AKP has to listen to the president

Maybe he won’t please anyone and receive criticism from all directions but under these circumstances, he did the best thing.

To tell the truth, the president did what the administration needed to do. Instead of shooting a last minute goal, he considered possible drawbacks.

He pointed at dispersing the concerns of the military. He did not prolong tension. Even though he still had time he acted fast. He decreased the pace of arguments in society.

The most important reasoning in the president’s approval was the necessity to conform to EU criteria. The military stated that the EU had no expectation in this regard but, on the contrary, what the EU insisted on the most was that the military be under inspection of civilians.

This point was on top of the list of criteria to be realized this year. In the end it would have come before us anyway.

In this respect Gül did the right thing. He caused great relief in Brussels for Turkey, which has not done anything in respect to reforms.

Now the question is: Will the AKP administration listen to Gül’s advice or ignore him just like in the case of the headscarf?

Now we need to look into the future.

The only thing that’s for sure is that the CHP will bring this issue before the Constitutional Court.

They will make the final decision. Inconsistency with the Constitution is so variable from person to person that the best thing to do is to wait for the decision of the Constitutional Court.

The other important question is whether or not the AKP will listen to President Gül. Will it make adjustments by taking the military’s suspicion and concerns into consideration?

Or will it ignore them?

The AKP has a criminal record.

When approving the law for the headscarf, the president gave some advice, but the AKP didn’t care. And with this attitude it made a mistake. If they had listened to Gül, there wouldn’t have been any tension or crises.

Let’s see how it will go this time. It doesn’t matter if Bekir Bozdağ of the AKP said they would pay attention to the president’s warning and make necessary adjustments because the final decisions in the AKP are made by Prime Minister Erdoğan.

This means it all depends on words coming out of the prime minister’s mouth. What ever he says will be done. Despite the leaders of the party saying they will do what is necessary, they will wait for Erdoğan’s decision.

If the prime minister intends to continue the tension with the military, then he won’t make any adjustments or, if he does his changes will not satisfy anyone.

I don’t think the prime minister will take it this far.

The prime minister needs to prevent commanders from being pushed around, and the military needs to accept the increasing civil supervision.

There has been enough tension and the message has been delivered.

For the first time in our Republic’s history Erdoğan’s AKP is the first civil administration that showed the courage to put the Turkish Armed Forces under civil supervision. This by itself is an extremely important political decision.

If he is able to take it further with changes that get drawbacks out of the way then his success will be registered.

No government fights with the military and no government should.

And the military has to assimilate this new period and adapt to changing conditions. Just as the government is obligated to prevent commanders from being pushed around, the military is similarly obligated to give up "putting its foot down."