ISTANBUL: Turkey on Monday began pulling out tanks and other military vehicles from bases in its main cities in line with an order to move all barracks outside Istanbul and Ankara following the failed July 15 coup.

Military barracks and bases on the outskirts of Ankara and Istanbul were one of the main hubs of the foiled coup, from where tanks and units of rebel soldiers moved in a bid to seize key positions in Turkey’s two main cities.

The authorities have decided it is too big a risk to maintain bases in urban centres and have given the army until September 11 to move them elsewhere.

In the first such pullout, a convoy of half a dozen military trucks hauling other military vehicles concealed by tarpaulins left the Bastabya base in Istanbul for the barracks of Corlu and Besiktepe in the northwest province of Tekirdag.

The Turkish flag was hung from the front of the trucks which were seen heading down the motorway towards Tekirdag along with the rest of the normal commuter traffic.

The state-run Anadolu news agency said that on the night of the coup armoured vehicles from Bastabya had taken soldiers to occupy Ataturk International airport and Vatan Street where the police headquarters is located.

In Ankara, six trucks carrying four tanks and four armoured personnel carries pulled out of a base in the district of Etimesgut for Sereflikochisar to the south.

A similar number left a base in the Ankara district of Mamak bound for Cankiri to the northeast, Anadolu added.

The tanks had become symbols of the failed coup, running amok on the streets but then being surrounded by angry crowds of people carrying Turkish flags who opposed the coup.

Defence Minister Fikri Isik has said it will take between 10 days to a month for the transfer of the bases to other locations.

Reports have said hundreds of armoured vehicles and tanks will have to be withdrawn from each base.

The authorities have said the vacated bases will ultimately be made open to the Turkish people, credited by the authorities for helping to defeat the coup by flooding into the streets in support of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Isik has said that Akinci Air Base outside Ankara — from where the coup plotters launched air raids on targets including parliament — will be made into a Democracy Park.

Published in Dawn, August 23rd, 2016