Top Turkish officers face coup plot charges
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Seven senior Turkish military officers have been charged with plotting a 2003 coup against the Islamist-leaning government in Ankara. The men were among 49 suspects detained earlier this week in an unprecedented series of police raids.
The court in the Turkish capital yesterday charged two serving admirals, two retired admirals, a brigadier-general and two colonels with plotting to bring down the government by force and being members of a terrorist group. The men were among 49 serving and retired officers arrested on 22 February.
The charges relate to the alleged plot to overthrow the ruling Islamist-rooted Justice and Development Party (AK) administration in 2003. Operation Sledgehammer reportedly involved plans to bomb mosques and a bid to provoke Greece into shooting down a Turkish plane, thus discrediting the government and forcing them out of power.
Observers describe the latest arrests as a deepening conflict between the secular armed forces and religious politicians in Turkey, a country that has seen four governments brought down by the army in the last 50 years.
European Commissioner Štefan Füle told a Turkey-EU Joint Parliamentary Commission on Monday that he was worried by the reports of a coup plot and called for the case to be investigated thoroughly. “It is the right of all Turkish citizens to learn all of the realities concerning this case. That means building trust and the rule of law and democracy," he said.
The EU – which Turkey has been trying to join – has welcomed the recent scaling down of power of the military and a set of judicial reforms, as part of the democratisation process within the country.
Opposition politicians, such as Deniz Bahceli leader of the National Action party, however, fear that this week's arrests could be the harbinger of a new phase of authoritarian rule. “The arrests are political, not legal,” he told the Anatolian news agency.
The coup allegations come after widespread arrests and detentions of hundreds of armed forces officials and secular opposition activists. Deep splits have opened up within the judiciary and civil service between those loyal to liberal and secular groups on the one side and Islamic groups and the ruling AK party on the other.
