President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, accompanied by ministers and top generals, launched a new annual meeting of the Supreme Military Council on Thursday at the Presidential Complex in the capital Ankara. The council decided on new appointments, as well as dismissals, in the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) while the tenure of its commander was also to be discussed.
The council's meeting, held every August, a month associated with victories for the Turkish army, is a closed-door occasion. A much-anticipated meeting in the past, it is now viewed as an ordinary convention in the new Türkiye without military tutelage. Gen. Metin Gürak succeeded Chief of General Staff Musa Avsever, who was appointed to the post after his predecessor Yaşar Güler got a Cabinet post as minister of national defense following Erdoğan's victory in the May 28 presidential runoff.
In a statement after the meeting, the council said 32 generals and admirals were promoted, while 63 colonels were promoted to the rank of general or admiral. Gen. Selçuk Bayraktaroğlu, Second General Chief of Staff, was appointed as the new Ground Forces commander. Gen. Ziya Cemal Kadıoğlu was appointed as the new Air Force commander. Metin Gürak, who was among the key figures in the resistance against the 2016 coup attempt, was assigned to the post of Second Army commander in 2020. His efforts restricted the movement of putschists in Ankara, but he was also kidnapped by putschist officers later. He was released hours later from Akıncı military base controlled by putschists as the coup attempt was quashed.
Per tradition, the participants first visited Anıtkabir, the mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, founder of the Republic of Türkiye and its first commander-in-chief. In Mauseloum's memorial book, Erdoğan said that Türkiye was still a center of attraction despite conflicts and tensions in its region.
"We are making intense efforts in every field to build the 'Century of Türkiye' that we promised our nation and to deliver a more prosperous, more prestigious and peaceful country for the next generations. Our greatest source of strength and confidence in this struggle is our Turkish Armed Forces, which is the apple of our nation's eye with its high sense of duty, deterrence and superior ability. Hopefully, we will strengthen our army with our decisions at our council meeting today," he added.
Apart from Erdoğan, Avsever, and commanders of ground, air and naval forces, the meeting was attended by Vice President Cevdet Yılmaz, Defense Minister Yaşar Güler, Justice Minister Yılmaz Tunç, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya, Treasury and Finance Minister Mehmet Şimşek and Education Minister Yusuf Tekin.
The Turkish army underwent a mass reshuffle in 2016 following the coup attempt in July of that year by military officers linked to the Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ). Indeed, subsequent investigations revealed that FETÖ staged the coup just before the scheduled meeting of the council, which would lead to the dismissals of military figures suspected of links to the terrorist group. This preemptive move, however, failed as an unprecedented public resistance quashed the ambitions of putschists to seize power.