[1] In 2013, the Minister of National Defense İsmet Yılmaz stated that the Armed Forces were battling the issue.
[2] In order to combat high suicide rates, the Turkish Armed Forces in 2013 assigned a friend to each soldier as a form of therapy.
[5] In 2015, Turkish soldiers died by suicide at a rate 2.5 times higher than civilians.
[7] The Turkish army formerly issued fines to families of soldiers who committed suicide, demanding them to pay for the bullet that they used, although they abolished that practice under pressure.
[9][10] The Turkish army's attempts at mentally and physically toughening their soldiers to fight the PKK had largely backfired, causing many soldiers to commit suicide after mental trauma they received from humiliation and beatings.