REVIEW - Turkey Marks 4th Anniversary Of Failed 2016 Coup, Erdogan Vows To Prevent Relapse

MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 15th July, 2020) Four years have passed since a faction of the Turkish military attempted to seize power and were subdued by supporters of the incumbent government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, launching what has now become years-long persecution of dissidence in the country.

On the evening of July 15, 2016, tanks emerged in the streets of the Turkish capital of Ankara, proving correct the crawling rumor that the military had started a coup. The confrontation continued into July 16.

The pro-coup military did not shy away from opening fire and flying jets over big cities. They attacked several government institutions, including the parliament building and the presidential palace, and seized control over nearly all state-run broadcasters. They also seized major airports in Istanbul and Ankara, which caused many Turkey-bound passenger planes to perform a u-turn in the air.

Erdogan made a bet on civilians for confronting the rebel soldiers. He managed to release a video statement with one of the unseized broadcasters where he urged people to take to the streets. Similar statements were issued by the president's supporters from the government and civil law enforcement, making it clear that the police remained on Erdogan's side.

Religious leaders, too, appealed to people from the minarets of mosques, urging them to step in and defend what was Turkey's legitimate government.

Rebel soldiers were subsequently subdued, and even though the confrontation lasted for less than two days, it left at least 250 people killed and more than 2,000 others injured.

The failed coup launched a succession of arrests of individuals and organizations that Ankara believed were implicated in the rebellion.

The Turkish government right away accused Muslim cleric Fetullah Gulen of having orchestrated the coup. A former ally of Erdogan, Gullen is presently self-exiled in the United States with a residence permit. Ankara refers to his supporters as the Fetullah Terrorist Organization (FETO). Erdogan has repeatedly urged Washington to extradite Gullen, while the latter has consistently denied his involvement in the short-lived rebellion.

Tens of thousands of military personnel, civil activists, journalists, teachers, lawyers, clerics and artists have been dismissed and/or arrested over their links to FETO since 2016. Entire media agencies were shut under the same rubric over alleged terrorism-related offenses.

The Turkish government did not lift the coup-related state of emergency until July 2018, as it was initially declared for three months but then renewed seven times. At that point, Erdogan had initiated constitutional amendments that made Turkey a presidential republic and secured himself another presidential term.

"Over the last four years, Turkey shifted to a super-presidential system that has failed to address any of the country's main political challenges and socio-economic problems. Keeping in mind the ruling coalition's defeat in the 2019 local elections, an increasing number of voters are demonstrating their displeasure with the direction that the country is headed," Berk Esen, an assistant professor and vice chair in the Department of International Relations at the Bilkent University in Ankara, told Sputnik.

Additionally, experts have been pointing out that the Turkish government has tried to suppress independent investigations into what happened in 2016 while making no attempt to conduct a thorough and transparent investigation on its own, as Sputnik has learned from Gareth Jenkins, a non-resident senior research fellow with the Joint Center Silk Road Studies Program and Turkey Center at the Institute for Security and Development Policy in Stockholm.

The anniversary of the failed coup has been marked in Turkey annually since 2016 as one of the country's most important public holidays.

Masses of people normally gather at sites where the rebellion's major events took place, and mosques. Top-ranking state officials and religious leaders deliver emotional speeches. Erdogan traditionally puts wreaths at a memorial outside the presidential palace in Ankara.

"It was not an ordinary coup. Big calculations were behind it. The fact that the FETO putchists targeted our parliament was not a coincidence. Our people stood shoulder to shoulder against the traitors. It was a battle of life and death. Had they won, they would have killed the president and cabinet members. But we won and we will never allow for a strike against our democracy by any forces," Erdogan said in this year's address at parliament.

According to the Turkish president, people disregarding the importance of the attempted coup pursue to "defame the glorious pages of Turkey's history."

"There is no question that Turkey has been spared a major disaster by the failure of the coup. Had the coup succeeded, the country would have plunged into a closed autocracy run by an opaque group of figures linked with FETO. However, the coup's failure did not save Turkish democracy either," Esen said.

The expert pointed out that most inner levers and details of the coup remain unknown at this point and are unlikely to become known unless actual witnesses begin to talk freely.