FPI / February 12, 2025
Analysis by Lt.-Gen. (rtd.) Lazaros Kampouridis, GIS/Defense & Foreign Affairs Bureau Chief, Eastern Mediterranean
The dismissal by early February 2025 of five young Turkish second lieutenants and three senior officers of the Military Academy continues to reverberate and reinforce trends within the Turkish Armed Forces (TAF), highlighting the persistent distrust between President Reçep Tayyip Erdoğan, 70, and “his” troops.
This has become a major factor in analyzing the potential conflict scenarios being painted which could see Turkish forces engaged in direct military conflict against Israel, Greece, Cyprus, and Kurdish populations in Syria.
It also becomes a key factor in the U.S. — and NATO — analyzing Turkey’s position as Ankara itself has been attempting to force Washington into choosing between its two regional anchors, Turkey and Israel.
Within the Turkish Government and Armed Forces, the investigation process and the dismissal decision paint a picture of Erdoğan’s unsuccessful battle to establish an army dedicated only to himself. All this, nine years after the attempted coup of July 15, 2016, and despite the purges of cadres and the appointment of new personnel selection committees.
On August 30, 2024, the swearing-in ceremony of 950 new second-lieutenants took place at the Military Academy of Turkey. After the swearing-in ceremony, some 350 lieutenants reintroduced an informal protocol that had been abolished three years ago and raised their swords and shouted various slogans saying “we are Mustafa Kemal’s soldiers”.
[Mustafa Kemal Atatürk was a Turkish field marshal recognized as the founding father of the Republic of Turkey, serving as its first president from 1923 until his death in 1938. His secular, nationalist reforms modernized Turkey and became known as Kemalism.]Related: Hailed at home as ‘conqueror of Syria,’ Turkey’s Erdogan advances strategic vision, January 24, 2025
After a delay of about five days, the Turkish President, under pressure from extreme Islamist and Eurasianist circles, made statements expressing his annoyance and sending the message that 30 to 50 lieutenants were to be dismissed.
In late January/early February 2025, the Higher Disciplinary Council of the Land Forces met and decided to dismiss the five instigators of the August 2024 incident and three other senior officers of the Military Academy, a colonel, a lieutenant-colonel, and a major. The lieutenant-colonel was of the Special Forces of the General Staff, with distinction in combat in Syria and Iraq.
Kemalist circles, clearly annoyed, tried to prevent the dismissal of the lieutenants who in their testimonies not only did not show any regret but insisted on the correctness of their action by reiterating their loyalty to Mustafa Kemal (“Atatürk”).
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Loyal to Erdogan? No, Turkish officers still uphold Mustafa Kemal (Atatürk) added by Editor Two on
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