According to Turkish news the coup was plotted by those at AFB Akinc. Most of which are fighter jocks, who are now languishing behind bars. As it is somewhat difficult to get an employment bureau to immediately supply some replacements, the Turkish Air Force must have more than a few machines with empty cockpits. I suppose the Russians are now safe to take a short cut and drop their whizz bangs with impunity.

Conflicting reports from various sources ,so far about as many reports saying they offered Incirlik base to the Russians as reports denying they made that offer.
Someone is trying to run with the Fox and the Hounds, and that usually ends badly. Confused by the conflicting reports is not that hard,but can you imagine how difficult it could be to sort out what happens if a bunker busting weapons cooks off and a bunker starts popping off a few big H's ?
This will make the Turkish missile crisis of 1962 look like a church picnic if someone manages to get the party started.


Keep your iodide pills handy.

Turkish missile crisis of 1963???

Are you referring to the Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962, or something else?

Chronus wrote,

Not a chance in hell that Russia will start violating NATO airspace in this fashion. Why on earth would they even consider such a move? They have everything to lose with the Turks mucking around with the Russian Navy Syrian Express. The Russians desperately need the Syrian Express to continue to flow unhampered.

https://turkishnavy.net/2016/04/30/s...russian-ships/

Whether you call it the Turkish or Cuban missile crisis in 1962 depends on whether you prefer Chess or Checkers.
The first move in the missile crisis of 1962 was made by someone who was on long term heavy doses of painkillers placing missile's in Turkey. Then someone else sailed some missiles right down the middle of the Atlantic in full view. The Crisis ended when the missiles were removed from Turkey. Then the missiles were removed from Cuba.
That is the simple chronology of events ,the rhetoric is much different depending on whether you prefer Pepsi ,Coke ,or Earl Grey Tea while playing checkers or chess.

I've refrained from commenting up until now, but so much detritus has been written about the coup.

There are no halcyon days of secularist military rule in Turkey. The last 'proper' military intervention (previously permitted by the Constitution, written by the Army after the 1960 coup) saw upwards of 500,000 people being detained, thousands tortured and hundreds dying in detention.

Over the last 10 years (partly driven by EU accession criteria) Erdoğan (pronounced Erdo-whan and please, please not erdo - gan) has removed some of the constitutional privileges of the Turkish General Staff. They are still not fully under democratic control (ie they answer, or at least did answer to the President and not the Minister of Defence). Over the last month or two, Erdoğan had set the conditions for a mutiny and the plans were rumbled by the MiT late last week, causing the plotters to bring their half-hearted plans forward.

The TGS is a sclerotic organisation; there is non concept of jointery or Mission Command. The forces are purely configured for territorial defence, although both the Navy and the Army have ambitious - overly ambitious - power projection programmes. There's no effective NCO cadre in the Army, which is comprised of 75% conscript Anatolian peasants (anyone with a bit of money or University education can get out of conscription with ease).

The coup attempt was illegal and a bloody challenge to a democratically elected government (Erdoğan received 49.5% of the vote in a reasonably free and fair election late last year). His voter base have done very well under him; personal incomes have trebled in the last 15 years. We in the West may not like him (and probably favour a secular military-style government) but he is popular and delivers the goods for business and the people.

Incirlik's Turkish Base Cdr was detained last week and has been replaced by an Army Brigadier (and Deputy Hd of Intelligence in the TGS). Operations are continuing but I understand that real life support is limited at the moment. As for the SSA, let's not discuss that. It will never (repeat) never fall out of US control.

The West will need to suck up to Erdoğan - as we need him as a bulwark against irregular migration, ISIS terrorism, you name it. Historically, these events are part of a regular pattern in Turkey over the last 200 years as it struggles between being Occidental or Oriental.

The Western 'white' Turks naturally aspire to a European lifestyle. They are educated, urbane and well-travelled. The Eastern Anatolians (locally referred to as 'Black Turks') have never been served well by the elite of the last 200 years. Erdoğan has given them hope (and cynically invested in them - the dustiest town now has a gleaming hastane (hospital), several new mosques and a new school). There's been extensive infrastructure investment; a month ago during a trip back to Turkey I travelled on the new HST from Istanbul to Ankara. Absolutely brilliant and constructed in record time. The metro in Istanbul is also amazing - modern, clean, efficient and cheap!

As for Erdoğan amd his love-up to Putin - this is out of mutual economic necessity. Turkey and Russia have been to war at least 10 times and it has always ended bad for Turkey (it's all been about control of the Turkish Straits); I just hope that the anti-Academic Erdoğan remembers lessons from history...

Whenurhappy

Nice review and it agrees with my knowledge of the country. And I guess you would agree with me that a lot of people resisted the coup to prevent a and they ended up with a theocratic dictatorship.

And please answer my question on the previous page: the armed forces are humiliated, lost a lot of stuff in important jobs etc. How do you think they are going to react to regain status and self-respect?

I would just like to add a point about how Erdogan is responding to the Gulenist organisation. As told to me this is a very religious society that helps poor kids to get a good education (helps them to cheat in exams too so I am told) and when they get a good job or a position in government or the police or the army then their debt is "called in" and they have to do as they are told and contribute.

They have tried for a long time to get into the army, I am told, and despite its efforts to protect itself they have managed it. I'm not sure if I have this exactly right but I think Erdogan was one of them and used them but now he's frightened of them.

The suggestion here is that the coup wasn't really secular but was organised by Gulenists. I don't quite know what to think but at least some of the people I know think this is believable. So the situation as it is seen by my...er... sources.... is that Erdogan is in the odd position of being a religious man who is forced to remove a highly religious group from the army, judiciary, civil service etc.

Hence at least some of the "urbane, educated, travelled Western" Turks that I know are not all that sorry about the situation. Specifically some have known people who were in the Gulen organisation so it's not theoretical for them - not a pure conspiracy theory.

If they do I hope they cope with the countless barriers we had to cope with our hosts at incirlik. I spent over a year of my life there, comes to something when we (allegedly) had to smuggle ac parts in just to keep jets flying.

Not yet, and not really.

The armed forces have been shaken to the core - the CHoD had a gun held to his head by his own COS; CAS was siezed by his own outer-office staff and guards, at a wedding. The President has announced a sweeping review of the forces (who will probably move under the MOD) and new leadership. Meanwhile the Army and Air Force are engaged in a brutal COIN campaign/civil war in teh SE and troops will feel that they've been let down by their own leaders. I agree, difficult time.

Respectfully disagree, though most of your post strikes a chord with my experience in dealing with the Turkish military.


All the West has to do is put up with him. He's as much a feeder of ISIS as an opponent, see the last few years of petrol movement into Turkey from the ISIS areas. That doesn't happen by accident. In the past ten years they've had their issues with the Syrians, but the Turks have sufficient throw weight that they'll be able to handle Syria for the near future. Turkey's being in the middle between east and west is, as you say, part of being Turkey. IMO, the EU doesn't need Turkey in. Turkey as Turkey suffices. (As I am not in the EU, my opinion makes no difference).

Does NATO need Turkey? No. Absolutely not. The Cold War is over.


There was one time the US really needed Turkey (or a compliant Turkey) which was in the spring 2003 when Rummy's cunning plan to hit Saddam from both ends came a cropper when the Turks simply chose not to support it. While I was disappointed I completely understood why they did that:
(1) they have to live in that neighborhood,
(2) the concern they still have with Kurds in the region).


Is it handy to have Incirlik there as a Joint use base? Sure.
Is it essential? No.


NATO doesn't need Turkey. Turkey needs NATO a lot more for funding, security, and access to high level defense tech. Would someone else provide military technology if there was a parting of ways? In time, perhaps, but their habitual relationship and connections with various NATO states is a current advantage.

I'll accept the position that Turkey in NATO prevent much crap between Turkey and Greece. Old joke from a Dutch colleague: NATO's greatest success has been to prevent a war between Turkey and Greece -- the Cold War was a mild annoyance compared to their never ending bickering. :}

Since there is no way under the Washington Treaty to toss someone out of NATO, and since the democratic nations would rather see the military support civilian leadership, and since there is no compelling reason to change the status quo, then the inertia of what is will remain. It's too much trouble to change, and accrues to nobody any particular advantage.

123 out of about 350 generals in the Turkish Armed Forces,are behind bars. Out of 14 four star generals, career Air Force general Akin Ozturk, who with his 5800hrs chalked up on F-16, F-4, F-5, F-104, F-100, EUROFIGHTER, JAS 39, T-38, T-37, KT-1T, T-33, T-34, T-41, SF-260, G550, G-IV, CIT-VII, CN-235, KC-135, A400M, E-7T, UH-1H, AS-532, T-129 is also behind bars.
Here are some before and after pictures of him. Disturbing, yes. Utterly shameful, yes. Disgraceful, yes.

Ak?n Öztürk iki günde bu hale geldi!

Now I think Lonewolf 50 does have a point about who needs who.

I would think if the US and Europe responded chopped funding and turned the spares taps off for his fleets, be they navy, air, or ground, he would soon have to change his tune.

Or, he'd just sack more of his officers.

Or he'd have other vendors knocking on his door. I'm sure Vlad would love to turn a NATO member into a client.

But then he will have less horfficers left to knock the seven bells out of.

When the US turned off the tap to Egypt after their military coup, who was quick to step in? Yes indeed, that friendly Putin chap...

The French


3.2 billion euros of Egypt-French arms deal financed by loan from Paris: Sisi | Reuters

Tasnim News Agency - Turkish Police Block Access to NATO's Incirlik Air Base

All inputs and outputs to the Incirlik Air Base located in Adana have been closed as Turkish Minister of European Affairs cautions that it is just a "safety inspection" while local newspapers speculate that a second coup attempt may be underway.

Some 7,000 armed police with heavy vehicles surrounded and blocked the Incirlik air base in Adana used by NATO forces, already restricted in the aftermath of a failed coup. Unconfirmed reports say troops were sent to deal with a new coup attempt. According to the Turkish Minister for European Affairs, Omer Celik, this is just a routine "safety inspection." Hurriyet, by contrast, said that anti-terror police received reports of a second attempt by Gulenists to overthrow the Erdogan government, Sputnik reported.

Incirlik Air Base, located in the province of Adana, is a critical NATO base in Turkey. The US maintains 50 to 90 tactical nuclear weapons at the base. Local media has focused on the base after the failed coup in Turkey occurred the night of July 15. Although the main scenes of the events were Istanbul and Ankara, Incirlik was shut down by local authorities shortly after the putsch, and several Turkish soldiers from the base were deemed by Turkish officials to be involved in the overthrow attempt.

The lockdown at Incirlik follows a massive wave of protests on Thursday when pro-Erdogan nationalists took to the streets yelling "death to the US" and called for the immediate closure of the Incirlik base. Security personnel dispersed the protesters before they were able to make it to the base. The massive presence of armed police supported by heavy vehicles calls into question the Turkish government's official line that the lock down at the Incirlik base is merely a "safety inspection."

Turkish European Affairs Minister took to Twitter to once again assert that there was a "general security check" at Incirlik Air Base and that "nothing is wrong" there.

Reminds me of similar protests in Europe in the 70's in other nations.
And in the 80's.
And in the early 00's regarding the Middle East.

It does make me wonder as to how many of these protesters were wearing jeans rather than the baggy pants with extended crotches and drinking cokes instead of raki.

So long as they look fashionable in their selfies, it's all good when it comes to radical chic, or even radical sheik! :}

The Turkish AF was sending a detachment to Australia for Ex Pitch Black, but their name seems to have disappeared off the guest list published last week. I was looking forward to getting some F4 pics !
Does anyone know if they have actually arrived ?

Turkish officer seeks asylum in US: report

A Turkish officer working at NATO’s U.S.-based Allied Command Transformation headquarters is seeking asylum in the country after being recalled in the wake of last month’s failed Turkish coup, Reuters reported. The asylum request, reportedly the first involving a Turkish officer in the U.S. since the country’s army attempted to overthrow President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s government July 15, could further derail the U.S.-Turkey relationship........

US to Turkey: Back off

The Propaganda war is interesting to watch.


If Turkey wants to "kick the US out of Incerlik" (per the article) it will be interesting to see how the nukes are removed from the country. Fun times for all.

TURAF have withdrawn from PITCH BLACK.

Not seen this confirmed elsewhere so unsure on its veracity.

"Turkey signals joint defense plan with Russia - Anadolu Agency"

http://aa.com.tr/en/politics/turkey-...-russia/625918

Vlad will try to lure them out of NATO for sure.

he is sure going to be a bit more tolerant than west for erdogans dictatorial shenanigans

They only have to give one year's notice, per the Washington Treaty. They have the right to leave if they like.

Easier than leaving the EU then -

What - leave NATO and stop being the thorn in everybody's side? Turkey craves, indeed, demands respect. It gets this through being a big player in NATO (in reality, they aren't) as everyone sucks up to them - principally because Geography doesn't change.

Can't wait.

E. is a Mugabe-like fellow. Shouting one minute, sucking up the next. Turks see themselves as cleverly playing the big powers off against each other to their own benefit. For this to work, they can't let any big power think that it has entirely won.

The Speccie - Is Putin and Erdogan’s bromance back on?

Is Putin and Erdogan's bromance back on? | Coffee House

Turkish airmen who fled coup can stay in Greece | World | The Times & The Sunday Times

Two majors and a sergeant who flew a military helicopter into Greece after the botched coup in Turkey and requested asylum will not be extradited, a Greek court has ruled. The decision, which threatens to damage relations with Ankara, almost certainly means that five other Turkish soldiers who were part of the group that landed in northern Greece in July this year will not be returned.

Justice officials said that the tribunal’s decision yesterday was unanimous after the men’s lawyers argued that they faced grave threats to their safety if they were returned to Turkey. The country has arrested 37,000 people and sacked or suspended 100,000 more who were allegedly connected with the coup attempt or the faction behind it. About 265 people died on both sides. The court agreed that Ankara had failed to provide sufficient evidence linking the three to the coup attempt. The surprise decision was greeted with cheers and elation among the Turkish men, including Ahmet Güzel, an air force major stationed at a Nato airbase in Istanbul. In the weeks after they landed in Greece it had appeared likely that they would be sent back.

The sheer scale of the Turkish purge has alarmed Turkey’s allies in Europe and beyond, raising fears that it could be sliding towards authoritarian rule. “This is a historic legal victory,” Stavroula Tomara, the men’s lawyer, said. “Greek justice has proven that it is truly unbiased and Europe can stand proud of defending its human rights record,” she told The Times.

None of the eight Turkish troops — two majors, four captains and two sergeants — has yet been granted political asylum by the Greek authorities. Turkey’s defence minister, Fikri Isik, said after the verdict that Ankara still expected Greece to hand over the fugitives. “Our expectation from the Greek government is to display every kind of effort possible for [the eight] to be returned,” he said. Legal experts said that Turkey could appeal, pushing any final decision into the hands of the Greek justice minister. Three more of the men were due to face a similar extradition hearing today.

Key Nato posts go to pro-Russia hardliners in new Turkish purge | News | The Times & The Sunday Times

Turkey is replacing pro-western military officers in diplomatic and Nato posts in London and across Europe with pro-Russian hardliners, sources have claimed. Their accounts are backed by a leaked email seen by The Times.
The purge comes in the aftermath of a failed coup against President Erdogan over the summer, and raises fears that the ability of the Nato alliance to function is being weakened, which would be a victory for President Putin.

Turkish officers recently dismissed from critical roles within Nato have written to General Curtis Scaparrotti, the alliance’s top commander, warning that “ultra-nationalists” are on the ascendant in Turkey’s military, according to the leaked email. “I and my Turkish colleagues observe a considerable rise of ultra-nationalist, anti-western sentiments within our military and throughout our state departments,” a senior Turkish officer and Nato commander wrote last week. “It is very worrying to witness that some of the newcomers from Turkey to Nato have a radical mindset, some question the values of Nato and even hate western organisations while holding pro-Russia-China-Iran sentiments.” The ousted officer noted the “deliberate attrition of western-minded, egalitarian, secular, politically non-biased, honest and successful officers”, amid growing fears that Turkey’s post-coup purges have wounded Nato at a time when it faces a newly aggressive Russia.

At least two senior officers in the Turkish defence attaché’s office at the embassy in London were ordered back to Turkey after the July coup attempt, according to a former Nato official. Both sought advice from British military counterparts about the possibility of claiming asylum in the UK because they feared arrest if they returned home, the former official said. “They were s*** scared,” he added. It is not known what happened to the officers..........

A shift by Mr Erdogan away from the West and towards Russia and China could damage the effectiveness of Nato, which relies on consensus among all 28 allies to make any decision, the former senior alliance official said. “From a European liberal, democratic perspective the whole country is going backwards and from a Nato perspective the whole country is becoming very unreliable. It’s a problem, a huge problem. It seriously complicates Nato doing anything and getting its act together.”.........

General Scaparrotti, Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, admitted after a meeting of Nato foreign ministers this week that his allied command operations had lost half its strength when 150 Turkish military personnel were purged. His comments prompted a furious reaction in the Turkish press, with some accusing him of supporting Fethullah Gulen, the cleric accused of orchestrating the failed coup.

Nato members send hundreds of officers to fill jobs at the alliance’s headquarters in Brussels and elsewhere in Europe. They serve two or three-year deployments and each officer is vetted by his or her country, meaning that Nato is unable to turn away anyone deemed suitable for service by a member state........

Secular officers feel abandoned by free-world alliance | News | The Times & The Sunday Times

Reduced to hiding at home or meeting in cafés, the Turkish officers purged from their jobs with Nato fear for their future and safety.

Based at the alliance’s headquarters in the Belgian capital or its strategic command in Mons, about 40 were given three days to leave their posts and return to Ankara. Those who did have been arrested; some have disappeared. President Erdogan has referred to them as “terrorist soldiers”. That appeared to make them fair game for Turkey’s MIT intelligence service. Those who remain feel abandoned by the military alliance that many have devoted their lives to as career officers who see themselves as secular and democratic.

It’s not just officers with Nato who have been purged. More than 100 Turkish military attachés in embassies across the world were placed under investigation this autumn and diplomats were ordered to carry out searches of the homes of purged attachés in Europe’s capitals. Thirteen military attachés were recalled to Ankara and told they would receive new postings as part of a post-coup shake-up of Turkey’s diplomatic corps. Three went back, from Rome, Cairo and Paris, and were invited to meetings in the ministry. When they arrived, police were waiting and arrests were made. Many of the ten remaining attachés are said to be claiming asylum.

In a farewell speech in Mons this week, one air force officer made a desperate plea. “Nato is supposed to be the alliance of the free world. Nato needs to take a stand, not only when appalling things happen on its borders, like in Ukraine or Syria, but also when they happen within the organisation,” he said.

Last week Nato sent letters to military staff asking them to return their diplomatic identification documents, leaving them the choice of trying to find work in Belgium, claiming asylum or returning to be imprisoned in Turkey.

All the officers have been repeatedly security vetted for sensitive military posts. “They know everything about us,” said a former major. “The idea we are Gulenist plotters is ridiculous.”

Earlier this week, General Curtis Scaparrotti, Nato’s supreme allied commander in Europe, was asked if he had suspicions that any of the officers were involved with the coup. “No,” he replied crisply. “These officers served well here in Nato.”

Purged Turkish officers seek asylum | World | The Times & The Sunday Times

More than three dozen high-ranking Turkish military officers have applied for asylum in Germany after being suspended from their duties since the failed military coup. The officers, who were all in Nato posts, were recalled to Turkey after the revolt on July 15.

Ankara has accused followers of the charismatic imam Fethullah Gulen, who lives in exile in the US, of orchestrating the coup by infiltrating the military over three decades. Mr Gulen has denied involvement. Those targeted appear to have extended far beyond the small group of Gulenists within the military to include secularists and any other officers not loyal to President Erdogan. The purge of the military has decimated Turkey’s personnel at Nato bases across Europe, with hundreds of officers working in the alliance’s command structures sacked or recalled, and arrested if they return home. Some of those caught up in the crackdown have warned that vacant Nato positions are being filled by Turkish officers who harbour anti-western, pro-Russian sentiments.

The Times has learnt that wives of military officers are also being arrested and imprisoned, apparently in an attempt to pressure their husbands into signing confessions that they were part of the coup attempt. Forty-one wives are in jail in Turkey, including one who is suffering from cancer. They are accused of paying a Gulenist-linked corruption ring for the answers to the entrance exam for government employment.

However, other wives, whose husbands were on Nato attachments at the time of the coup and have avoided arrest by not returning to Turkey, said that the payments were linked to a support fund set up for the widow of an officer killed in a battle with Kurdish PKK militants in 2015. The accusation that the payments were for the exam answers is, they say, a cover for their arrests. “I took this exam in 2010 and I started my job in the following year,” the wife of a naval officer said. “I wasn’t under any suspicion about this exam . . . But right after July 15 my husband was suspended from his duty, all because of the exam that I had taken.”

An EU intelligence report seen by The Times this month said that all the targets of the purge had been determined by Turkish intelligence services before July 15. Some 43,000 people are remanded in custody and 123,000 have been sacked over allegations of a connection with the attempted coup.