Turkey's top national security body to convene Sept. 2

ANKARA

DHA photo

Turkey’s top national security body will hold its next meeting on Sept. 2 when an interim “election government” is expected to be in charge of the country, which has been shaken by conflict between the security forces and outlawed militants.

A regular bimonthly meeting of the National Security council (MGK), which brings together Turkey’s top civilian and military leaders and is chaired by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, will be held on Sept. 2, the state-run Anadolu Agency reported on Aug. 20, noting that the meeting would focus on “domestic and external developments.”

The Sept. 2 meeting of the MGK will be the first meeting to be attended by the new top brass of the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK), which was appointed in early August during a meeting of the Supreme Military Council (YAŞ).

Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu also chaired a meeting early on Aug. 20 during which civil servants presented briefings on the needs of the Armed Forces, as well as ongoing defense industry projects. Newly appointed Chief of General Staff Gen. Hulusi Akar, Defense Minister Vecdi Gönül, Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu and National Intelligence Organization (MİT) Undersecretary Hakan Fidan were present at the meeting, the agency reported.

According to pro-government daily Sabah, Davutoğlu decided to hold the briefing on the morning of Aug. 20 following recent attacks by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

A day before the briefing, gunmen fired on police outside an Istanbul palace and a bomb killed eight soldiers in the southeast, heightening a sense of crisis as Turkey’s leaders struggled to form a new government. 

The TSK announced on Aug. 19 that militants from the PKK had killed eight soldiers with a roadside bomb in the southeastern Anatolian province of Siirt. The killings prompted Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahçeli to call for a declaration of martial law as well as for a review of the prospects for an early election under the current conditions.