obligatory military service time would be decreased.

The announcement declared on the TSK’s official Internet site stated that by reducing the military service time, number of the soldiers would be decreased by 17 percent, 85,000 soldiers. This development will also contribute to Turkey’s EU process in a way that already having the largest army in the Europe Turkey will be decreasing number of the soldiers from 520,000 to 430,000. Criticizing the size of the Turkish army until now, EU countries also wanted the defense expenses to be decreased. In the statement, stressing the Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK-KADEK) threat has been pacified and the military phase of the Iraq operation has mostly been completed, it was said, ‘TSK believes that it is the time to speed up the restructuring cautiously’.

Regarding the development, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that they would evaluate it in the Cabinet Council today.

While underlining the fact that Turkey’s entering a positive security period was influential on the decision, it was noted that cold war period has ended and the PKK terrorist organization has been pacified. TSK said in the statement: ‘within the framework of the conventional threat which was reduced after the disintegration of the Warsaw Pact and the collapse of the Soviet Union, western countries, questioning the armed forces organization, have structured elastic, high in mobility forces. Shrinkage in the forces and the need of specialists required by technology, made these countries to establish a professional army. As a matter of fact, the TSK has constantly kept the restructuring efforts on the agenda. It transformed the force structure based on division-troop principal into brigade-battalion principal, restructuring required by the internal security operation has been successfully accomplished, and it progressed in transition to professional army by founding expert noncommissioned officers in addition to officer and noncommissioned officers.’

In the TSK statement where it was stated PKK-KADEK threat has been pacified, it was also noted Iraq military operation has been completed mostly. Stating the Cyprus and the Aegean issues have not been yet solved politically, it was said: "National and international tasks like; Peace Force, assisting people for natural disasters, participating in the stability operation are still in need of the forces. Within this framework, TSK believes that it is the time to speed up restructuring cautiously. As for the first step of this, it was decided that the proposal to decrease the number of the soldiers by reducing the military service period as of July 15, 2003, would be brought to the government."

Habib Guler / Ankara / TURKEY