Tuesday, 14 April 2009Chief of General Staff Gen. Ilker Basbug said on Tuesday that there were biased approaches aiming to erode credibility of Turkish Armed Forces (TSK).
Addressing the "Annual Assessment Speech" held in War Academies Command in Istanbul, Gen Basbug focused on structure and assignments of TSK, relations between the civilians and military, democracy, secularism and combat against terrorism.
Gen. Basbug underlined that systematic opposition against TSK would not help improvement of democracy, and added that, "this is not something that can be explained with pluralism. It is wrong to show TSK as an obstruction against improvement of democracy".
Gen. Basbug also said there were malicious propaganda campaigns showing TSK as "anti-religious" to influence particularly the devout segments of the society. "However, the devout segments do not esteem this propaganda and rely on the Turkish army," he noted.
Chief of General Staff said TSK would continue to carry out its assignments being loyal to the fundamental characteristics of the Republic stated in the Constitution.
"Terrorist organization threatens state-nation and unitary state structure and democracy for nearly 30 years. Terrorist organization tried to present terrorism as an ethnic clash but could not succeed in this," Gen. Basbug said.
Gen. Basbug said TSK has never been against religion, "what we oppose is use of religion and religious feelings for political and personal targets and interests." |
Tuesday, 14 April 2009
ISTANBUL (A.A)
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