How the PM ordered to shoot on the night of the coup attempt
In a televised interview seven days after the July 15, 2016, coup attempt, Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım did not hide his anger toward the air forces.
Yıldırım had recounted his conversation with some commanders, saying, "I said, 'Don't you have other vehicles, why don't you stop them? Why aren't you obstructing these people's attack on civilians?' They kept saying, 'the planes are not loaded; it will take two hours to load them, it will take an hour to come from the other air base.' I was extremely annoyed. How could that be?"
Yıldırım was the angriest when he told them that the things they kept saying was not convincing, ordering them to send planes to stop the attacks. But he was told by a general to send his order in a written letter.
"That's when I got mad. I said, 'What are you talking about? What written order? Look, I will hold you accountable for that. Whatever I say on the phone is like a written order. Either you execute this order or you will pay the price severely.' We could only manage to fly the planes after so much effort and that made us lose two hours," he said.
Yıldırım's instruction was registered in the special book of the Eskişehir air base operation center as the following: "At around 04:36, upon the order of Gen. Ziya Cemal Kadıoğlu, the H-188 authority [authority to shoot down a plane] from the prime minister by a registered phone has been taken and the pilots in Erzurum and İncirlik were instructed to take off with the H-188 authority. The planes in the air would be warned; they will protect themselves if they face hostile action and will get engaged upon the order of the Eskişehir operation center."
The expression to be "engaged" means shooting down the plane if it does not obey the warning.
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