TURKEY ANNULS EMASYA PROTOCOL
ANKARA - Turkey's interior minister said that security and public order protocol, publicly known as EMASYA, was abolished on Thursday.
"In my earlier meeting with Chief of General Staff Gen. Ilker Basbug, we had agreed on abolishment of the protocol," Besir Atalay told the AA.
The protocol allowed the head of a military unit in a province to dispatch soldiers in an emergency without prior approval of the governor. It gave authority to military units to intervene in social incidents on their own decision.
The protocol was signed by the General Staff and the Interior Ministry in 1997, Besir Atalay recalled. He said senior officials of the two bodies jointly signed annulment of the protocol on Thursday.
"We had earlier emphasized that regulations and laws are already detailed enough. We agreed that there is no need for a new protocol or a new regulation," Atalay said.
Current laws empower governors in emergency incidents, he added.
