Prague, July 24 (CTK) – The involvement of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the attempted coup in Turkey is highly unlikely and there seems to be no way of stopping the extensive purges that started in the country, political analyst Jakub Soka, from the Czech think tank European Values, has told CTK.
Erdogan has managed to strengthen his power thanks to the failed coup.
Soka said he considers the conspiracy theories about Erdogan’s role in the preparation of the coup unfounded. “He fears for his future and position, but I don’t think he would voluntarily turn himself into a bait for a military putsch,” he said about Erdogan.
“The West, the EU or NATO are not capable of limiting the impact of the repression and purges that are coming,” Soka said.
The reactions of the international community to the development in Turkey are restrained, he said. “Unfortunately, I believe that all international organisations will be waiting for the situation to more develop,” he said.
Soka said bodies of the Turkish state administration might play some role in the events, however. “The Turkish secret services might knew of the coup and decide to let it happen so that they could profit from it somehow,” he said.
He said the coup seemed organised by military representatives who wanted to overthrow the government because of their own power interests.
“For many of them the motivation was to get rid of President Erdogan, for part of them it might be the protection of secularism that was really destructed in Turkey,” Soka said.
In reaction to the attempted coup, many army officers and judges were arrested and dismissed, universities were closed and a state of emergency was declared, which gives Erdogan the power to rule through presidential decrees.
Military coups in Turkey in 1960, 1971 and 1980 were accompanied by extensive purges as well, Soka said.
“Erdogan will further seek to introduce a presidential regime, although he already has powers of a dictator thanks to the introduction of the state of emergency,” he said.
The future developments in Turkey are likely to be similar to the Czechoslovak normalisation period in the 1970s that followed the suppression of the 1968 Prague Spring reform movement by the military intervention of the Warsaw Pact troops, Soka said.
He said does not expect any brutal violence to be applied in Turkey.
