Military coup in Turkey July 2016

Military factions in Turkey attempted to seize control of the country Friday night, setting off a furious scramble for power and plunging the crucial NATO member and American ally into chaos in what already was one of the world’s most unstable regions.

Martial law was declared in Turkey, which has been convulsed by military takeovers at least three times in the past half-century. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Islamist president who has dominated politics for more than a decade and sought to exert control on the armed forces, was forced to use his iPhone’s FaceTime app to broadcast messages beseeching the public to resist the coup attempt.

“There is no power higher than the power of the people,” he said in a night of wild confusion and contradictory accounts of who was in control. “Let them do what they will at public squares and airports.”

Mr. Erdogan’s whereabouts was not clear.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/16/world/europe/military-attempts-coup-in-turkey-prime-minister-says.html

This is nuts and terrifying. I have a couple of acquaintances who live in Istanbul, fortunately they have checked in safe on social media during every bout of bombing/riots and now this coup. Obviously their lives are not more important than any other, but you do get that constant feeling of fear when you know people personally who are affected.

This is looking increasingly hairy.

unlike all those coups that go smoothly

The last one went very smoothly.

Seems to be going towards a failed attempt at a coup already? Masses in the streets demonstrations it, footage on Twitter of police arresting soldiers. Calls through mosque's speakers to hit the streets. Hell, even police have called upon people to take it to the streets.

― Le Bateau Ivre

i'm hearing the kurds have denounced the coup attempt. if you can't get the kurds to support an anti-erdogan coup, you probably have overestimated the amount of support you have.

is the gulenite thing a straight smear?

The Kurds are not great fans of the Turkish military tbh.

Gulenists are supposedly stronger in education, press and judiciary than military so it's not all that plausible it's them but there were reports in the papers this morning that the government was planning to move against Gulenists in the army.

i mean literally all i know about gulenism comes straight from a not-recently-updated wikipedia page but that page claims that gulen has particularly strong support among security services who seem to be the ones fighting the coup? but i don't know jack shit about any of this so...

Oof

https://twitter.com/MahirZeynalov/status/754089374678126592

@Rushomancy, the Kurdish HDP has indeed denounced this. Saying democracy cannot be remplaced by something else. But they couldn't really have said anything else, being surpressed for so long and desperately trying to hold on to their place in parliament, which Erdogan is trying to make more difficult for them every day.

You're starting to see EU governments (Estonia, Lithuania so far) and Washington (Kerry statement shortly) reaffirming their commitment to Turkish democracy - which is possibly the strongest sign yet that the coup is not going well.

the mosques have been issuing calls to prayer all night asking people to go out in public.

US pretty clearly waiting to see which way it was going, huh.

Watching live video on MSNBC now. It looks like Ertogan supporters are trying to reclaim the state tv offices and the airport in Istanbul (so Ertogan can fly back), while the Air Force is allegedly bombing in Ankara. 17 police killed as police seem to be supporting Ertogan.

Turkish officers are far more Western friendly than the Justice and Development Party which dominates parliament. I suspect that this coup is viewed with similar favor by moderates as military coups in Pakistan and Egypt, and covertly applauded (and perhaps provoked) by American intelligence.

Now they are saying there were 2 explosions downtown in Ankara and they don't know the cause (pulling back on the Air Force rumor)

"A small clique of the military with F16 airplanes"

physical battle for the Parliament in Ankara

This time, with guns.

http://insider.foxnews.com/sites/insider.foxnews.com/files/turkey_brawl.gif

Ataturk Airport looks incredibly exposed only days after a major terrorist incident - with people streaming in.

a tweet

no footage from Ankara which may mean coup plotters are still in control there

Ertogan supporters are at the airport (and in the middle of the night there, are virtually all male)

Ertogan once shut down certain tv stations, and tonight military are shutting down CNN Turkey

military coup plotters are shutting down the tv

42 dead in Ankara, Ertogan back in Instanbul

1500 soldiers arrested and the Chief Of Staff reportedly freed from hostage takers. Still some stuff going on but it's mostly over as far as I can tell.

It sounds like Ataturk Airport was largely won back from the coup by civilians flooding in and forcing them to leave.

Huge anti-coup protests in Izmir (which is very pro-opposition) and Diyarbakir (which is the biggest Kurdish city in Turkey) as well.

Well, that didn't last too long.

Makes me want to reread Luttwak's book on coups - but my books are still all boxed up. There's something very theatrical about coups - especially because of the strong role media plays. It's vital for the plotters to convince others not to act, while the regime needs to call for assistance. The ideal coup involves everyone being too confused, wavering, or not having time to intervene. The fact that this has come to violence in the way it has implies that it is not going well for the plotters.

It sounds like Ataturk Airport was largely won back from the coup by civilians flooding in and forcing them to leave.

Was watching this on tv. The civilians streamed into the airport with no one really obstructing them. The coup leaders did not "succeed" in getting military to block the airport thoroughly or to shoot at civilians approaching and entering.

Prime Minister Binali Yildirim called the insurrection “a stain in the history of democracy” at a news conference on Saturday in Ankara, the capital. He raised the death toll in the clashes to 265, with 1,440 people wounded, and he said 2,839 military personnel had been detained.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/17/world/europe/turkey-attempted-coup-erdogan.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=span-ab-top-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2016/07/16/fethullah-gulen-the-islamic-scholar-turkey-blames-for-failed-coup/?hpid=hp_rhp-top-table-main_wv-gulen-1122am%3Ahomepage%2Fstory

Almost 6,000 people have been detained since Friday’s attempt to oust Mr Erdogan, including at least 2,840 members of the military and 2,745 judges. The government closed five news websites, signalling a new crackdown on media freedom in an increasingly Islamicised state.

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/presidential-power-grabafter-failed-turkish-coup-qpf6lcp5m

once again proving that if you come at the king you best not miss

Too true. Though a first decent reconstruction claims it could have gone otherwise very easily: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jul/18/military-coup-was-well-planned-and-very-nearly-succeeded-say-turkish-officials?CMP=share_btn_tw

I fear the crackdown on minorities (Kurds and Gulenists but basically anyone who doesn't vote AKP) the most, Erdogan exploiting the failed coup as best as he can to silence and intimidate everyone not on his side.

Interesting note from 2014:

Turkey's secular brain drain

Seems likely to accelerate.

I'm slightly sceptical of arguments based entirely on that kind of anecdotal analysis. I'm not seeing a huge outpouring of skilled migrants to English speaking countries in the stats, though it's possible they are all going to Germany and Austria. What does seem to be happening (and this is anecdotal) is more people moving out of Ankara and towards opposition-centred cities like Izmir.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/07/20/turkey-bans-academics-from-leaving-country-in-unprecedented-crac/

Prime Minister Binali Yildirim called the insurrection “a stain in the history of democracy” at a news conference on Saturday in Ankara

maybe not the biggest stain eh?

The Gulenist influence in education - particularly private schools and higher ed - has been a point of contention for a long time. One of the two main competitors in my sector has been frozen out of state authorisation for ties to an alleged Gulenist university scam. The proportion of teachers suspended is not that huge in the context of a country with hundreds of thousands of people working in education but the apparent move to suspend 15k people at the Ministry of Education is remarkable.

regime apologist on the radio this morning was keen to point out that some of those people might be allowed to go back to work eventually

http://rodrik.typepad.com/dani_rodriks_weblog/2016/07/is-fethullah-g%C3%BClen-behind-turkeys-coup.html

Dani Rodrik, a Professor of Political Economy at Harvard, on the evidence pointing to Gulen. It's not hugely convincing but not completely implausible.

They're after Hakan Sukur now

https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/51107343

He's an uber driver in San Francisco now

This is a coup I can get behind

Niger's state broadcaster has been playing these green-screened military music videos all day, and I gotta say, I think they've really got something here. pic.twitter.com/iHIi4zletP

— Cooper Inveen (@cinveen) July 28, 2023