Some 100 large fires are causing heavy economic damage at Turkey's southern coast:
Firefighters have been forced to work in impossible conditions, combating fires in mountainous areas that only airplanes or helicopters can reach. At least two have died. At the same time, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government, which has preached a mantra of Turkish self-sufficiency, has faced intensifying anger after conceding it did not have any of its own firefighting aircraft to deploy, leading to complaints that it was unprepared for the crisis and its response was delayed.
Whole towns have burned down, thousands of animals have been killed, tourists had to be evacuated. Inhabitants flee from the fire (vid). Tourist havens areas near Bodrum and Antalya get robbed of their scenery (vid).
Until two years ago Turkey had a decent fleet of some 9 Canadair CL-215 firefighting airplanes. These can skim up to 5 tons of water from the sea, a lake or a river and drop them onto the fire without having to land in between. With such planes Cycle times of five to ten minutes are achievable for fires near a coast.
That Erdogan now has to admit that Turkey has no firefighting planes to deploy is a consequence of Islamist cronyism in his government that let to the systematic looting of the organization which for decades had fought such fires.
Each year the Turkish Ministry of Forestry offers a contract for aerial firefighting during the next season.
The foremost bidder has always been the Turkish Aeronautical Association (Türk Hava Kurumu or THK), a non-profit non-government organization founded under the directive of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk in February 1925. The THK has the mission to further participation in aviation related activities in Turkey. It offers flying lessons, parachuting, balloon driving and even has its own Aeronautic University. At times it even build its own gliders and airplanes.
The organization is well known in Turkey. It had traditionally received the hides of sacrificial animals which are slaughtered during various religious holidays. Those donations were quite valuable and the Islamist have always been in envy of THK for those. Another source of income were the fire fighting contracts with the Ministry of Forestry. Up to 2019 the THK had for decades won all those contracts. Other government contracts to the THK were for air ambulance services.
In late 2018 the Minister of Forestry suddenly claimed that the THK was near to the opposition party CHP. That was not true. But it was the signal to Erdogan's AKP party that a raid on the THK was now permisseble.
As Sibel Hürtaş reports for Medyaport.net (machine translation):
All the events started when Minister of Forestry Bekir Pakdemirli pointed THK as a target, saying "it is working with the CHP". Immediately after these words, Ahmet Bertan Nogaylaroğlu was shown to the Turkish Aeronautical Association's congress held in October 2018 by Air Forces Commander Hasan Küçükakyüz. Nogaylaroğlu was appointed as the President of THK at the congress.
Ahmet Bertan Nogaylaroğlu is a retried airforce general. After being put into his new position by the Erdogan's Air Force Commander he immediately started to fire people at the Aeronautic University and to replace them with former airforce officers with much higher salaries.
The Diyanet, Turkey's government controlled religious affairs institution, then robbed the THK of its main donation income (machine translation):
According to the claims of the resigned directors of the Turkish Aeronautical Association, THK made a verbal agreement with the Diyanet for the collection of sacrificial skin, which is one of the most important sources of income. Allegedly, THK would no longer collect victim skins, and Diyanet would give THK 20 million TL in return. THK did not collect sacrificial skins, but Diyanet did not give this money either.
The AKP raid on the THK, now directed from THK's highest position, continued:
Individuals close to the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) were appointed to vacated posts in the Turkish Aeronautical Association (THK).After a number of officials from the THK from the provinces of Eskişehir and Muğla resigned from their posts, they were replaced with people close to or members of the AKP government, according to a report in the daily Sözcü.
According to the report, an official from the THK's branch in Eskişehir resigned after pressure from the administration, and was replaced by the 26-year-old son of Harun Karacan, an AKP parliamentarian from Eskişehir who was also the former AKP vice chairman.
One appointee to a vacated post in the province of Muğla was Okan Yaktın, the deputy mayor of the AKP-governed district of Köyceğiz. Another appointee was Mehmet Nadi Pirci, a former AKP district municipal council member.
The appointments by the central organizations were unlawful but the local THK branches were unable to reverse them.
The THK had to take up debt to pay for the high salaries of Nogaylaroğlu newly hired cronies. Meanwhile regular maintenance for its firefighting fleet was cut. In 2019 the THK made no bit for the first firefighting tender from the Ministry of Forestry. When the tender was repeated the THK made an offer that was 40% higher than the year before. It clearly had an order to not win the contract.
The contract eventually went to a company which had no firefighting planes but only helicopters and an iffy record. Helicopters can carry much less water than the THK's firefighting planes. The downwash of the helicopter can disperse fires and thereby make the fire bigger. The helicopters therefore tend to fly too high (vid) to really hit the fire with the water they release.
The situation within the THK escalated as the professionals protested against the AKP raid and the looting of their organization. Many people resigned: (machine translation):
Due to the resignations, THK had to go to the extraordinary congress immediately according to the Law on Associations. THK executives, who resigned in June, first issued a notice of extraordinary congress from the Notary and then filed a lawsuit at the Ankara 19th Civil Court of First Instance. The court found the case admissible.
- 9 of the 12 full members of the Board of Directors and 11 of the 11 substitute members,
- 5 of the 5 permanent members of the Disciplinary Board, 4 of the 5 substitute members,
- Three of the three substitute members of the Supervisory Board resigned.
THK President Nogaylaroğlu applied to the Ankara 15th Civil Court of First Instance and asked for an injunction, and the Court took an injunction decision on the same day. Thus, the Extraordinary Congress process was stopped.
Nogaylaroğlu did not accept the resignation of the members of the Board of Directors who resigned on 28 June and announced that he had dismissed them on 1 July. On July 4, he wrote a letter to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, asking for a trustee to be appointed to replace the members of the board of directors that he had "dismissed".
The request to appoint a trustee was accepted, and THK was first emptied and then under the management of a trustee.
In October 2020 the THK decided to sell its firefighting planes. They are currently still at the airport of its Aeronautic University. Dozens of other valuable THK assets were also offered for sale. The 95 years old venerable organization will soon be an empty hull.
Meanwhile the forest fires in 2020 and especially this year became a problem for the government. Last year the Ministry for Forestry, under pressure from the public, leased two Russian BE-200 amphibious firefighting aircraft with pilots and full service for some $10 million. This year three will be leased from the same company for some $24 million. The the price difference remains unexplained.
The leases came only after Turkey had rejected offers from Greece and elsewhere to send their firefighting planes:
As the hashtag “#helpTurkey” trended on Twitter in recent days, government officials bristled at the notion that Turkey did not have the resources to help itself. “Our Turkey is strong. Our state is standing tall,” Fahrettin Altun, Erdogan’s spokesman wrote Monday on Twitter, even as an army of firefighters and volunteers struggled to hold the line across a vast area of southern Turkey.
But now the situation became so bad that the Turkish government had to relent and to beg for foreign aid:
On Monday, the EU dispatched three Canadair firefighting aircraft, two from Spain and one from Croatia. The aid came after Ankara activated a disaster response facility extended by European countries. Russia, Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, Iran and Azerbaijan have already sent firefighting equipment to aid in the containment effort.
Now, as it is pretty much too late, three foreign Canadair planes, three leased BE-200 and a number of mostly useless helicopters are fighting the fires in Turkey. Meanwhile nine perfectly good Turkish Canadair planes have been rotting away near Ankara. As they have lacked maintenance for several years they will likely be sold for scrap.
The THK is only one of many venerable Turkish organizations that have been raided and looted by AKP Islamists. They have hollowed out the state. But the damage only becomes apparent, at least internationally, when catastrophes occur.
But that is no reason to despair. Not everything is bad though in Turkey. After three years of construction and some $80 million spent Erodgan's new 'summer palace' is now finally finished and a nice palace it indeed is (photo spread):
Reported to have 300 rooms, the residence is home to a private beach, constructed with padding materials that extended the natural shoreline.
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With a hat tip to Has Avrat
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