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The1997 military memorandum (Turkish:28 Şubat, "28 February"; also calledpostmodern darbe, "post-modern coup") inTurkey refers to amemorandum, in which decisions issued by theTurkish military leadership on aNational Security Council meeting on 28 February 1997 resulted in the resignation ofIslamist prime ministerNecmettin Erbakan of theWelfare Party, and the end ofhis coalition government.[1]
As the government was forced out withoutdissolving the parliament or suspending the constitution,[2] the event has been famously labelled a "postmodern coup" by the Turkish admiral Salim Dervişoğlu.[1][3][4] The process after the coup is alleged to have been organised by theWest Working Group, a purported clandestine group within the military.
The operation was planned by generalsİsmail Hakkı Karadayı,Çevik Bir,Teoman Koman,Çetin Doğan, Necdet Timur, and Erol Özkasnak.[5]
In 2012,Hasan Celal Güzel said that GeneralTeoman Koman had approached him in September 1996 with a plan to install him orMesut Yılmaz as prime minister after a planned coup. Güzel declined to get involved,[6][7] and Yılmaz was appointed prime minister after the coup.
On 17 January 1997, during a visit to theTurkish General Staff, PresidentSüleyman Demirel requested a briefing on common military problems.İsmail Hakkı Karadayı,Chief of the General Staff, enumerated 55 items. Demirel said half of them were based on hearsay and encouraged Karadayı to communicate with the government and to soften the memorandum's wording.[8]
On 31 January 1997, protests were arranged by theSincan municipality in Ankara, against Israeli human rights violations that took place in guise of an "Al-Quds night". The building in which the event took place was plastered with posters ofHamas andHezbollah.[9] As a reaction to the demonstration, tanks moved to the streets of Sincan on 4 February. This intervention was later described by Çevik Bir as "a balance adjustment to democracy".
At the National Security Council (MGK) meeting on 28 February 1997, the generals submitted their views on issues regarding secularism and political Islam on Turkey to the government. The MGK made several decisions during this meeting, and Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan from the Welfare Party was forced to sign the decisions,[10] some of which were:
Erbakan was forced to resign as a result of the military memorandum. Although DYP, RP, and BBP declared they should form the new government with the premiership ofTansu Çiller, Demirel appointed ANAP leaderMesut Yılmaz to form the new government. He formed a new coalition government withBülent Ecevit (DSP leader) andHüsamettin Cindoruk (the founder and the leader of DTP, a party founded after 28 February Process by former DYP members) on 30 June 1997. The Welfare Party was closed by theConstitutional Court of Turkey in 1998 for violating the constitution'sseparation of religion and state clause. Erbakan was banned from politics for five years, and former MP members and mayors of RP joined the successorVirtue Party. Istanbul mayorRecep Tayyip Erdoğan from the Virtue Party, was soon afterwards given a prison sentence after he read a nationalist and Islamist poem at a public function where he was present as mayor, and he was banned from politics for five years as well.
In the1999 general elections, the Virtue Party won several seats in the parliament but it was not as successful as the Welfare Party in the 1995 general elections.[11] One of the MP members of the party wasMerve Kavakçı who wore an Islamic headscarf. The Virtue Party was also closed by the Constitutional Court in 2001. Although Erdoğan was still banned from politics, he managed to form theJustice and Development Party (AKP), a reformist party that declared that it would not be a political party with an Islamist axis, as the Welfare Party and the Virtue Party of the ousted Erbakan had been before him. The traditional Islamists who did not favor this route formed theFelicity Party.
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Çevik Bir and 30 other officers from the Army were detained for their roles in this coup in April 2012.[12] In 2018, a Turkish court awarded life sentence to 21 senior military officials for their role in sabotaging the democratic institutions. The court accused former military chief Ismail Hakki Karadayi and his deputy, Cevik Bir of "masterminding" the coup. Sixty-eight individuals were acquitted of involvement.[13] Karadayi filed an appeal against the verdict, but died in 2020 while the process was ongoing. In 2024, Bir, Doğan and five other senior officers were pardoned by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, by then the country's president, on account of ill health and old age.[14]
While the move was ostensibly directed against Erbakan's Islamist party, some have speculated that the coup was actually directed against Erbakan's coalition partner,Tansu Çiller, who was implicated in theSusurluk scandal.[15]
It is alleged that Bülent Orakoğlu of the police intelligence, underHanefi Avcı, learned about the coup plans.[16]
Çevik Bir, one of the generals who planned the process, said "In Turkey we have a marriage of Islam and democracy. (...) The child of this marriage is secularism. Now this child gets sick from time to time. The Turkish Armed Forces is the doctor which saves the child. Depending on how sick the kid is, we administer the necessary medicine to make sure the child recuperates".[17]
Necmettin Erbakan claimed that the process was planned by "Zionists".[18]
In October 2016,Tuncay Özkan claimed that the 28 February process was prepared and organized by theGülen movement.[19]
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