Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan convened his cabinet and senior officials on Monday for an unscheduled meeting after a group of retired naval admirals criticized the government’s position on a key international convention to a extent seen as a direct challenge to the Erdogan authority.
Erdogan’s communications director Fahrettin Altun on Sunday accused former admirals of insinuating that the government should be overthrown and said a public prosecutor was beginning an investigation into the incident. The cabinet will meet locally at 3 pm, followed by a meeting with the central executive committee of the AK Parti government at 6 pm
The group of former admirals said in a joint statement on Saturday that it is a wrong government policy to question the future of the so-called Montreux Convention, saying the 1936 treaty is a guarantee of peace in the Black Sea, which borders Turkey. . with Russia and Ukraine.
The admirals issued their statement shortly after Parliament Speaker Mustafa Sentop suggested that Erdogan had the power to withdraw from the treaty if he wished, although he later backed down, saying he was trying to make a point about the president’s powers and not about a certain political agenda. . His comments on the Montreux deal revived Erdogan’s discussion on the Istanbul Canal many-Billions project to build a new strait over Istanbul to bypass the Bosphorus.
The statement of the former admirals “has no other use than to harm democracy and the motivation and morale of the Turkish armed forces,” according to a statement from the Turkish Ministry of Defense. “We believe that the Turkish justice system will take the necessary measures,” the ministry said.
Erdogan says warships can bypass the 1936 treaty with the planned channel
Erdogan’s critics say the canal is an environmental catastrophe and would make Turkey’s largest city uninhabitable. Opposition parties also said the treaty would keep Turkey away from potential conflicts in the future. The Convention limits deployment in the Black Sea to 21 days for non-coastal vessels and prohibits the passage of all aircraft carriers.
(President Erdogan’s decision to hold a meeting was added to the title and the first paragraph.)