Aravot.am asked Ruben Safrastyan, Director of the Institute of Oriental Studies, to talk about the coup attempt in Turkey. The Turkologist believes that we must consider the fact that Turkey has appeared in a deep crisis. “Erdoğan’s foreign policy failures are quite obvious, Turkey has fallen into isolation. It is facing a verge of pretty heavy geopolitical defeat, therefore it initiated steps to normalize its relations with Israel and Russia. The polarization of the society inside the country has been intensified, and it is associated not only with the escalation of the Kurdish movement, which is always underway, and the authorities are unable to prevent. There is also polarization of values inside the country: various public circles profess different values, for example, a large part of the population that voted for Erdoğan, they share his approaches associated with the Islamization of the country, however, there are still forces in the society who continue the Kemalist approach about the state. This was the polarization of the society and to be honest, it was observed in recent months that the army is expressing discontent over the failure of Erdoğan’s policy. It was felt that the army is trying to regain the reputation, the strength that it had before Erdoğan. I was expecting that the army would intensify and later but it happened earlier and we saw that the army is not united too,” – he said. Ruben Safrastyan, addressing Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s actions, said that he does not think that the rumors about his movements are true, “I do not think that he intended to leave the country. It is not excluded that such rumors were disseminated specifically so that the soldiers who are mounting a coup will receive the disinformation. Because it is known that the hotel where he was resting at the coast, in fact, a helicopter was sent there and paratroopers had landed to be able to arrest Erdoğan but Erdoğan had left the hotel 15 minutes ago. In other words, the likelihood was high to arrest him. This was the reason why Erdoğan’s supporters were concerned about.” The Turkologist stressed that the posture of the commander of the first army was very important, which failed to defend the coup attempt.
According to him, it is no coincidence that the commander of the first army Ümit Dünda has been appointed Turkey’s Acting Chief of General Staff of the Armed Forces, “Now, Turkey will be different. I think that the consequences of this coup attempt, although it seems to be unsuccessful, will be felt for a long time. On the one hand, we saw that the army was not united. It was an unprecedented thing for Turkey, no such thing had happened. Before that when a coup was mounted, in essence, the army was acting like one united structure, this time, it was not the case. On the other hand, we saw that there is a polarization in Turkish society, and it will grow gradually. Now, I would describe it as Erdoğan’s success but this is a tactical victory. Like last year, he managed to win the double elections. This is a tactical victory because this polarization in the Turkish society is increasingly growing, it has so intensified that it extends over the army. Hence, I think that Turkey enters the most difficult phase in its modern history, until now, the Republic of Turkey did not have such a difficult period in its history, it was more united, while now, it has a highly split society.”
Ami CHICHAKYAN
