27 February 2010 / ,
Arresting 51 officers, among them former chiefs of the navy and air force, is Turkey’s most striking act of iconoclasm yet against the devoutly secularist establishment that has governed the country for a near-century.
The raid follows the publication last month of documents allegedly showing senior commanders had plotted a coup against the Islam-inspired AK Party. The response to “Sledgehammer” (the plot’s codename) is not the first crackdown on supposed military insubordination: an ongoing investigation into the Ergenekon group has already brought officers to trial. But the latest move strikes at the very top of a military elite that sees itself as guardian of strict secularism –- a role in which it has repeatedly seen fit to forcibly remove elected governments. Few expect the bad old ways of armed intervention to return. But the tensions reveal how deep is the rift that destabilises Turkey’s politics.
