Turkish politics triumphs over military

In Turkey, the chief of general staff Işık Koşaner and three other top generals resigned on Friday in protest at the jailing of 250 officers who are accused of conspiring against Tayyip Erdoğans' government. The departure of the military chiefs represents a long overdue victory of the political leaders over the military, writes the left-liberal daily Der Standard: "For Turkish democracy the resignation is ... good news. It confirms for the first time something that had not been the case in Turkey for decades: the primacy of politics over the military, of elected representatives over the representatives of the barracks. Reforming the Turkish army from top to bottom would be the key to solving some of the country's fundamental problems: the misconceived alliance between army, secularism and democracy; between nationalism and the rejection of minorities; between exaggerated patriotism and ultimately a sense of inferiority. Neither Koşaner and his generals, who have made a sensation of their early retirement, nor the bulk of the leading officers seem to have understood the necessity of such a major reform."

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