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S E C R E T ANKARA 001194 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 07/01/2023 
TAGS: PGOV PHUM TU
SUBJECT: TURKEY: GOVERNMENT COUNTERSTROKE AGAINST DEEP 
STATE -- FORMER GENERALS ARRESTED 
 
REF: A. ANKARA 1170 
     ¶B. ANKARA 1167 
     ¶C. ANKARA 680 
     ¶D. ANKARA 313 
 
Classified By: Pol-Mil Counselor Carl Siebentritt, reasons 1.4 (b,d) 
 
¶1. (C) Summary: On the morning of July 1, Turkish police 
arrested up to 24 individuals associated with the so-called 
"Ergenekon gang," under investigation for conspiring to 
topple the government.  Among those arrested are two retired 
four-star Army generals: Hursit Tolon, former First Army 
Commander, and Sener Eruygur, former Army Chief of Staff, 
later Jandarma Commander, and current president of the 
Ataturkist Thought Association.  These are the most senior 
retired officers arrested for any reason in recent memory and 
bring to 73 the number detained since January in the 
Ergenekon investigation.  In a web site posting prior to the 
arrests, the Turkish General Staff (TGS) strongly denied 
persistent press reports of a military conspiracy to 
undermine the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government. 
 The arrests come on the day the Chief Prosecutor is 
presenting oral arguments in the AKP closure case before the 
Constitutional Court.  They represent a serious escalation in 
the battle between the government and the "deep state" being 
waged through the judiciary and will significantly increase 
political tensions as the AKP closure case heads towards a 
climax.  The true breadth of the Ergenekon conspiracy will 
only become apparent as indictments are unveiled.  End 
summary. 
 
Ergenekon Arrests Include Senior Retired Generals 
--------------------------------------------- ---- 
 
¶2. (U) As many as 24 persons were arrested July 1 in Ankara 
and Istanbul in connection with the on-going "Ergenekon" 
investigation into anti-government activities.  Among the 
detainees were Hursit Tolon, former First Army Commander, and 
Sener Eruygur, former Army Chief of Staff, later Jandarma 
Commander, and current president of the Kemalist Ataturkist 
Thought Association.  The president of the Ankara Chamber of 
Commerce, Sinan Aygun, and chief editor of the daily 
Tercuman, Ufuk Buyukcelebi were also reported detained, as 
was Cumhuriyet's Ankara bureau chief Mustafa Balbay.  In an 
unusual step, the two retired generals were picked up at 
their residences on a military-controlled compound. 
According to press reports, police searched the offices of 
the Ataturkist Thought Association, the Ankara Chamber of 
Commerce, and the Cumhuriyet newspaper's Ankara bureau on the 
morning of July 1 and conducted similar searches in Istanbul 
on the orders of the Istanbul prosecutor.  Today's arrests 
are in addition to up to 49 other persons detained in 
relation to Ergenekon since late 2007. 
 
¶3. (C) Tolon and Eruygur are the most senior military 
officers to have been detained in recent memory.  Eruygur was 
implicated as a coup plotter in the "secret diaries" 
allegedly written by former Naval Forces Commander Admiral 
Ornek and published by the newspaper Nokta in the spring of 
2007 (ref a).  According to Nokta's excerpts from the diary, 
Eruygur was initially involved in planning a coup along with 
the then commanders of the Army, Navy, and Air Force, but the 
plan was opposed by CHOD Hilmi Ozkok.  Nokta was shut down 
after publishing the story.  Eruygur's Ataturkist Thought 
Association was the key organizing force behind a series of 
massive public nationalist, secular rallies around the 
country in the spring of 2007 in the failed effort to 
engender popular opposition to the election of Abdullah Gul 
as president. 
 
¶4. (C) Former TGS lawyer and retired colonel Sadi Cayci, now 
part of the secularist ASAM think tank in Ankara, told us 
that the police must have had warrants to make the arrests 
and search the military residences, and that subsequent 
indictments will shed more light on the strength of the 
government's case against the two generals and the others. 
Cayci characterized the detentions as a show of determination 
by the government that would certainly exacerbate the 
tensions between the "Islamists and the patriots."  He noted 
 that, if the alleged crimes were committed after their 
military service, Tolon and Eruygur would be tried in a 
civilian court. 
 
¶5. (S) Previewing the arrests, a senior Turkish National 
Police (TNP) contact told Embassy LEGATT last week in the 
context of a discussion of the Paksut-Basbug meeting 
controversy (ref b) that the TNP was going to strike back by 
making Ergenekon arrests within the next few days. 
 
¶6. (U) Initial reactions include a denunciation of the 
arrests as "fascism" and political intimidation by the 
opposition Republican People's Party (CHP).  Cumhuriyet's 
Ankara editor complained that earlier Ergenekon suspects have 
been detained for up to ten months without charge. 
Implicitly referring to the secularist defense of judicial 
privilege in the closure case against the AKP, AKP Vice Chair 
Dengir Mir Firat stated that the will of the judiciary should 
be respected.  AKP Diyarbakir MP Abdurahman Kurt denied a 
link between the arrests and the AKP closure case, but 
emphasized Ergenekon and the recent arrests are significant 
because "coup plotters" are being prosecuted for the first 
time.  He noted previous "transformation" efforts in Turkish 
history, such as during President Menderes' term in the 
1950's, provoked a reaction from establishment forces that 
led to a coup.  "The public won't stand for that any more," 
Kurt claimed.  AKP is not challenging the establishment with 
these arrests; it is pursuing democracy, Kurt said.  "Things 
won't happen overnight but today's developments are important 
because coup plotters are being held accountable for the 
first time." 
 
¶7. (C) Meanwhile, there is little information available on 
the substance of the charges likely to be made against the 
Ergenekon arrestees.  Media reports over the past months have 
variously linked Ergenekon suspects to the murder of 
Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, the attack on the 
Danistay judges in May 2006, a bombing aimed at the 
Cumhuriyet daily, and the Article 301 ("insulting 
Turkishness") cases against Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk and 
Elif Safak.  A gag order imposed by an Istanbul court in 
March 2008 has restricted the amount of reliable public 
information available as the government's investigation has 
proceeded. 
 
Military Warns Against Slander Campaign 
--------------------------------------- 
 
¶8. (U) In a seven-paragraph statement posted on its web site 
on June 28, before the arrests, (Embassy translation 
forwarded separately to EUR/SE), the TGS denied persistent 
press reporting that it had developed a comprehensive public 
disinformation plan to undermine the governing AKP.  Calling 
the charges a "slander campaign" which has been conducted for 
an extended time by the media, the TGS predicts that 
"multidimensional and systematic activities" aimed against 
the Armed Forces would continue in the future.  It ominously 
warns that such activities are being closely monitored.  The 
statement denies the existence of an antigovernment 
"Information Support Plan," and dismisses the notion that 
such a document could have been created and published without 
the knowledge and approval of senior officers.  Commentators 
have noted that many of the actions laid out in the plan, 
allegedly leaked to the press by military sources, have 
indeed occurred over the past months. 
 
Comment 
------- 
 
¶9. (C) The Ergenekon arrests, while expected since the 
investigation into the role of former military and prominent 
civilian figures began in early 2008 (ref c), have occurred 
the same day that the Chief Prosecutor is presenting oral 
arguments in the AKP closure case.  Few here see this as a 
coincidence.  The move represents a serious escalation in the 
battle between the government and the "deep state" being 
waged via judicial proxies.  The government is now under 
pressure to demonstrate the strength of the criminal cases 
against the Ergenkon plotters as formal indictments are 
expected to be made public in the coming days. 
 
¶10. (C) The arrests will significantly increase political 
tensions here as the AKP closure case plays out over the 
coming weeks.  While the arrest of prominent journalists 
looks like muzzling of the press, the Tercuman chief editor 
and Cumhuriyet Ankara bureau chief are widely regarded as 
mouthpieces for the alleged military and Kemalist plotters. 
Many of those arrested are virulently anti-AKP and may well 
be engaged in anti-government activities, but how guilty they 
are or complicit in a sustained and serious conspiracy 
against the government will only come clear as the 
indictments are made public. 
 
Visit Ankara's Classified Web Site at 
http://www.intelink.sgov.gov/wiki/Portal:Turk ey 
 
WILSON