Turkish Armed Forces in the context of "Ragıp Gümüşpala"

Counter-Guerrilla (Turkish: Kontrgerilla) is a Turkish branch of Operation Gladio, a clandestine stay-behind anti-communist initiative backed by the United States as an expression of the Truman Doctrine. The founding goal of the operation was to erect a stay-behind guerrilla force to undermine a possible Soviet occupation. The goal was soon expanded to subverting communism in Turkey.

The Counter-Guerrilla initially operated out of the Turkish Armed Forces' Tactical Mobilization Group (Turkish: Seferberlik Taktik Kurulu, or STK). In 1967, the STK was renamed to the Special Warfare Department (Turkish: Özel Harp Dairesi, ÖHD). In 1994, the ÖHD became the Special Forces Command (Turkish: Özel Kuvvetler Komutanlığı, ÖKK).

The Government of the Grand National Assembly (Turkish: Büyük Millet Meclisi Hükûmeti), self-identified as the State of Turkey (Türkiye Devleti) or Turkey (Türkiye), commonly known as the Ankara Government (Ankara Hükûmeti), or archaically the Angora Government, was the provisional and revolutionary Turkish government based in Ankara (then known as Angora) during the Turkish War of Independence (1919–1923) and during the final years of the Ottoman Empire. It was led by the Turkish National Movement, as opposed to the crumbling Istanbul government, which was led by the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed VI Vahdeddin.

The provisional government was established on 23 April 1920, after the formal occupation of Istanbul in March 1920, a decision supported by Mehmed VI. A brief civil war between Ankara and Istanbul erupted. The Istanbul government went on to sign the Treaty of Sèvres with the Allied powers, which would have left the Ottoman Empire a colonial satellite of the European powers. During the War of Independence, the Government of the Grand National Assembly amalgamated militia of the Kuva-yi Milliye ("National Forces") into a regular army to fight Greece, Armenia, France, Britain, and Istanbul. After the war, the Ankara Government abolished the Sultanate in November 1922 and the next year proclaimed the Republic of Turkey in October 1923. The Grand National Assembly is today the parliamentary body of Turkey.

The Turkish Land Forces (Turkish: Türk Kara Kuvvetleri) is the main branch of the Turkish Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. The army was formed on 8 November 1920, after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. Significant campaigns since the foundation of the army include suppression of rebellions in Southeast Anatolia and East Anatolia from the 1920s to the present day, combat in the Korean War, the 1974 Turkish invasion of Cyprus and the current Turkish involvement in the Syrian civil war, as well as its NATO alliance against the USSR during the Cold War. The army holds the preeminent place within the armed forces. It is customary for the Chief of the General Staff of the Turkish Armed Forces to have been the Commander of the Turkish Land Forces prior to his appointment as Turkey's senior ranking officer.

Alongside the other two armed services, the Turkish Army has frequently intervened in Turkish politics, a custom that is now regulated to an extent by the reform of the National Security Council. It assumed power for several periods in the latter half of the 20th century. It carried out coups d'état in 1960, 1971, and 1980. Most recently, it maneuvered the removal of an Islamic-oriented prime minister, Necmettin Erbakan, in 1997.

Salih Omurtak (1889 – 23 June 1954) was a Turkish general and the fourth Chief of the General Staff of the Turkish Armed Forces.

The Chief of the General Staff of the Turkish Armed Forces (Turkish: Türk Silahlı Kuvvetleri Genelkurmay Başkanı) is the chief of the General Staff of the Turkish Armed Forces (Turkish: Türk Silahlı Kuvvetleri). He is appointed by the President of Turkey, who is the commander-in-chief. The position dates to the period of the Government of the Grand National Assembly and the Turkish War of Independence. The post has its own rank insignia, which is the OF-9 (full General or Admiral of the Turkish Armed Forces) rank of the Chief of Staff's personal service branch surrounded by laurel wreaths. In practice, the position has always been held by a Turkish Land Forces officer.

The current Chief of the General Staff is General Selçuk Bayraktaroğlu, since 5 August 2025.

The 1960 Turkish coup d'état (Turkish: 27 Mayıs Darbesi), also known as the 27 May Revolution (Turkish: 27 Mayıs İhtilali or 27 Mayıs Devrimi), was the first coup d'état in the Republic of Turkey. It took place on 27 May 1960. The coup was staged by a group of 38 young Turkish military officers, acting outside the military chain of command. The officers were de facto led by Cemal Madanoğlu until the actual coup date. After a threat by Ragıp Gümüşpala that he would move to quell the coup unless it was led by someone with a higher military rank than himself, the officers brought in General Cemal Gürsel as their leader. The coup was carried out against the democratically elected government of the Democrat Party, and ultimately resulted in the execution of its prime minister, Adnan Menderes, alongside two of his ministers, Fatin Rüştü Zorlu and Hasan Polatkan.

The president of Turkey, officially the president of the Republic of Türkiye (Turkish: Türkiye Cumhuriyeti Cumhurbaşkanı), is the head of state and head of government of Turkey. The president directs the executive branch of the national government and is the commander-in-chief of the Turkish military. The president also heads the National Security Council.

The office of the president of Turkey was established with the proclamation of the Republic of Türkiye on 29 October 1923, with the first president and founder being Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. Traditionally, the presidency was mostly a ceremonial position, with real executive authority being exercised by the prime minister of Turkey. However, constitutional amendments approved in the 2017 constitutional referendum abolished the office of prime minister, and vested the presidency with full executive powers, effective upon the 2018 general election. The president is directly elected by eligible Turkish voters for a five-year term.

Since 2016, the government of Turkey has conducted a series of purges, enabled by a state of emergency in reaction to the failed coup attempt on 15 July that year. The purges began with the arrest of Turkish Armed Forces personnel reportedly linked to the coup attempt, but arrests were expanded to include other elements of the Turkish military, civil servants, and private citizens. Later actions reflected a power struggle between secularist and Islamist political elites in Turkey, which affected people who were not active in nor aware of the coup but who the government claimed were connected with the Gülen movement, an opposition group which the government blamed for the coup. Possession of books authored by Gülen was considered valid evidence of such a connection and cause for arrest.

Tens of thousands of public servants and soldiers were purged in the first week following the coup. For example, on 16 July 2016, one day after the coup was foiled, 2,745 judges were dismissed and detained. This was followed by the dismissal, detention or suspension of over 100,000 officials, a figure that had increased to over 110,000 by early November 2016, over 125,000 after the 22 November decree, reaching at least 135,000 with the January decrees, about 160,000 after the suspensions and arrests decree of April 29 and 300,000 by February 2025. Collectively about 10% of Turkey's 2 million public employees were removed as a result of the purges. Purged citizens are prevented from working again for the government, which has led in many cases to destitution.

Kurds have had a long history of discrimination perpetrated against them by the Turkish government. Massacres have periodically occurred against the Kurds since the establishment of the Republic of Turkey in 1923. Among the most significant is the massacre that happened during the Dersim massacre, when 13,000–70,000 civilians were killed by the Turkish Army and 11,818 people were sent into exile. According to McDowall, 40,000 people were killed. The Zilan massacre of 1930 was a massacre of Kurdish residents of Turkey during the Ararat rebellion, in which 5,000 to 47,000 were killed.

The use of Kurdish language, dress, folklore, and names were banned, and the Kurdish-inhabited areas remained under martial law until 1946. In an attempt to deny an existence of a Kurdish ethnicity, the Turkish government categorized Kurds as "Mountain Turks" until the 1980s. The words "Kurds", "Kurdistan", and "Kurdish" were officially banned by the Turkish government. Following the military coup of 1980, the Kurdish language was officially prohibited in public and private life. Many people who spoke, published, or sang in Kurdish were arrested and imprisoned. But even though the ban on speaking in a non Turkish language was lifted in 1991, the Kurdish aim to be recognized as a distinct people than Turkish or to have Kurdish included as a language of instruction, but this was often classified as separatism or support of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). Currently, it is illegal to use the Kurdish language as an instruction language in private and public schools, yet there are schools who defy this ban. The Turkish Government has repeatedly blamed the ones who demanded more Kurdish cultural and educational freedom of terrorism or support for the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).