Turkey’s current hostilities with Greece could be linked to 2003 secret military plan, documents reveal
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has resurrected a secret plot from 2003 known as Suga to create a false flag operation to deliberately create tensions with Greece for domestic political goals, Nordic Monitor revealed.
“The activities of the Turkish navy and coast guard that bend the rules of engagement, the nationalist euphoria in the Turkish media’s coverage, hawkish comments made by talking heads on government-controlled TV networks and irresponsible remarks by Turkish leaders mimic the playbook devised in the Suga plan by its creator,” Abdullah Bozkurt wrote on Nordic Monitor. “Interestingly enough, retired naval officer Ramazan Cem Gürdeniz, who was convicted of drafting the insidious and illegal plan to provoke Greece as part of Suga, and his fascist associates have been openly beating the war drums on Turkish television networks these days with open support from the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, raising the specter of clashes between the two NATO allies in the event something goes wrong on the ground.”
The Suga plan was prepared by by Navy Col. Gürdeniz, the then-head of the Naval Forces Command Planning Project Department, on January 10, 2003 and had the goal of deliberately creating a hostile situation with Greece in the Aegean Sea that would bring the two countries to the verge of war. The plan was signed by Navy Commander Adm. Özden Örnek on February 3, 2003 and documents found that the plan was actually put partially into motion.
“When ordered, activities aimed at escalating the crisis will be carried out by taking deterrent and challenging measures in the Aegean and eastern Mediterranean against Greek elements,” the plan stated in its mission task, according to Nordic Monitor.
The documents related to the Suga plan were discovered at a naval base and seized in a police operation on December 6, 2010 on a tip claiming that naval officers were disposing of confidential documents in the Gölcük Naval Command’s intelligence unit after a series of investigations were launched into a renegade group within the military for clandestine and illegal activities. The police found a secret archive that included a large number of documents labeled “confidential” and hard drives hidden in a vault under the floor of the intelligence department. The Suga plan was discovered on a disc drive, numbered five.
To escalate hostilities, Turkey planned to conduct military operations as close to the Greek islands as possible.
“As for the process of shaping the operational environment for the military to make its move after the necessary preparations, the Suga plan included the following recommendations: Conferences, seminars, symposiums, etc., would be organized in the field of maritime law in order to inform the public and draw attention to the Aegean problems between Turkey and Greece; incidents of interventions by Greece in Turkish sea and air transport would be highlighted by using the media to increase the public’s sensitivity to the issue; all kinds of news about Greece and the Aegean Sea would be covered in the media to make people aware of Greece; and tactical training to be carried out in the Aegean Sea would be planned with the participation of a small number of troops, but especially in the South Aegean, where continuous activity would be pursued,” Nordic Monitor revealed.
Turkey today is one of the lowest ranked countries for media freedoms in the world, is the second most susceptible country surveyed on the European continent to fake news, has the most journalists jailed in the whole world, and 90% of media is government controlled.
To escalate tensions, Turkish fishermen were to be used as “pawns” while simultaneously the Turkish coastguard would harass Greek fishermen. In addition, the Turkish navy and helicopters would violate Greek sovereign waters and airspace, and “Greek boats would be monitored by the Turkish coast guard, which would intercept them when necessary.”
These are the same exact tactics that the Erdoğan regime uses today, suggesting that the Suga plan, drawn up in 2003, is currently being used by Turkey to escalate tensions with Greece.
Nordic Monitor concluded that “Gürdeniz, the author of Suga, was forced into retirement in August 2012 after his arrest in February of the same year. He is one of the convicted felons who was released by the Erdoğan government. He has been appearing on pro-government networks these days, preaching a hawkish line and promoting the idea that Turkey should engage militarily with Greece. In the meantime, moves similar to those mentioned in the Suga plan were being made by Turkey, suggesting that Turkey had actually revisited and updated the plan to achieve the political goals pursued by both Erdoğan’s Islamists and his partner neo-nationalists, who jointly run the Turkish military, the police and intelligence services in today’s Turkey.”
Documents of the Suga Plan can be seen here.