ANKARA, Turkey (AP) – Turkish authorities arrested ten former admirals on Monday after a group of more than 100 retired naval officers issued a statement that government officials related to the history of military coups in Turkey.
The ten retired admirals were arrested as part of an investigation, launched on Sunday by the chief prosecutor in Ankara, on suspicion that they had reached “an agreement with the aim of committing a crime against state security and the ‘constitutional order’. Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency reported.
Anadolu reported that four others were not detained due to their advanced age, but were asked to report to the authorities within three days.
A total of 103 retired admirals signed the declaration declaring their commitment to an international treaty regulating maritime transport across the Bosphorus Strait and the Dardanelles, which link the Mediterranean Sea with the Black Sea. The 14 suspects are believed to have organized the statement.
The statement came amid a debate over whether Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who withdrew Turkey from an international convention to protect women last month, could also pull the country out of the 1936 Montreux Treaty, which regulates the passage through the strait, and other international treaties.
Erdogan’s plan to build an alternative waterway north of Istanbul that would cross the Bosphorus also sparked a debate over the Montreux treaty.
“The fact that the withdrawal of the Montreux Convention opened up for debate in the framework of the talks on the Istanbul Canal and the authority to leave international treaties was a matter of concern,” the retired admirals said in a statement published on the afternoon.
The statement sparked strong condemnation by government and party officials who drew a parallel with the statements that accompanied past military acquisitions in Turkey.
Turkey experienced coups in 1960, 1971 and 1980, and a 1997 military intervention led to the resignation of an Islamist-led coalition government. In 2016, a failed coup resulted in more than 250 deaths.
Anadolu reported that the detainees include Cem Gurdeniz, the name behind Turkey’s controversial “Blue Homeland” doctrine, which claims vast sections of the Mediterranean and the Aegean and their undesirable energy deposits. The concept is at odds with the claims of Greece and Cyprus in the region.
The suspects were detained in their homes in Ankara, Istanbul and Kocaeli, and were to be questioned by the chief prosecutor in the capital.