The Mysterious Meeting Between Erdoğan and the Turkish Armed Forces Command
Until today, meetings that Hulusi Akar kept hidden from the public before July 15, but were later revealed and needed to be questioned, have been identified.
One of these was Hulusi Akar and Tayyip Erdoğan's visit to Abdullah Gül. Two or three weeks before July 15, on a Saturday around 10:00 PM, Erdoğan and the then Commander of the Turkish Armed Forces, now Minister of National Defense, Hulusi Akar, arrived at Abdullah Gül’s office in Ayazağa, without security and in civilian clothes. Their meeting lasted until around 2:00 AM. (1) (2)
The other meeting took place on July 14 at the Special Forces Command, where the Akar-Fidan meeting lasted until midnight. It was revealed during the trials that a secret 6-hour meeting between Hulusi Akar and Hakan Fidan occurred one day before July 15. (3) In his initial statement, Akar also chose to conceal the meeting he had with Fidan at the headquarters on July 15.
The meeting between Akar and AKP MP Şirin Ünal, which Akar wanted to conceal from the public and remove from official records, also took place on July 15. Once again, the public learned about this meeting not from Akar, but from the testimony of Captain Oktay Felekoğlu, which was included in the indictment. According to his statement, Şirin Ünal arrived at the headquarters before the meeting between National Intelligence Agency (MIT) Undersecretary Hakan Fidan and Commander of the Turkish Armed Forces General Hulusi Akar. (4)
One of the mysterious meetings between the Turkish Armed Forces Command and Erdoğan took place in the first week of June 2016 at a secluded villa in the Aksaz military vacation camp, away from the public eye. This meeting was not included in the official programs of the participants and did not enter any records at all. Let’s get to the details: after the distinguished observer day of the Efes exercise held on May 31, 2016, the Turkish Armed Forces Command delegation,
General Hulusi Akar,
General Salih Zeki Çolak,
General Bülent Bostanoğlu,
General Abidin Ünal,
General Galip Mendi,
Interestingly stayed at the Aksaz camp for two days. During this time, they had a vacation without bringing their spouses along. On the last evening of the vacation, in a remote area of the Aksaz camp, at a place referred to as "the lodge (Köşk)" which was reserved exclusively for generals and suitable for helicopter landings and takeoffs:
Tayyip Erdoğan,
Hulusi Akar,
4 Force Commanders, and a rear admiral held a mysterious meeting that was not previously on their schedules and occurred while they officially appeared to be on vacation, without anyone else being aware of it. The admiral also arrived on the same day for the meeting, which Erdoğan attended by helicopter at Aksaz.
According to the procedures of the Turkish Armed Forces, a special secretary or an adjutant is always present at meetings attended by the force commanders to take notes. At the end of the meeting, they present their notes to the commander. The force commander provides the notes he deems appropriate as directives to the deputy chief of his headquarters. The deputy chief assigns the relevant departments to ensure that the commander’s directives are implemented as orders, instructions, or projects. Interestingly, neither a special secretary nor an adjutant was allowed at this meeting. However, an ordinary rear admiral was present that day.
Who was the rear admiral?
Yes, you guessed it right; that rear admiral was none other than Cihat Yaycı, who was dismissed in 2020 after his service life ended. Additionally, only a few people knew that Erdoğan and Cihat Yaycı attended this highly confidential meeting.
Let’s say the Commander of the Turkish Armed Forces and the force commanders decided on a whim to gather mysteriously to share vacation memories with Erdoğan without informing anyone. It would be very difficult to understand how a rear admiral, who had almost no chance of meeting with a president during his military career, could attend a meeting that even special secretaries and adjutants were not allowed to join, if we had not experienced July 15 and the events that followed.
Sometimes, someone at the rank of General is included in a meeting at the level of force commanders to take notes or coordinate, and at the end of the meeting, orders and directives are issued based on those notes. However, no one was allowed to take notes at this meeting. Interestingly, there are two army generals above Cihat Yaycı: Major General Nevzat Taşdeler, the Deputy Chief of the War Academies, and Lieutenant General Tahir Bekiroğlu, the Commander of the War Academies, who should have been present according to protocol. After all, they are Cihat Yaycı's direct superiors, yet they were also absent from this meeting.
So, who else attends the high-level meetings held by the Turkish Armed Forces Command at other times, such as the Supreme Military Council (YAŞ) meetings, apart from the force commanders? Depending on the nature of the meeting, either the Chief of Operations or the Chief of Personnel will accompany them. The Chief of Personnel attends YAŞ meetings, while the Chief of Operations attends the National Security Council (MGK) meetings. Meeting notes are taken by a special secretary or the relevant generals. Moreover, such high-level important meetings are not held at a vacation camp; after all, it is a military vacation camp. The lodge (Köşk) used by generals at Aksaz was specifically chosen to be out of sight and not draw attention. Additionally, no such meeting has ever been held in this manner after the distinguished observer day in previous years.
Additionally, it is quite interesting that even Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım was not included in this meeting at Aksaz. This indicates why Yıldırım described the July 15 conspiracy as a "project he did not like at all" during the meeting at Anadolu Agency. It seems that Ahmet Davutoğlu was dismissed, likely because he was not included in the July 15 project, and Binali Yıldırım took his place. It appears that Binali Yıldırım was also consistently kept on the sidelines and not significantly involved in the preparations leading up to July 15.
This mysterious meeting at Aksaz stands out as the last general meeting where the main actors were seen together before July 15. It appears that they conducted the final coordination of the preparations they had been making either in pairs or through Hulusi Akar up to that point. Military and civilian actors who prepared so coordinately for July 15 would be able to dispatch a train from Sincan that day, have trucks loaded with sand ready, send jihadists to the bridge, and position snipers as well.
Additionally, when the host of the wedding, Combat Air Forces Commander Lieutenant General Mehmet Şanver, said to Abidin Ünal, “Commander, I sent General Kadıoğlu to Eskişehir to follow the flight ban; if you permit, I will arrange a plane for him,”. Abidin Ünal replied, “Şanver, at this stage, there’s no need for Kadıoğlu to go to Eskişehir; call him back.” As General Şanver indicated, this shows that Abidin Ünal was aware of the situation, highlighting his involvement in the mysterious meetings that took place before July 15.
When you label the bloody theater of July 15, orchestrated by Hulusi Akar and Hakan Fidan under Erdoğan’s directive, as a “PLOT” by entrapping the Force Commanders and the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK), everything falls into place, and you can free yourself from the unanswered questions!
Air Force Colonel (Ret) Yüksel Akkale
Sources
(1) https://www.ahmetdonmez.net/erdogan-gul-ve-akar-15-temmuzdan-once-gece-yarisi-gizlice-ne-gorustu/
(3) https://odatv4.com/hulusi-akar-ve-hakan-fidan-darbeden-bir-gun-once-neredeydi-2702171200.html
(4) https://www.hurriyet.com.tr/gundem/15-temmuz-ziyareti-iddianamede-40440718
