The wise Greek people say "a thousand evils are ahead", a sentence that fits perfectly for what Erdogan is facing, since he is not only facing the terrible problems he is called to face after the deadly earthquakes, but he is also called to face lawsuits from his Kurdish party HDP opposition, both himself and his government's interior and defense ministers.
The lawsuits are about preventing the military from intervening in search and rescue work by the Turkish President in the first critical 24 hours after two deadly earthquakes of more than 7.5 magnitude struck 10 Turkish provinces, literally leveling them.
In fact, according to the claims of the Turkish journalist Memduch Bayraktaroglu, who cites sources of information, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Minister of Culture suggested after the first earthquake of 7.8 magnitude to Erdogan that the Turkish army take action, directly and actively participating in the search and rescue of trapped Turks citizens, under the ruins.
However, the Turkish president categorically refused and therefore the Turkish army did not get involved in the first critical hours, which resulted in an increase in the number of victims.
Why did Erdogan initially denied the involvement of the Turkish army
Various reasons and causes are circulating for this attitude of the Turkish President, the main of which are:
1. Fear of accusing his government and the Disaster and Emergency Management Authority of Turkey (AFAD) of incompetence, which was ultimately not avoided since Erdogan had installed a religious minister at the helm of the said authority, that is, completely unrelated to dealing with natural disasters disasters.
2. That the army would rise in esteem in the eyes of the Turkish people as their savior, as long as it directly interfered with something that Erdogan has been trying since 2016 and then the Turkish President to destabilize.
3. Since the military intervened, Erdogan was then afraid of even a coup against him.
It is recalled that Erdogan more than 10 years ago revoked the EMASYA Plan, according to which the Military Commander of a Prefecture, without requiring political approval, could order the military units under his command to leave their camps in case of emergency, such as that of an earthquake, helping the citizens of the country.
The army is asking for EMASYA to be reinstated
Now the Turkish army is asking to have advance authorization from its government to intervene in cases of natural disasters.
Nevertheless, such is Erdoğan's suspicion and fear of a coup against him, that it is considered very doubtful by us, the restoration of EMASYA in force.
The confirmation of PENTAPOSTAGMA
We as PENTAPOSTAGMA in our previous article had made a disclosure stating:
"On Monday, February 6, 2023, the first day of the earthquake, airplanes and helicopters could not take off due to severe weather, thunderstorms, snowfall and heavy cloud cover covering the whole area, while only Bayraktar AKINCI TİHA risked with the advantage of not manned.
This makes us very curious since the capabilities of warplanes in particular to fly in very adverse weather conditions are known, especially for the F-16s that the Turks have, the American manufacturers report that it flies and can detect targets in all weather conditions conditions.
The fact that Turkish air force planes did not fly due to weather conditions should be evaluated accordingly by the friendly air force.
As a result, Turkey's civil protection operations centers on the first day had little air support and no full picture of the extent of the disaster in order to act in concert.
This is a key reason that apparently caused Erdoğan's discomfort with mobilizing the state apparatus on the first day of the earthquakes."
