Şenol Özbek, a retired lieutenant colonel, has said there is a massive subversive group within the TSK that has vowed to undermine the state and the government.
“This group believes that the state will be ruined because of the Justice and Development Party [AK Party] coming to power. They do not mind if chaos is sparked in society or if people are killed. All they care about is that the government is overthrown. This is a challenge against the state. The state should get rid of all of this,” Özbek remarked.
The plan was exposed during a police raid at the office of retired Maj. Levent Bektaş as part of a probe launched after the discovery of a large arms cache in the Poyrazköy district in April.
Called the Cage Operation Action Plan, it planned to intimidate Turkey’s non-Muslims and assassinate prominent ones in order to increase internal and external pressure on the AK Party, leading to diminishing public support for the party.
“They [the illegal formation within the TSK] is using the authority the state granted them to discredit the national will. They do not comply with state order. Instead, they riot against it,” Özbek added.
İdris Bal, chairman of the Ankara Global Research Center, said the plan was the work of a group that despises the public. “No institution has the right to regard itself as superior to the public or state. All those plans are not acceptable. A group [within the armed forces] is disturbed by the democratic atmosphere in the country. However, there is another group within the military that disagrees with this group. This group trusts democracy and the Turkish nation. Had it not been for this group, we would not have heard about the anti-democratic plans within the military,” Bal stated.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, on the other hand, called on press organs yesterday to be more “sensitive” in their reports on issues that are being probed by prosecutors.
“If an issue has been forwarded to the judiciary, then why would anyone deal with it? It is already being dealt with by the judiciary. We saw in the newspapers yesterday that there is an ongoing campaign. Such campaigns, however, undermine our institutions,” he said. The prime minister was referring to reports that have appeared thus far on the Cage plan.
Jewish artist was horrified by plan
Nino Varon, an artist of Jewish origin who is a resident of İstanbul’s Adalar district, expressed anxiety upon reading about the Cage plan in newspapers. Adalar is home to hundreds of non-Muslim families, some of which have received death threats recently by “unidentified individuals.”
“As a Turkish citizen, I do not want to believe that such a plan exists. I do not know whether it is genuine, but it is appalling to read about it. I do not want to imagine the possibilities. My greatest wish is to save my country from such plans or incidents,” Varon stated, adding that he would continue to live in Turkey no matter what happens.
Turkey’s non-Muslim community is concerned about witnessing another Sept. 6-7 period in Turkey, which started after a newspaper headline said Atatürk’s home in Greece had been bombed by Greek militants in 1955. As revenge, Turkish nationalists attacked the houses and businesses of non-Muslims, destroying 5,300 businesses and houses owned by Greeks, Armenians and Jews.
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