Money for Mayhem by Alessandro Arduino

Author:Alessandro Arduino
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Published: 2023-08-29T00:00:00+00:00

NOT ONLY SADAT, AKADEMI SANCAK

Another company that populates the early development of the private military sector with Turkish characteristics is Akademi Sancak (ACS).* The company, having limited international media exposure compared to SADAT, is managed by another retired general from TKS, General Ahmet Can Çevik, who was appointed as the military advisor of the emir of Qatar. According to Intelligence Online, the ACS private military company is fast turning into Turkey’s private relay to the Qatari military.32

ACS’ website is not far from SADAT minus the Islamist narrative. Similarly to SADAT, ASC provides training to armed forces that have a good standing with Turkey. Qatar is a case in point as ACS has been providing training for many years, notably to the Qatari Emiri Navy (QEN) and special forces. Also the role of Turkey in support of Qatar in delivering top-level security services during the World Cup has been partially delegated to Turkey’s security companies, ACS being one among them.

Besides Qatar, ACS also regularly trains security forces in countries that have historical relationships with Ankara ranging from Azerbaijan to Turkmenistan.

Similarly to Tanriverdi, Çevik spent time in Bosnia during the conflict. He was one of the highest-ranking Turkish military personnel in the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan. General Çevik’s relationship with the Turkish military-industrial complex also is not to be discounted as he is a member of the board of the state-owned defense contractor Aselsan. Aselsan’s subsidiary is tasked with producing the new electro-optical reconnaissance, surveillance, and targeting sys tem for the Bayraktar T-B2. Again, it is not by chance that Qatar is an important client for Aselsan.

Besides having a relationship in the Gulf with other monarchies such as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, ASC’s close relationship with Qatar is related to the preferential relationship between Doha and Ankara and their shared view on the Muslim Brotherhood.33

Comparing the dawn of the Turkish private security sector with China and Russia, especially to forecast the future path that Ankara will force on its own breed of PMCs, is an overall lack of laws and regulations for the developing security sector. From a legal standpoint, while China has a very detailed law concerning the private security sector’s domestic role and a new set of regulations is under scrutiny for expanding the Chinese PSCs abroad, Russian law still considers PMCs illegal. In Turkey, there is a vast legal gap. While Ankara could count on hundreds of years of experience managing free lances, there is an ample legal regulatory vacuum regarding PMCs in modern Turkey.

Considering the situation that Turkey does not have a signature in the Montreux Convention that regulates PMCs or in the ICoC for PSCs, there are plenty of opportunities for the application of modern standards and regulation as well as plenty of opportunities for abuses. As the privatization of the state monopoly on violence is just happening in Turkey, there is still a modicum of hope in the possibility that the leading PMCs are going to opt for an international code of conduct as stated on their website.

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