Crisis in Turkish democracy
Demirel, the government majority in the Grand National Assembly of 1969 dissipated gradually grouped according to general elections as a political group in the circle of his original followers into new political constellations. In 1970, three small right-wing parties, which normally would have cooperated with the government, as the merged party of the National Salvation (Milli Selamet Partisi – MSP), an explicitly Islamic-oriented party, the compromising politically imposed requirements Demirel as the price for their continued support . Some former members left to form the AP AP in 1971 to more right-wing party. Other, more liberal AP members, Demirel unhappy with the concessions to the right, ran from the party and sat as independents.As a result of these shifts, the government lost its parliamentary majority Demirel, and govern in the eyes of his critics, forfeited right to the land. Acts of politically motivated violence and terrorism in frequency and intensity increased. Unrest was fueled in part by economic hardship, the perceptions of social injustice, and the slowness of reform, but protest was increasingly addressed in military and economic ties with Turkey in the west.
Politics and Elections in the 1970s
On 12 March 1971 presented the armed forces chiefs, by army commander General Faruk Gürler directed a memorandum to President Sunay require the installation of a “strong and credible government.” The military leaders warned civilian officials that the military forced to take over the administration of the state again, if a government could be found to stem the violence and implement economic and social reforms, including land reform would be so in the Constitution of 1961. Demirel met on the same day. The incident was described as a “coup” Memorandum “.
After consulting with the other armed forces chiefs and Gürler asked Sunay Nihat Erim, a university professor and CHP center, to a “national unity before-party government” that the support of the major parties would form to win. Erim led the first of a series of weak transitional government cabinets that governed Turkey until the October 1973 elections.
A joint meeting of the Grand National Assembly was convened in March 1973 to choose a successor to President Sunay. Many observers had assumed that Gürler General whose candidacy had the open support of the armed forces without serious resistance would be selected, but Demirel was determined to resist what he saw as dictated by the military. The AP nominated Ariburun Tekin, chairman of the Senate, to oppose Gürler. After seven rounds, and drew Gürler Ariburun. If Sunay’s term ended on 28 March Ariburun, in his capacity as chairman of the Senate was acting president under the Constitution. On 6 April, deputies and senators in the Grand National Assembly elected President Fahri Korutürk on the fifteenth ballot.Significantly, the new president, a seventy-year-old retired admiral who had served as an independent member of the Senate since 1968, was a direct connection to Ataturk, who allegedly gave him the name Korutürk, which means “protecting the Turks.”
In the 1973 elections, increased Ecevit CHP arrested its support of more than 1 million voices calling for redistribution of wealth through taxes and social services, rural development, land reform, continued state control of economic activity and a general amnesty for political prisonersunder martial law. However, hold only 185 seats, the party does not win an absolute majority in the Grand National Assembly. The AP, which saw its vote fall to 30 percent, retained only 149 seats. A large part of his right-wing support was reaffirmed by the MSP and the Democratic Party, which seats eight and forty and forty-five seats or suction. The Republican Party Reliance (RRP), through the merger of the centrist groups, which had earlier seceded from the CHP formed, won thirteen seats. The MHP has three seats.
The main consequence of the elections of 1973 was that the Democratic Party and the MSP, the balance of power in Parliament, instead, and it was unlikely that a coalition could be formed without the participation of one or both of them. The politicians of the Democratic Party strongly annoyed about the warnings at regular intervals up to elected officials, passed by the military leaders but rejected by Demirel on personal and political reasons. The MSP was by Necmettin Erbakan, the leader of the banned Party of New Order had been conducted. The MSP has been regarded as a revival of that party under a new name. The main plank in the MSP platform was the restoration of Islamic law and practice in Turkey. The party sought improved relations with other Muslim countries and less dependence on the West but was also eager anti-communist.Plea for the direct election of the President and the strengthening of the executive, the MSP, while maintaining the right of private property, favored by the liberal economic policies of the AP.
Established in January 1974, Ecevit, the leader of the party of Ataturk, reached a short-lived agreement with Erbakan, the leader of an Islamic revival party in a coalition government to join in which Erbakan would be Deputy Prime Minister Ecevit. In September, the MSP took the coalition. Ecevit was prime minister at the head of a caretaker government while other Korutürk tried in vain to interest in joining the CHP in Demirel with a government of national unity. In November, Sadi Irmak persuaded Korutürk, one older and one independent senator, presided over a non-party government and prepare the country for an early election. Irmak has given the failure of a parliamentary confidence vote, a parliamentary crisis that Turkey has, without a stable, majority-based government for more than a year, during which time economic conditions deteriorate further, Fanning unrest throughout the country. Late in 1974 four of the five-right parties formed in the center of the Grand National Assembly – the AP, MSP, MHP and RRP – an opposition bloc, called the National Front. In March 1975 the National Front party was in the minority coalition government under Prime Minister Demirel. Despite its ineffectiveness, it succeeded in the National Front coalition to fight together for two years, maintaining a slim majority in parliament depends on support from independents.
Trading on the enormous popularity of Ecevit, the CHP in 1977 increased its share of the electoral vote more than 40 percent and remained the strongest party in the Grand National Assembly. However, the 213 seats were won, that it is still not sufficient to form a single party government. The AP also had their performance by the withdrawal of some of the better voices lost to other right-wing parties in 1973, he returned 189 MPs. MSP representation was cut in half, to 24 seats, the Democratic Party and was reduced to one seat. The MHP, but nearly doubled its vote and sixteen elected deputies. Despite their electoral successes, the CHP had to form a government coalition.
Demirel finally collected another right-center government, which link the AP with the MSP and MHP in a coalition that out on a four-seat majority. But creating the incentives that he offered insure the cooperation causing concern within the liberal wing of its own party. Under the agreement, the responsibility for key areas of concern – the public policy, economic and social reform – the three party leaders were divided. Demirel was assigned to internal security, the economy Erbakan and Turkes social affairs, including education. Every driver expects sole authority in his particular field of practice, but the arrangement soon proved unworkable.Meanwhile, a group of coalition partners, the MHP identified, were the main initiators of the growing political violence.
Anger and frustration with the government inefficiency in dealing with the economy and the restoration of law and order led to an erosion of support from liberal deputies AP. On the last day of the year 1977, the Demirel government on a vote of confidence, which hit a dozen deputies AP with the CHP opposition-sided. The party leaders have ruled a “grand coalition,” President Korutürk turned Ecevit lead a new government that was backed by a four-seat parliamentary majority.
The Ecevit government was troubled from the start. Combining the Prime Minister of the trial notice on Civil Liberties with tougher law-and-order measures satisfied no one, least of all the military and the police. In December 1978 the government was forced to declare martial law in thirteen provinces in response to a serious outbreak of sectarian violence. The silence was imposed after martial law temporarily, and in April 1979 the government extended legal restrictions.
Ecevit was in October 1979 after the CHP lost ground in the AP by-elections, and advised President Demirel Korutürk summon to replace him. Demirel, Ecevit rejected subsequent proposal for a “grand coalition” and chose instead along a technocratic government whose members were chosen for their competence rather than their political affiliation. Subsidies to state enterprises were reduced as part of a plan for restructuring, but tries to control the workforce and the wage rationalization has been provided by the unions in a series of strikes in question. Demirel countered by the extension of martial law even more imposing severe curbs on union activity and the restriction of public meeting. Meanwhile, military leaders made no secret of their uneasiness about the growing influence of religious sectarianism was on the policy that I have in hand, against the Constitution.
President Korutürk the seven-year term expired in April 1980. After 100 votes the failure of the joint meeting of the Grand National Assembly to agree on a successor. Korutürk retired on schedule, and the chairman of the Senate, Ihsan Sabri Çaglayangil was installed as President of the Republic. Çaglayangil could do, offer little more than the signature for the adoption of laws.
Conflict and Diplomacy: Cyprus and Beyond
The historical distrust between Turkey and Greece in the 1970s was exacerbated by the development of Cyprus dispute and conflicting claims in the Aegean yet. Problems arising from the relationship between Turkish and Greek-speaking Cypriots on the island was a pattern of confrontation between the two countries during the past decade produced.
In July 1974, the President of Cyprus, Archbishop Makarios III called for the withdrawal of the Greek army officers assigned to National Guard well-founded on the allegation that they used their position to overthrow his government. In response, an anti-Makarios coup Athens, the plans of conspirators successfully carried out the union with Greece developed. In Ankara, Prime Minister Ecevit condemned the coup as a direct threat to the Turkish Cypriot minority. At the United Nations, said the Turkish representatives that his government had determined that Greece was addressed directly to participate in the coup to the annexation of Cyprus in violation of the agreement of 1960, the independence of Turkey, Greece and the UK guaranteed. He stressed that Turkey had to protect a clear responsibility under the agreement, the rights of the Turkish Cypriot community.
Between July 20 and 22, 1974, about 30,000 Turkish troops, supported by air and naval units, were dropped or landed on Cyprus in the Kyrenia area and advanced toward Nicosia, the capital of Cyprus. At the time, a UN-sponsored ceasefire agreement came into force on 22 July, controlled the Turkish troops from the twenty-kilometer long Nicosia Kyrenia Street and occupied territory on both sides of him, in some places thirty kilometers deep into an area that had a large Turkish-Cypriot population.
The Greek government was discredited within days as a result of the Cyprus confusion. Meeting in Geneva on 30 July guarantee took the foreign ministers of the three powers – Turan Günes Turkey, James Callaghan of Britain, and Georgios Mavros represent the new provisional Greek government – the creation of a buffer zone between the two sides on Cyprus, guarded by UN troops. They agreed to meet again in Geneva to work in a week, the conditions for a constitutional government that would be representative of the two communities on the island.
Despite the ceasefire and a UN resolution calling for the gradual reduction of enemy forces in Cyprus, the Turks further reinforcements country. In the week between cease-fire and the first Geneva conference of foreign ministers, she pushed Greek Cypriot troops to the western end of the Kyrenia Range and consolidated their positions around Nicosia. Glafcos Clerides, President of Cyprus, Rauf Denktash and leader of the Turkish Cypriot community, attended the second session of the talks in Geneva, held August 8-14. Denktas rejected the concept of local autonomy within a federal system, through Greece and the Greek-Cypriot authorities favored, instead, proposes the creation of a single autonomous region of Turkey in the northern third of the island, Clerides rejected a proposal to consider. Although Turkey, the Turkish Cypriot demand support for regional autonomy, Günes, speaks for his government, offered an alternative plan that the Turkish Cypriots the same amount of land by the halving of their holdings in the north and the creation of multiple autonomous Turkish enclaves others would place on the island. The plan would have Günes greatly reduced the number of refugees from both communities. Talks failed, however, declined abruptly as Günes an application from Mavros and Clerides for a three-day postponement in order to communicate to the Turkish proposal to their respective governments.
Two hours after the collapse of the talks in Geneva drew to cut off the Turkish forces in Cyprus from the Kyrenia bridgehead north-eastern third of the island. After three days of fighting, Clerides accepted an offer Turkish armistice, that the Turks in control of all areas north of a line on the left, which ran from Lefka in the west to Famagusta in the east. Ecevit decided that this division should form the basis for two autonomous regions within a province. In February 1975 the Turkish Federated State of Cyprus was established in the northern region with Denktas as president. In 1983 this unit was constituted as the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC).So far, only Turkey has granted the official recognition of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.
The division of Cyprus, created about 200,000 refugees from a population of about 600,000.About 10,000 refugees from the Turkish-Cypriot enclaves in the south were flown from northern Cyprus by Turkey of British bases. Greek-Cypriot authorities protested this action and charged that at the same time, the Turks colonize in sending settlers from Anatolia to areas in which the Greek Cypriots had been expropriated.
The relations between Turkey and Greece were strained even before the Cyprus crisis as a result of the ongoing dispute over competing rights in the Aegean region. Tensions after March 1974, when Greek Drills increased oil cut off the island of Thasos. Given the dependence of the two countries on oil imports, this development in the eye focus a number of outstanding regional disputes: the delimitation of the continental shelf for the purpose of establishing seabed mining rights, the extension of territorial waters and airspace and the militarization of the Greek islands off the Turkish coast. A few months earlier, in late 1973, Turkey had granted oil concessions in several Aegean seabed areas, some of which have been subjected to a part of the continental shelf of Greece.
In January 1975, Greece submitted a claim to the International Court of Justice in The Hague for the sole rights to the continental shelf. Greece claims rights from each of the several hundred Greek islands in the Aegean sea, some of them no more than a few miles from the Turkish coast. Greece also tried unilaterally to extend its territorial waters from six nautical miles to twelve nautical miles accepted elsewhere in the world and banned Turkish overflights in those areas. Irmak Prime Minister responded that it was “inconceivable” that Turkey would accept the Aegean calculated as a “Greek lake” and that the Greek claims and alleged militarization of the Greek Aegean conflict with the Lausanne Treaty of 1923 were. Greece, however, remained that it had the primary responsibility for the defense of the Aegean Sea as part of its NATO commitments.
During the summer of 1976, Turkish naval escorts, Greek warships faced if this a Turkish vessel engaged in seismic research challenged the seabed in disputed waters between the Turkish islands Gökçeada (Imroz) and Bozca Ada (Tenedos). For a short time, the war between the two NATO allies, seemed imminent. Although Turkey and Greece subsequently agreed to settle outstanding disputes through negotiations, troop transports and naval alerts were repeated demonstrations the following year. Ecevit and Greek Prime Minister Konstantinos Karamanlis arrived in Switzerland in March 1978 to a mutually acceptable framework for the settlement of their differences to find. Two months later they met again in Washington to discuss matters of bilateral interest. At these meetings the two leaders reaffirmed their mutual desire to find peaceful solutions to their unresolved disputes, but the relations between the two countries remain tense.
In February 1975, the Congress of the United States entered an arms embargo against Turkey on the grounds that U.S. military equipment had been shipped illegally in the Cyprus operation.In June, confirmed that Turkey United States score of projects in Turkey are subject to a “new situation” would, unless negotiations on the future status have been opened. President Gerald Ford asked Congress to reconsider the arms embargo, cited the damage to vital U.S. interests in the eastern Mediterranean would do. Angered by the defeat in Congress the following month, a measure to lift the ban, announced the Turkish government to repeal the 1969 defense cooperation treaty with the United States and put United States investments, particularly communication and monitoring stations under Turkish control. This action, but not only affect the United States combat troops in Turkey, a squadron of aircraft in Incirlik, under NATO command is based.
President Ford signed legislation in October, the partial lifting of the embargo, so that the release of weapons purchased already by Turkey. In 1978, the government of President Jimmy Carter succeeded in persuading Congress end the embargo, although a change of Aid Security Act requires a periodic review of conditions as a prerequisite for the continuation of military assistance. Shortly after Turkey allowed U.S. installations under Turkish control to open again as an entirely new defense cooperation pact was negotiated.
In 1980, United States military aid to Turkey amounted to U.S. $ 250,000,000 and economic aid to approximately $ 200,000,000. The United States also appeared in other countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in pledging emergency credits in an attempt to push Turkey into bankruptcy during the financial crisis of the late 1970s to stop.
The economy: an unsolved problem
The Turkish economy was strong to hurt by the rise in oil prices after 1973. deteriorating conditions in the coming years, reaching the crisis level of 1977. Inflation reached a rate of about 50 percent this year, while unemployment was unofficially estimated at as high as 30 percent of the available workforce. Domestic industries also lost ground in export markets because of rising costs for raw materials and energy. Turkey’s trade deficit reached U.S. $ 4000000000 in 1977, a review of a current account deficit of almost five times levels 1974thBecoming skeptical refused Turkey’s ability to repay existing debt, a number of foreign creditors to extend further loans. As a result, the country was practically foreign exchange to meet its immediate obligations and has won the national bankruptcy, which can be averted only by the central bank intervened confronted by the suspension of payments for imports and forced many, in fact, loans from foreign exporters was.
Under pressure from the International Monetary Fund (IMF – see Glossary), the government announced measures late Demirel as a 10 percent devaluation of the currency and a significant increase of some state-subsidized prices. Until the end of 1977 Turkey had a total foreign debt of more than U.S. $ accumulated 11,000,000,000th The Ecevit government came to power in January 1978 had to be a stabilization program that had essentially approved by the IMF and the OECD. The plan included incentives for foreign investment and further price adjustments to curb domestic demand. An international consortium of six banks together with the restructuring of the Turkish debt, and provided a U.S. $ 500,000,000 loan to the central bank for economic development. Subsidies for state-run enterprises were cut but Ecevit insisted on increasing public spending on employment and regional development, he argued, were the internal for care “peace.”
Despite the stabilization program, another major devaluation of the Turkish lira (for the value of the Turkish lira – see Glossary), and the rescheduling of foreign debt, there was no clear evidence that in 1978 the economic recovery was in progress. In fact, the program imposed asceticism had had the opposite effect to what is intended. imposed due to the efforts to save energy and restrictions on the import of raw materials, industrial production fell. Therefore, delayed increase exports and unemployment. State enterprises recorded losses of approximately $ 2000000000 for the year. Because of a lack of confidence in the government’s stabilization program for new foreign investment to wear.
According to the proposed return to office in November 1979, Demirel a new economic stabilization program, which stresses the first time private sector initiatives. The program, which was drawn in consultation with a consortium of international banks approved by Parliament and Turgut Özal, an economist, was used for the implementation. Some progress has been made, but the government’s attention was diverted by intensified political violence, which claims to mid-1980 twenty or more lives per day.
Challenges to public order
Turkey faced recurring political violence throughout the 1970s. Political parties, especially the extreme right-organized, strong-arm tool for street fighting. Kurdish nationalism and sectarian divisions were also factors. From time to time, especially from 1971 to 1973 and again in December 1978, the incidence of violence and the involvement of a growing number of people led, the imposition of martial law in parts of the country.
Most of the violent groups of the right were evidently secured, directly or indirectly, Turkes and the MHP. The best of them organized, the gray wolves were armed and regularly resorted to terrorist tactics. Other groups – particularly those on the left – with violence in the hope that the response of the state would lead to revolution. Its members attacked politicians and authorities, police, journalists and members of the rival groups. U.S. military personnel stationed in Turkey to attack targets well. Some groups were involved in the violence, identified with the Kurdish nationalist movement.
The Ecevit government first tried to play, the importance of Kurdish separatism and actions, which many Kurds, who support the CHP and they lead to extremist groups who ignore them otherwise could not join to lose. Members of the opposition in the Grand National Assembly, the signs of unrest in the Kurdish regions of Kurdish separatism on enhanced action by the government insisted were inclined to identify. In April 1979, the law of war has been declared, that in some parts of the country last December, had extended to the provinces with a majority Kurdish region.
Estimates vary, but some sources claim that as many as 2,000 people died in political violence in the two-year period 1978/79. The single was the most serious incident in the city of Kahramanmaras in December 1978 when more than 100 people in sectarian conflict between Sunnis and Alevis were killed (see glossary) Muslim. The incident to the imposition of martial law in the province of Kahramanmaras resulted in the same month.
The military has been increasingly uneasy about further criticism of the armed forces in the Grand National Assembly. The apparent inability of successive governments to deal with problems of the economy and led to public policy that many in the military to the conclusion that the Constitution was broken in 1961. Their frustration with the political process was confirmed in September 1980 when the Assembly is not in a position to meet its constitutional responsibility, a new president was elected.
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