Turkey marks five years since failed coup

ANKARA: A radically reshaped Turkey on Thursday marked five years since a failed coup against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan unleashed a sweeping political crackdown and mass arrests.

On a balmy night on July 15, 2016, a rogue faction in the military tried to take over the country, using warplanes and tanks to attack government buildings.

Some 250 people -- in addition to at least 24 plotters -- died and more than 2,000 were injured in the ensuing chaos as Erdogan rallied his supporters out on the street.

“July 15 is the victory of the nation, of the national will and of those who believe in democracy,” Erdogan said during a commemorative ceremony to the victims at the parliament in Ankara.

Since then, the fateful night’s impact has been felt in almost every aspect of Turkish life, including education, the judiciary and the leadership.

The crackdown on alleged coup-plotters, activists, human rights defenders and political opponents has helped Erdogan further cement the control he has amassed over Turkey since rising to power in 2003.

But it has also complicated his relations with traditional Western allies and put a dampener on the foreign investor climate because of concerns about the rule of law.

Less than a year after the coup attempt, Erdogan held a referendum to transform Turkey’s parliamentary democracy into an executive presidency.

He narrowly won and has immense power in his hands, often announcing major decisions in overnight decrees.

“Erdogan has used the coup attempt to consolidate his grip on power,” veteran Turkey analyst Gareth Jenkins said.

July 15 is now a public holiday, and Erdogan called on supporters to come out in numbers at commemorative events across Turkey on Thursday.

Yet this centralisation of power has a political drawback when things go wrong, analysts warn, as they did across the world during the coronavirus pandemic.

“Having this much power also has its downsides: when things go wrong, like the current economic situation, it is harder to deflect the blame,” a Western diplomat told AFP.

Turkey suffers from persistently high inflation and the lira has lost two-thirds of its value against the US dollar since the week of the attempted putsch.

Turkey claims US-based preacher Fethullah Gulen plotted the coup using members of his network in the military.

Gulen denies the charges and insists his Islamic Hizmet movement promotes peace and education.

Washington’s refusal to extradite Gulen has been a constant irritant on relations between the NATO allies.

The post-coup crackdown has also decimated the Turkish military’s ranks.

Defence Minister Hulusi Akar on Tuesday said Turkey has dismissed 23,364 military personnel in the fight against Gulen’s network.

More than 321,000 people have been detained in all since 2016, Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said.

Most have been released, but the scale of the detentions has had a chilling effect on Turkish politics.