Turkish president vows ‘cleansing’ of military graduates who swore oath of secularization

ISTANBUL (AP) — Turkey’s president has sharply criticized military graduates who swore an oath to secularize the army at their graduation ceremony, promising that those responsible would be “purged” from the military.

At a conference for Islamic schools in the northwestern city of Kocaeli on Saturday, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called those involved “opportunists,” adding that an investigation was underway and promising that “the few shameless people responsible will be purged.”

“Whoever they are, it is not possible for them to be part of our military,” Erdogan said.

Erdogan attended the graduation ceremony at the Turkish Military Academy in Ankara on August 30.

Valedictorian Ebru Eroglu led the class’s 960 graduates in reciting the official military oath to defend Turkey. But video footage taken about an hour later shows about 400 of the graduates gathering in a field, raising their swords and chanting “We are the soldiers of Mustafa Kemal” – a reference to the secular founder of modern Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

Eroglu then led the group in taking the officer’s oath, in which they vowed to defend “a secular, democratic Turkey.” This oath was abolished by the academy in 2022.

Under Erdogan, Turkey has become more openly religious and abandoned some of the secular traditions of the original Kemalist republic.

The Turkish military has traditionally seen itself as a guarantor of secularism, which has led to a series of coup attempts. It carried out three takeovers between 1960 and 1980 and overthrew a conservative government in 1997. However, in 2016, an attempt to overthrow Erdogan and his religious-conservative government was foiled and thousands of people were removed from the armed forces, judiciary and other public institutions.

Some pro-government commentators strongly criticized the military graduates’ actions, saying they could pose a challenge to Erdogan’s government. Others praised them online as a sign that the Turkish military would remain secular, independent of the ruling party. Erdogan’s ally Devlet Bahceli, head of the Nationalist Movement Party, later called for an investigation. On Thursday, the Defense Ministry confirmed that an investigation had been launched.

In addition to the controversy, this year’s graduation ceremony was also notable because it was the first time in Turkey’s history that women graduated as the top graduates in all three branches of the military – army, navy and air force.