ISTANBUL (Dispatches) – Five generals from the Turkish army have handed in resignations in the wake of a military council meeting earlier this month, opposition newspaper Cumhuriyet says.
The Supreme Military Council (YAS), chaired by President Tayyip Erdogan, convened to discuss promotions, dismissals and placements of the high-ranking military personnel on Aug 1.
The resignations by one major general and four brigadier generals were submitted as a reaction to council decisions which were described by retired military officers as an attempt to make the Turkish army smaller, the unsourced Cumhuriyet report said.
There was no immediate comment from Turkey’s defense ministry.
Among those who have resigned is the commander of the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) division for Syria’s northwestern province of Idlib, Major General Ahmet Ercan Corbac?, as well as another army officer responsible for the Syrian province, independent news site T24 said.
Cobanc? is one of the 127 generals and admirals assigned to new posts after Erdogan signed off on a decree following decisions made at the Supreme Military Council meeting last week.
Lieutenant Generals Recep Ozdemir, Omer Faruk Ozdemir, Ugur Bulend Acarbay and Ertugrul Saglam are the other four who have submitted their resignations, T24 said.
The decree saw that lieutenant generals were appointed as the head of the military’s second and third army commands instead of full generals in addition to the complete absence of lieutenant generals promoted to general and the retirement of generals who have yet to complete their years in service.