Turkey has arrested 10 retired admirals because of its public criticism of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s “crazy” Istanbul canal project, which will create a new waterway from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean, in addition to the existing Bosphorus Strait.
The arrest warrants issued on Monday came a day after a group of 104 former Navy officers signed an open letter warning that the proposed channel could undermine Turkish security by invalidating an 85-year-old international treaty created to prevent militarization of the Black Sea.
The statement criticizing the plan was received with fury by the Turkish authorities, who interpreted it as a direct challenge from the military to the civilian government, “echoing coup times”.
The Turkish military has long seen itself as guarantors of the country’s secular constitution, carrying out three coups between 1960 and 1980. The Erdoğan government also survived a coup attempt in July 2016, which it attributed to followers of the cleric Fethullah Gülen, based on USA. Hundreds of thousands of military personnel, civil servants, lawyers and academics have been fired from their jobs or imprisoned in the past five years on charges of links to the preacher.
“A group of retired soldiers are putting themselves in a ridiculous and miserable position with their statement that echoes the times of military coup,” said presidential spokesman İbrahim Kalın on Twitter.
“O [group] we must know that our esteemed nation and its representatives will never allow this mentality ”, he added.
Erdoğan’s chief press officer, Fahrettin Altun, said: “Not only those who signed, but also those who encourage them will be accountable to justice.”
The chief prosecutor’s office in Ankara has launched an investigation into the testimony, according to the state news agency Anadolu, and four more people suspected of writing the testimony have been called in to report to the police within the next three days.
Istanbul’s proposed canal is the most ambitious of dozens of what Erdoğan calls his “crazy” projects – large-scale infrastructure development projects that defined Turkey’s economic boom during his 18 years in office.
Plans to create a second Bosphorus were drawn up in 2011 and finally approved last month. The 28-mile (45 km) pass will be built west of the natural waterway to facilitate heavy traffic and reduce the risk of accidents in the existing strait.
So far, Turkish authorities have insisted that the 1936 Montreux convention – which opened the Bosphorus to civilian transport below a certain size and to the navies of its Black Sea neighbors – will not apply to the new channel, which means that the Turkey could, in theory, allow its preferred ships – including US warships – to go to the Black Sea, in effect militarizing Russian-dominated waters.
The £ 9.5 billion channel plan was suspended in 2018, when the Turkish lira fell. Its reintroduction has raised concern among critics, who say it will wreak havoc on the environment and that costs are likely to rise.
“Montreux gave Turkey the chance to maintain its neutrality during the second world war. We are of the opinion that it is necessary to avoid any declarations and actions that could cause the Montreux Convention, an important treaty for the survival of Turkey, to be called into question, ”said the statement from retired Navy personnel.
Former admirals are suspected of conspiring against state security and constitutional order, according to the Habertürk news website.