov. 19 Thursday
The Cumhuriyet daily’s Ankara representative, Mustafa Balbay, who is accused of “inciting the people to armed revolt against the government” as a member of Ergenekon -- a clandestine network accused of plotting to overthrow the government -- denied all charges directed against him. Giving his defense testimony to the judges of the İstanbul 13th High Criminal Court, which is hearing the Ergenekon trial, Balbay said the indictment was riddled with inconsistencies. He said, “I deny all accusations. I haven’t incited people to revolt unarmed, let alone inciting them to an armed revolt.”
Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu represented Turkey at a ceremony in Kabul where Afghan President Hamid Karzai was sworn in for a second term, after being returned to power despite a fraud-tainted poll in which more than a quarter of votes for Karzai were declared invalid.
An anti-democratic group within the Naval Forces Command planned to destroy the AK Party by assassinating prominent non-Muslim figures in Turkey and placing the blame for the killings on the party, the Taraf daily reported in its lead story. The plan was detailed in a CD seized in the office of retired Maj. Levent Bektaş, who was arrested in April for suspected links to a large cache of munitions unearthed during excavations on land owned by the İstek Foundation in İstanbul’s Poyrazköy district. That discovery came as part of the investigation into Ergenekon.
Nov. 20 Friday
Foreign Minister Davutoğlu was in Iran’s northwestern city of Tabriz where he had talks with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad amid mixed signals from world powers and an apparent new deadlock on efforts to allay Western concerns about Tehran’s nuclear program.
A group of eight soldiers gave testimony at the Beşiktaş courthouse in Istanbul as part of a probe into munitions unearthed in İstanbul’s Poyrazköy district in April.
Interior Minister Beşir Atalay said the government plans to intensify its efforts to bring more than half of those in the Makhmour refugee camp, located in northern Iraq and where most of the terrorist PKK members are located, back to Turkey as part of the government’s democratic initiative to settle the Kurdish issue. Atalay, the coordinator of the AK Party government’s democratic initiative, responded to questions on the issue by Turkish journalists following the First Global Ministerial Conference on Road Safety in Moscow.
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