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A map showing the location of the foiled assassination attempt which appeared in Vakit newspaper in 1926.
This sketch appeared on the Vakit Newspaper on June 21, 1926 in Turkey. It shows the location of the foiled assassination attempt on the life of Mustafa Kemal during the Izmir conspiracy.

The attempted assassination of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in 1926 was organised by political opponents of Ataturk's secular reforms to the Penal and Civil codes of law. The plot was discovered and fifteen people charged with the attempt were executed by hanging in Istanbul on July 14, 1926.[1]

The assassination plot was led by Ziya Hurşit, Şükrü of Izmit and Arif of Eskisehir. They planned to attack his car as he passed through Izmir on 15 June. When the visit to Izmir was postponed, the sailor who had agreed to help the plotters escape confessed to Turkish authorities.[2]

Some of those executed for taking part in the plot, such as Hafız Mehmet and Doktor Nâzım, had been implicated in helping to carry out the genocide of Armenians and other minority groups in 1915. In a disputed interview said to have been conducted by Swedish journalist Karl Emil Hildebrand with Ataturk in 1926, Ataturk noted that a prominent female conspirator and member of the Republican People's Party (CHP), Halide Edib, had revealed the assassination attempt. In this interview, Ataturk is said to have blamed the assassination attempt on dissatisfied elements of the old Committee for Union and Progress (CUP), who he also blamed for the massacres of minority groups, saying,

"These left-overs from the former Young Turk Party, who should have been made to account for the lives of millions of our Christian subjects who were ruthlessly driven en masse, from their homes and massacred, have been restive under the Republican rule."[3]

The assassination attempt led to a purge of political opponents from the Progressive Republican Party and former members of the CUP. Among those also arrested were Ali Fuat Cebesoy and Kazim Karabekir, prominent leaders of the Turkish War of Independence. Thirteen plotters were convicted and sentenced to death, but the generals were spared after Ismet Inonu argued for them not to be executed.[4]

  1. ^ "ExecutedToday.com » 1926: Ziya Hursit and others for a plot against Ataturk". Retrieved 2018-12-17.
  2. ^ Aksin, Sina (2007-02). Turkey, from Empire to Revolutionary Republic: The Emergence of the Turkish Nation from 1789 to Present. NYU Press. ISBN 9780814707210. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  3. ^ "Books and Publications | Gomidas Institute". www.gomidas.org. Retrieved 2018-12-17.
  4. ^ Çalislar, Ipek (2013-10-04). Madam Atatürk: The First Lady of Modern Turkey. Saqi. ISBN 9780863568473.