Turkey has detained 10 retired admirals over their public criticism of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s “crazy” Istanbul canal project, which will create a new waterway from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean in addition to the existing Bosphorus strait.
The statement criticizing the plan was met with fury from Turkish officials, who interpreted it as a direct challenge from the military to the civilian government, “echoing coup times”.
The former admirals are suspected of conspiring against state security and constitutional order, as the chief prosecutor’s office in Ankara launched an investigation into their statement.
The statement said that the proposed canal could harm Turkish security by invalidating an 85-year-old international treaty designed to prevent militarization of the Black Sea.
To date, Turkish officials have insisted that the 1936 Montreux convention – which opened the Bosphorus to civilian shipping below a certain size and its Black Sea neighbours’ navies – will not apply to the new canal.
The £9.5bn canal plan was put on hold in 2018 when the Turkish lira crashed. Its reintroduction has prompted concern from critics who say it will wreak environmental havoc and that costs are likely to spiral.
The Turkish military has long seen itself as the guarantor of the country’s secular constitution, staging three coups between 1960 and 1980.
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