Norway and Turkey have been on a row due to listing of founder of the Republic, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and current President, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s photos in “enemy targets” during a NATO training in Norway. Turkey has reacted strongly against this action while NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and Norwegian Minister of Defence Frank Bakke-Jenssen apologised for this action. Today, the person who has revealed the listings has been named as Lieutenant Commander in the Turkish Navy, Ebru Nihan Bozkurt.
[mks_dropcap style="letter" size="52" bg_color="#ffffff" txt_color="#000000"]N[/mks_dropcap]ATO has held ‘Trident Javelin-2017’ military training in Norway where Atatürk and President Erdoğan has been listed among enemy targets. LCDR Ebru Nihan Bozkurt who was the suspect in a former espionage case that had resulted in LCDR Bozkurt’s receiving 5 years 10 months prison sentence, has revealed the action. Turkey had withdrawn the 41 soldiers who were in Norway participating the training, including the LCDR Bozkurt.
LCDR Bozkurt had detected an out of ordinary procession on the messaging application ‘chatter’ and sharing application ‘face page’ that were being used during the training. She has detected that there was a false-account opened under the name of President Erdoğan that was communicating with the enemy forces.
Since the crisis has erupted, there have been campaigns on Twitter in Turkey demanding the country's getting out of NATO while other people have also been claiming that this must be a planned false-flag action to be turned into an opportunity to capitalize on political gains.
Despite written & verbal apologies by NATO and Norwegian officials, the apologies have not been accepted and chief advisor to President Erdoğan, Yalçın Topçu has suggested that it is high time Turkey reconsiders her position in NATO.
BOZKURT’S TRIAL
During her career, when she was a navy lieutenant, she was accused of obtaining top secret documents, photographing some fighter jets and received 5 years 10 months prison sentence. Turkish Supreme Court’s 9th Penal Chamber had approved of the sentences of 43 suspects in the espionage trial on December 7, 2013, and she had been claimed to have fled abroad before there could be issued an arrest warrant.
Constitutional Court later has given a decision that stated the suspects’ rights had been violated as part of this trial and Bozkurt had been reinstated to her position and promoted.