Turkish coup d'état may refer to illegal or constitutional military takeovers or takeover attempts in Turkey. There have been several.
From the founding of the Turkish Republic until 2016, the Turkish military was very involved in Turkish politics. The army was strongly Kemalist and considered one of its roles to be the ultimate guardian of Atatürk's reforms including secularism, and of cooperation with the Western world generally. The Turkish constitutions of 1924, 1961, and 1982 formally specified that the army's role was to protect Turkey against internal as well as external threats. The army was popular and prestigious as the guarantor of the Turkish state and of Turkish multiparty democracy (after its effective establishment following World War II).[1]
Cemal Gürsel, leader of the successful 1960 coup
The army first exercised its reserve power in the 1960 Turkish coup d'état. There had been economic stagnation, a perceived rise in political Islam, and in 1960 unrest and protests against the ruling Democrat Party. Some Army officers, saying they feared further unrest and the decline of Kemalism and democracy, staged a successful coup.[1]
The other successful coup d'états happened in 1971,1980 and 1997.[2]
Damage to the Turkish Parliament building after the failed 2016 coup
Turkey was soon returned to civilian rule, but until the failed 2016 coup the army was effectively not under civilian control, and either governed Turkey directly at times or loomed as a threat to the civilian governments that did. Elements of the army staged or attempted several interventions, either coups or ultimatums backed by threat of a coup, to force the state to act more in accordance with the wishes of the army, or that portion of the army staging the intervention. Each coup or threat has been presented as an intervention to restore democratic order, justice, and national unity. Whether or not each coup or threat, or any of them, was justified is subject to debate.[1]
In 2002, the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) came to power, and party leader Recep Tayyip Erdoğan soon became the strongman of Turkey. As well as being most authoritarian, Erdoğan was more pro-Islamist than any previous leader of the Republic. The first showdown came in 2007 with the E-memorandum, when the army hinted another intervention into civilian politics since the AKP government was not doing its best to uphold republicanism and secularism. Erdoğan and the AKP won the political crisis, and in an alliance with the Gülenist movement, purged the military of secularist officers.
In 2016 the army attempted to overthrow the government, though significantly the putschists were not identified as Kemalist officers (the Turkish government claims that Gülenist elements in the army were the instigators). This failed, and Erdoğan conducted another purge of the armed forces, which are no longer considered an independent force in Turkish politics or a threat to the government, and back under civilian control.[1][3]
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