ISTANBUL – A group of retired Turkish admirals came under fire Sunday for issuing a statement that government officials tied to Turkey’s history of military coups.
The 103 former navy officers criticized a suggestion that Turkey could withdraw from the international treaty that regulates shipping through the Bosporus and Dardanelles straits, which link the Mediterranean Sea to the Black Sea.
Turkish Vice President Fuat Oktay compared the statement’s signatories to “cowards whistling in a graveyard.” Numan Kurtulus, the deputy leader of Turkey's ruling party, tweeted that they were the “lovers of old Turkey who see themselves above the will of the nation.” A senior member of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party