Erdogan vows to ‘purge’ Turkish military graduates for taking pro-secular oath

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has gone all out at military graduates who took a pro-secular oath during their graduation ceremony, which was apparently against what the Turkish government proposed earlier.

Erdogan is now bent on “purging” those graduates from the military who took this particular oath, he said at a conference for Islamic schools in Kocaeli city on Saturday. 

He described those involved as “opportunists,” and added that an investigation is underway that “the few impertinent individuals responsible will be purged.” The only problem is, that there were not “few” military graduates involved in the incident, but many.

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

Watch the video here.

This video is from August 30, during the graduation ceremony at the Turkish Military Academy, Ankara, where young military leaders can be heard taking oath in the name of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. Ataturk was the founding father of Turkiye who promoted secular values in the country.

Erdogan was also present at the graduation ceremony on Aug 30.

Valedictorian Ebru Eroglu led the 960-strong graduating class in reciting the official military oath about defending Turkey. 

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But video footage from about an hour later shows about 400 of the graduates gathered in a field, raising their swords and chanting “We are the soldiers of Mustafa Kemal” — a reference to the secular founder of modern Turkey.

Eroglu then led the group in the Officer’s Oath, in which they vowed to defend “a secular, democratic Turkey.” This original oath was discontinued from the academy in 2022, under Erdogan’s policies.

Erdogan has tried to make Turkiye overtly religious since his term as President started in 2014. He made many changes in the country to shed off some of the secularist traditions of the original Kemalist republic.

One of the most radical changes under Erdogan’s government was when the Turkish top court declared Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia as a mosque. The top court ruled that the ancient building’s conversion to a museum by modern Turkiye’s founding statesman Ataturk was illegal. The cultural place was opened to the public for prayers two weeks after the ruling in July 2020.

Some pro-government commentators were highly critical of the actions of the military graduates, suggesting it might be a challenge to Erdogan’s government. Others online praised it as a sign that the Turkish military will remain secular regardless of the ruling party.

(With inputs from agencies)