Military coup in Turkey, 1980

The 12 September 1980 Turkish coup d'état (Turkish: 12 Eylül Darbesi), headed by Chief of the General Staff General Kenan Evren, was the third coup d'état in the history of the Republic, the previous having been the 1960 coup and the 1971 "Coup by Memorandum". The 1970s in Turkey were marked by right-wing/left-wing armed conflicts, often at the scale of proxy wars between the United States and the Soviet Union, respectively. To create a pretext for a decisive intervention, the Turkish military allowed these conflicts in Turkey to escalate; some say they actively adopted a strategy of tension. The violence abruptly stopped afterwards, and the coup was welcomed by some for restoring order. In total, 50 people were executed, 500,000 were arrested and hundreds died in prison.

For the next three years the Turkish Armed Forces ruled the country through the National Security Council, before democracy was restored.

In 1975 Süleyman Demirel, president of the conservative Justice Party (Turkish: Adalet Partisi, AP) succeeded Bülent Ecevit, president of the social-democratic Republican People's Party (Turkish: Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi, CHP) as Prime Minister. He formed a coalition with the Nationalist Front (Turkish: Milliyetçi Cephe), Necmettin Erbakan's Islamist National Salvation Party (Turkish: Millî Selamet Partisi, MSP) and Alparslan Türkeş' far right Nationalist Movement Party (Turkish: Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi, MHP). The MHP used the opportunity to infiltrate state security services, seriously aggravating the low-intensity war that was waging between rival factions.

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