DEBATE OVER WHO SHOULD BEAR BURDEN OF ARMS IN TURKEY....

The idea of allowing Turkish men to pay their way out of part of their mandatory military service has resurfaced a decade after such a system was last implemented, prompting debates about fairness, military readiness and political expediency.

A system of partial military service was to be one of the main topics of discussion at a meeting late Friday between the country’s prime minister and its top general.

Supporters say instituting such a system would professionalize and streamline Turkey’s army – while offering an alternative for men who, in order to avoid military duty, have resorted to years as perpetual students, become expats unable to return home or spent a life on the run. Detractors express concerns that it would create a two-tiered society based on who has the means to pay and leave the country more vulnerable to terrorist attack.

“Young people are called to do their military service in their most productive years,” Ihsan Arslan, a deputy from the ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP, said in an interview on private news channel NTV. “The army is spending so much money just feeding them. Instead, we could buy high-technology equipment instead of importing our planes and tanks from other countries.”

Saving money is not the issue for opponents of a paid option, such as Canan Arıtman, a deputy from the Republican People’s Party, or CHP. “Paid military service creates inequality between those who have money and those who don’t,” she told the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review. “I am against such changes when the criteria is based on money.”

Who serves and for how long

Military service in Turkey is mandatory for all male citizens age 20 and older, though the duration of the required duty varies according to education level. Elementary and high school graduates serve 15 months as privates, while university graduates serve six months at the same rank. Men who are continuing their studies at the university level are allowed to delay service until they have completed their higher education.

Turkish citizens who reside abroad can pay between 5,000 and 7,000 euros and do just a 21-day military stint in Burdur, a city in southwestern Turkey, an option often cited by supporters of a broader paid system.

“We think there is already a double standard,” said Hakan Yaman, a sophomore university student who supports the idea of paid military service, told the Daily News. “If those who live abroad risk losing their jobs by doing a long-term military service, so do we.”

Supporters of paid military service have organized a number of Internet campaigns to draw attention to the issue, arguing that such a system would benefit the country economically by allowing more men to stay in their civilian jobs.

According to one of these sites, www.bedelliaskerlik2010.net, some 500,000 men in Turkey have not gone to do their military service even though they are required to do so.

“I started the website with a few friends because I was concerned about my own situation,” Ömer Çetin, the administrator of the website, told the Daily News. “Now we have about 26,000 members, most of who are trying to delay their military service as much as they can.”

Delaying tactics

Strategies for delaying or avoiding military service include enrolling for an extra master’s degree, migrating abroad or even setting up a fictional company in another country to show their status as an employee at a foreign firm.

“I have dual citizenship and I chose to live abroad,” said Cemal Kürekçi. “I can delay it until I am 38 years old, and I don’t know what I will do after that.”

Others lacking such opportunities choose simply to run away.

“I ran away from the military for five years, hoping that the government would implement a paid service system in the meantime, but you can only run away from it to a certain point,” Ceyhun Korkmaz told the Daily News. “All those years, I lived with the fear of getting caught by the police. After a while, I had to quit my job and change my address. I couldn’t even go to Taksim for fear they would take me. In the end, I had to give in, but it was a nightmare.”

Previous implementations

The option of paid military service has been previously implemented four times, first in 1927 and most recently in 1999 and has been utilized by a total of 125,834 people in the three latest instances. The last time it was offered was as a way to raise funds to cover the damage caused by the devastating Marmara earthquake that year and 72,290 people took advantage of the opportunity, more than double the number the previous time.

“According to military law, the paid military service can only be implemented when there is an abundance of soldiers in the military. That’s what happened in 1999, but right now, the army only has two-thirds the people it needs,” retired Maj. Gen. Armağan Kuloğlu told the Daily News.

“There is also the threat of terrorism in Turkey,” Kuloğlu added. “If the government implements such a system now, it will break the will of those who are doing their service.”

Chief of General Staff Gen. İlker Başbuğ had made a similar argument last year, saying, “We cannot tell our citizens what military service by payment means in a country that is fighting against terrorism and where martyrs are falling everyday.”

But despite Başbuğ’s expressed opposition to instituting such a measure again, a compromise formula could emerge from the talks the top general held late Friday with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, a meeting that was ongoing when the Daily News went to press.

Other alternatives

“[Being a soldier] should be a profession, like being a teacher, a doctor or an engineer. Those who really want to become soldiers should see it as a profession,” said Bedelliaskerlik2010.net administrator Çetin.

Kürekçi, the dual citizen living abroad, suggested another alternative: “I think the ideal would be implementing a social service system instead of the military service. That’s what happens in many European countries. Why can’t we use our youth potential for projects such as teaching schoolchildren or serving as social workers?”

Countries such as Austria, Finland, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Spain and Sweden offer the option of performing social service of between seven and 12 months as an alternative to military duty. Belgium, England, Ireland, Luxembourg and the Netherlands have no mandatory military service requirement, according to the EU-Turkey News network. Military service is still required in Greece.

Why now?

The debate over paid military service has concerned not just its pros and cons, but the timing of bringing the issue to the table once again, with some calling it a political move on the part of the ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP.

“It is right before election time again. Of course Erdoğan is doing it to increase his votes,” CHP deputy Canan Arıtman.

The option of paid military service was listed as a topic on the AKP’s memorandum before the 2002 elections. In 2003, AKP deputy Cengiz Kaptanoğlu said the party was working on an option for shortened or paid military service, but there was no concrete outcome.

“Whether [Erdoğan] can pass this implementation or not, he will benefit from it,” said retired Maj. Gen. Kuloğlu.

“I am not an AKP supporter, but I think people are putting too much pressure on Erdoğan,” Bedelliaskerlik2010.net’s Çetin said. “When there is such a question, people immediately interpret it as his political investment, but there are a lot of people who are against the paid military service idea. So it is a risk for him.”

HÜRRİYETDAILYNEWS