Turkish military has said that it would not get involved in the latest political turmoil of the country; Japanese officials in Okinawa approve the long-stalled relocation of a controversial US military base
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    • (DECEMBER -23-29)
    According to reports, the Turkish military has said that it would not get involved in the latest political turmoil of the country. The climate of political uncertainty was sparked by a high-level corruption probe targeting the very core of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government. According to the reports, the Turkish military issues a statement posted on its website which noted, "The Turkish Armed Forces do not want to get involved in political debates." The clarification from the military comes in the backdrop of a newspaper column from a close aide of Prime Minister Erdogan, Yalcin Akdogan, that the corruption scandal could be a setup to trigger a military coup. The military, which sees itself as the guarantor of Turkey's secular principles, has carried out three coups — in 1960, 1971 and 1980, — and pressured an Islamist government to step down in 1997. But since coming to power in 2002, Erdogan's Islamic-leaning Justice and Development Party (AKP) has reined in the once-powerful military with a series of court cases. 1
    In another development, according to reports, Meanwhile, Japanese officials in Okinawa on December 27 approved the long-stalled relocation of a controversial US military base. More than seveteen years after the two allies agreed to move the US Marines' Futenma Air Station from a densely populated urban area, the local government has finally consented to a landfill that will enable new facilities to be built on the coast. The issue has been deadlocked for years, with huge opposition to any new base among Okinawans. Okinawans have opposed playing host to an outsized share of the US military presence in Japan and want it moved off the island altogether. 2

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