Basbug assumes Turkey's top military post

29/08/2008

ANKARA, Turkey -- General Ilker Basbug on Thursday (August 28th) officially replaced General Yasar Buyukanit as chief of Turkey's General Staff. The Supreme Military Council appointed Basbug earlier this month. At the official handover ceremony, both Basbug and Buyukanit warned of threats to secularism and stressed the importance of fighting terrorism, local media reported. Basbug vowed that operations against members of the terrorist Kurdistan Workers' Party will continue, both within Turkey and in northern Iraq. (Milliyet, Cumhuriyet, Sabah, Zaman, Radikal - 29/08/08; Hurriyet, CNN Turk, NTV, Anadolu news agency - 28/08/08)