'Damage of 1960 coup to Turkish democracy should never be forgotten'

ANKARA

The 1960 military coup's damage to democracy should be engrained in the memories of Turkish people, the country's parliament head said on Thursday.

"It is essential to remember the damage caused to democracy by the military coup of May 27, 1960, one of the heaviest attacks against the will of the nation," Mustafa Sentop said during an inauguration ceremony of May 27, 1960 coup exhibition in the parliament.

Sentop noted that the young and future generations should not forget the coup's damage to Turkey's democracy.

Following a coup in 1960, a military court tried Adnan Menderes, the nation's first democratically elected prime minister, along with two leading members of the Democratic Party (DP), resulting in their executions the following year.

Sentop reiterated that the country's civil politics had been threatened after the 1960 coup.

"For years, civil politics [in Turkey] has been threatened by the sad end of the late Menderes and his ministers by pointing and hinting at those death tables," he noted.

"Now, this nation forever refuses the execution of elected rulers," he added.

After a biased and illegal trial on the Yassiada island, President Celal Bayar, Premier Menderes, Foreign Minister Fatin Rustu Zorlu and Finance Minister Hasan Polatkan were sentenced to death. Bayar later received clemency from the sentence.

Yassiada, one of the Princes' Islands located in the Sea of Marmara southeast of Istanbul, is notorious for jails and trials from the 1960 military coup. It was renamed Democracy and Liberties Island in 2013.

Last year President Recep Tayyip Erdogan inaugurated Democracy and Liberties Island on Yassiada.