Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus says his government is to overhaul the structure of its intelligence services in a move aimed at preventing future coup attempts.
“The restructuring of intelligence units is on the agenda, just like it was for the armed forces," said Kurtulmus after a cabinet meeting on Monday.
On Sunday, Turkey fired around 1,400 military personnel suspected of having links with US-based opposition cleric Fethullah Gulen, whom Ankara blames for the recent failed coup in the country.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday announced that from now on all military commanders will report directly to the country’s defense minister and that all military academies will be closed.
“We are going to introduce a small constitutional package which, if approved, will bring the National Intelligence Organization (MIT) and chief of staff under the control of the presidency,” Erdogan added.
Kurtulmus noted that the recent changes implemented in the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) were not arbitrarily made and incorporate specific objectives.
“The first perspective of the changes is to make civil authority more powerful and to direct the civil-military relationship. That’s why we have increased the number of civilians on the Supreme Military Council,” he said.
He added that the second objective was aimed at stopping the Armed Forces from being controlled by a single person, and that the third objective was the diversification the Turkish army’s human resource pool, which would make way for a more professional army.
“We realize that there is still a system that creates the basis for coups. Our objective is to bring about such a transparent system that nobody within the TSK or anybody planning to use some elements within the army would even think of staging a coup,” he said.
So far, over 60,000 people in the Turkish military, judiciary, civil services and schools have been detained, dismissed or suspended over suspected Gulen links.
At least 246 people were killed and more than 2,100 others sustained injuries when an army faction, using hijacked helicopters and tanks, clashed with government troops and people on the streets of the capital, Ankara, and the city of Istanbul during the July 15 coup.
Editor's note: This article has been edited from the source material.
