https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/r...rces-s0ls2bd9n
Recep Tayyip Erdogan seizes control of Turkish special forces
Thousands of elite police divisions charged with counterterror operations are to be taken under President Erdogan’s direct command, further eroding the independence of the security forces in Turkey.
The special police and gendarmerie units have led operations against Kurdish militants in eastern Turkey and northern Syria since 2015, and are armed with sub-machine guns and sniper rifles. They have been under the control of the interior and defence ministries since they were formed in 1982. The gendarmerie, charged with security operations in rural areas, was taken out of the army command structure and brought under the control of the interior ministry under an emergency decree shortly after the failed coup in 2016.
A new order published this morning takes both special forces units under the direct command of the presidency.
Police special forces were on the front line of the government’s fightback against the coup-makers in July 2016, and their headquarters in Ankara were bombed by rogue fighter pilots. Since then their numbers have soared as the government has opened up tens of thousands of new positions. The combined number of police and gendarmerie special forces is expected to reach 50,000 this year, up from 20,000 in 2016......
Before that, however, sources close to the military were expressing concern over the rapid expansion of the special forces and their closeness to Mr Erdogan.
The police special forces recruits are selected from the ranks of the regular police, and are trained by a private military company called Sadat. It is headed by Adnan Tanriverdi, a former Turkish general who was forced into early retirement in the 1990s due to his suspected Islamist sympathies. Mr Tanriverdi was appointed one of Mr Erdogan’s special advisers two weeks after the coup attempt.......
Similar orders have been used to sack 160,000 public sector workers and to round up those suspected of involvement. More than 232,000 people are behind bars in connection with the putsch, most of them in pre-trial detention. Only 50,000 have been formally charged.
Turkey’s mounting instability and crumbling rule of law has
sent the lira into a tailspin a month before key elections,
losing more than a fifth of its value against the pound and the dollar since the start of this year. A fresh slide was prompted last night by a statement from the ratings agency Fitch, who warned of further damage to Turkey’s credit profile due to the “undermining of policy-making credibility”.
Mr Erdogan has repeatedly stated that he will take full control of monetary policy, leading foreign investors to pull out of Turkish bonds and stocks.