A Turkish court on Tuesday acquitted more than a hundred retired army generals accused by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of plotting a coup after they signed a letter against Turkey’s possible withdrawal from the Montreux Convention, which regulates passage through the Bosphorus and Dardanelles Straits.
The court said they have all been acquitted of charges of «committing a crime against state security and constitutional order» as it found there was no evidence to support the accusations, Turkish state news agency Anatolia reported.
The investigation was launched by the Public Prosecutor’s Office on April 4, 2021 following the publication of the aforementioned letter, after which in December it proceeded to indict 103 people and ask for charges ranging from three to twelve years in prison. Erdogan himself stressed that the text «contains indications of a coup d’état».
The Montreux Convention, signed in 1936, establishes rules on the passage of warships through the Bosphorus and Dardanelles Straits, which lead to the Mediterranean Sea. However, Erdogan plans to build a new channel in Istanbul to divert traffic, so the former admirals warned of possible negative consequences of this measure.
«We have no intention nor do we seek to abandon the Montreux Convention for now, but in the future there are other options and we may re-evaluate the terms of the Montreux Convention,» Erdogan stressed after the publication of the letter, in which the signatories take the opportunity to vindicate the Army as a defender of constitutional principles, knowing that the Magna Carta establishes Turkey as a secular state, as opposed to the markedly religious orientation that Erdogan is introducing in aspects of the country’s daily life.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
