Turkish Military and Politics

Admirals’ Memo Over Treaty: Another ‘Gift From God’ or Real Threat Against Erdogan?

Former admirals’ public criticism of the government over a new canal project in Istanbul would be a new gift to the Turkish leader whose popularity suffers during the pandemic.

President Erdogan and the Turkish military leadership during a ceremony at Ataturk’s Mausoleum.

At least 103 retired admirals penned down a statement (or memorandum in the military lexicon) to criticize the Turkish government’s intent to build a new canal in Istanbul that would call into question the Montreux Treaty that regulates international shipping through Turkey’s straits that links the Black Sea to the Aegean Sea via the Sea of Marmara. For a country rich with military takeovers of the civilian rule in the past, the admirals’ public demonstration of their displeasure about the state of affairs in Turkey in general, and the canal project in particular, has understandably stirred public controversy.

The statement came after Turkish Parliamentary Spokesman Mustafa Sentop mused the revision of the Montreux Convention by Turkey to finalize the opening of a new waterway in an effort to reduce the shipping traffic through Bosporus that demarcates the Asian continent from Europe. The 1936-signed treaty accrues…