Coup panel hears former minister

ANKARA - Hürriyet Daily News

A member of the coalition government subject to a harsh army-led campaign that forced Turkey’s first Islamist prime minister, the late Necmettin Erbakan, to resign in June 1997 – an event known as the Feb.

28 process – suggested yesterday that the government at the time was unaware of what it actually faced from the beginning.

Named for the harsh Feb. 28 1997 National Security Council (MGK) declaration, the Feb. 28 Process was the largest part of a series of events that eventually led to Erbakan’s resignation.

Turhan Tayan, the defense minister of the coalition government formed between Erbakan’s Welfare Party (RP) and Tansu Çiller’s center-right True Path Party (DYP), known as the Refahyol, was speaking before the Parliament’s Coups and Military Memorandum Commission. “Neither in the Cabinet nor at Parliament, or by the executive members of the political parties, was there any comment arguing that MGK’s [Feb. 28] decisions meant an intervention in democracy,” Tayan said.

The Feb. 28 MGK declaration asked the government to comply with legislation on secularism while giving the government a list of actions to take in regards to the situation.