Turkish prosecutors yesterday interrogated 51 Turkish military commanders, including former air force and navy chiefs, over alleged plans to destabilize the country by blowing up mosques to trigger a coup and topple the Islamic-rooted government.
It was the highest profile crackdown ever on the Turkish military, which has ousted four governments since 1960. For decades Turkey’s senior officers, self-appointed guardians of the country’s secular tradition, called the shots.
But the balance of power in the country appeared to have shifted on Monday as police rounded up the 51 military commanders, following the gathering of wiretap evidence and discovery of an alleged secret coup plan, dubbed “the sledgehammer.”
The detentions dramatically raised the ante in a rumbling power struggle between the Justice and Development party (AKP) government and the armed forces, and prompted the army Chief of Staff, General Ilker Basbug, to call off a trip to Egypt.
They represented the boldest assault yet on the military’s elevated status by prosecutors, who have been investigating alleged conspiracies by secularists to unseat the AKP for more than two years. The army, which has dispatched four governments in the past 50 years, was once considered all but untouchable in its role as custodian of Turkey’s secular state.
Several high-ranking officers, including retired generals, are already being tried on accusations of belonging to a movement known as Ergenekon, which is said to have plotted a military coup by stoking civil unrest. Journalists, academics, lawyers and politicians are also accused of being part of Ergenekon, which the government has depicted as a cabal of secular elitists determined to maintain their privileges.
The alleged coup plot known as Sledgehammer was revealed last month by a Turkish newspaper, Taraf. According to testimony in 5,000 pages of stolen army documents, the plan — dating from 2003 — envisaged a putsch against the AKP after a campaign of destabilization involving bombing mosques and provoking a war with Greece. The army has denied the documents represented a coup plot and instead described them as a “scenario.”
On a visit to Spain, Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, refused to comment on the latest developments.
“It would not be appropriate for me to talk about an issue that is already handled by the judiciary,” Erdogan said.
But critics will depict the detentions as part of a witch-hunt by the AKP aimed at politicizing the judiciary, undermining the military and weakening the secular constitution handed down by Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey.
The arrests follow an angry row over the detention last week of the chief prosecutor of the northeastern province of Erzincan, Ilhan Cilhaner, on charges of belonging to Ergenekon after he had ordered an investigation of an Islamist group. Cilhaner’s arrest prompted the strongly pro-secularist Supreme Board of Judges and Prosecutors to strip the powers of the special prosecutor who had ordered it.
The detentions also followed a ruling last month by Turkey’s highest court, the Constitutional Court, overturning government legislation that would have allowed serving military officers to be tried in civilian courts, rather than military tribunals as at present. Analysts suggested that the arrests were aimed at trying officers before the Constitutional Court’s ruling could be recorded in the official gazette, when it will become effective.
Gareth Jenkins, an Istanbul-based specialist on Turkish military affairs, said the arrests could trigger a “major crisis.”
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