Former Maj. Hacer Çaylak, who served in Turkey’s Naval Forces Command, said a colleague told her shortly after the July 15, 2016 coup attempt that purge lists had already been prepared and that operations against listed officers would begin within weeks.
Çaylak made the remarks on journalist Ahmet Nesin’s YouTube program, co-hosted by former Col. Hüseyin Demirtaş.
Çaylak, who served in the navy from 2001 to 2017, said then-Maj. Pınar Ertürk, who was being promoted to lieutenant colonel at the time, told her she could speak openly because Çaylak’s name was not on the lists.
“Hacer, I can speak freely with you because your name is not on our lists. The real fun begins in two or three weeks,” Çaylak quoted Ertürk as saying.
Çaylak said Ertürk then named 1993 graduates and added: “The lists are ready, we will round them all up in a few weeks.”
According to Çaylak, operations targeting those officers took place exactly two to three weeks later.
Her claim adds to allegations that lists used in the post-coup purge of the Turkish Armed Forces were prepared before July 15 rather than assembled only after the coup attempt.
Earlier this year, Turkish Minute and the Stockholm Center for Freedom reported that a 2015 General Staff document contained a list of generals and officers described as slated for removal from the armed forces and that the document appeared in leaked emails belonging to Berat Albayrak, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s son-in-law and former minister.
The same reports said the document listed 1,521 military personnel, including 63 generals, over alleged links to the Gülen movement, and that it was presented to Erdoğan before the coup attempt.
The Gülen movement is a transnational civic initiative inspired by Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen.
Ankara blames the coup attempt on the movement and designates it as a terrorist organization. The movement denies involvement in the coup attempt or any terrorist activity.
Çaylak also rejected the government’s claim that purged officers had stolen military entrance exam questions.
“I know these people. If anyone stole the questions, they did,” she said, referring to those she accused of preparing or benefiting from the purge lists.
She said many of the purged officers had strong academic records, including degrees earned in the United States, and argued that accusations about stolen exam questions were used to discredit them after the coup attempt.
The claim is politically sensitive because the armed forces were one of the main targets of the post-coup purge.
The Stockholm Center for Freedom and Turkish Minute reported in May 2021, citing the pro-government Sabah daily, that 29,444 military members had been dismissed from the Turkish Armed Forces, gendarmerie and coast guard, a figure that did not include 16,409 military cadets expelled after the coup attempt.
