President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was in the western city of Aydın on Thursday. Addressing thousands of supporters in the hometown of Adnan Menderes, the prime minister hanged by a military junta, Erdoğan highlighted their efforts to strengthen democracy and advance development in the country.

As he sought support for the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) for the March 31 municipal elections, Erdoğan reiterated his commitment to the "policy of improving infrastructure and superstructures" while recalling how the country suffered a blow from the coups, thwarting its progress.

"Adnan Menderes paid the price of serving his nation and the country at the gallows. Türkiye’s steps for democracy, unfortunately, were disrupted by turmoil. One of the important links in the chain of coups was the ‘postmodern’ Feb. 28 coup. It is a shameful chapter in the history of our democracy," Erdoğan said.

"The mindset that sent Menderes to the gallows was more sinister in the Feb. 28 coup. We remember how they violated women’s right to education and work because of their clothes, how businesses were discriminated against, how some media outlets acted as mouthpieces of (putschists), how freedoms were trampled upon in those dark days."

The beginning of the Feb. 28 coup was a military memorandum issued by the National Security Council (MGK) on Feb. 28, 1997.

The memorandum, seemingly an ordinary one but essentially a culmination of a witch hunt targeting conservative Muslims across the country, triggered a series of events, starting with the resignation of then-Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan and eventually came to be known as one of the most significant turning points in Türkiye’s political history.

The coup was a nonviolent takeover wherein the military employed pressure tactics like issuing ultimatums and memorandums. Still, the consequences proved aggressive for Turkish conservatives in media, military, judiciary and bureaucracy, who were suddenly the target of a crackdown. In addition, Muslims, devout or not, pro-government or not, increasingly faced the wrath of secular forces everywhere; even performing prayers was enough for anyone in the public sector to be blacklisted. Women wearing headscarves were fired from their jobs, while headscarf-wearing women were not allowed to attend universities. Companies owned and operated by conservative businesspeople faced threats, prosecution and intimidation.

The president said he himself faced the threat of a coup in his political career, such as a controversial verdict that led to his imprisonment and a political ban while he was mayor of Istanbul. He said that the AK Party governments also faced the Gezi Park riots in 2013 and, later, a 2016 coup attempt by the Gülenist Terrorist Group (FETÖ).

"We know the plots of imperialist forces trying to rule the country; we know who their puppets are. We fought them in Cudi and Gabar and buried them in their caves," he said, referring to former terrorism hot spots in the eastern Türkiye.