Turkey Creates Almost 40,000 Public Service Jobs With New Decree

Almost 40,000 new civil servant positions were created in Turkey under a statutory decree published on Friday as part of the ongoing state of emergency, following the July 2016 coup attempt.

Nearly 32,000 jobs within police structures and 4,000 positions for judges and prosecutors as well as additional 2,000 judge candidate positions were created within the Justice Ministry and its organs.

The decree also shifts the reporting line of the National Intelligence Organisation (MIT) to the president instead of the prime minister, and the president will also become head of the intelligence coordination board.

Turkey has been moving to a presidential system of government in the wake of a constitutional referendum this April approving the shift.

The state of emergency was declared in July 2016 in the wake of the failed coup that left 250 people dead and some 2,200 injured.

In a second decree also published on Friday, the government fired 928 civil servants suspected of having links to terrorist organisations and groups seen as a threat to national security.

Under the same decree, 57 previously sacked workers were rehired to their former positions.

The two decrees published in the government’s Official Gazette were discussed at an August 15 Cabinet meeting chaired by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

After the failed coup, the government has been issuing statutory decrees based on Article 91 of the Constitution.

That article gives the Council of Ministers power to issue decrees which have the force of law.

It also empowers the Council of Ministers meeting under the chairmanship of the president to introduce decrees during states of emergency.

Interior Ministry reinstates officers

The Interior Ministry on Friday reinstated hundreds of police officers who had been suspended from their jobs for suspected links to the Fetullah Terrorist Organization (FETO).

In a statement, the ministry said 734 police officers would be reinstated.

FETO is the acronym Ankara uses for the network of US-based Fetullah Gulen, whom Turkey accuses of masterminding the July 2016 coup attempt. Gulen denies any involvement.