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| Europe |
| Renewed tension looms in Turkey after military arrests |
| 2010-02-28 |
| [Asharq al-Aswat] A retired Turkish general charged over a plot to unseat the government said "the struggle has now started", after high-profile arrests risked aggravating tension between the ruling AK Party and the armed forces. Two former generals became the most senior figures late on Friday to be charged over an alleged 2003 plot, state-run news agency Anatolian reported, their arrests closing a week of high political drama that has stunned Turkey and shaken markets. Hours earlier, police had conducted a second wave of detentions of military officers, widening an unprecedented investigation that has seen some 33 officers arrested and prompted an emergency summit among Turkey's leaders. President Abdullah Gul, a former member of the AK Party which has its roots in political Islam, pledged "Turkey will overcome all of its problems." But, in an interview published in the Hurriyet newspaper on Saturday, he also warned those who act outside the law within Turkish institutions would be purged. Retired general Cetin Dogan was the former head of Turkey's First Army and as such had occupied a position often seen as a step towards becoming head of the Turkish Armed Forces. "When Dogan learned he was to be charged he said 'the struggle has now started'," his lawyer Celal Ulgen said on Saturday, according to Anatolian. Ulgen added there was no concrete evidence and prosecutors went to great lengths to have him charged. The other high-ranking official to be charged was Lieutenant-General Engin Alan, a former special forces commander who led a successful operation to capture the country's most wanted man, Kurdish separatist leader Abdullah Ocalan, and bring him back to Turkey in 1999. Turkish newspapers on Saturday printed pictures of an elderly-looking Dogan, dressed in a dark coat and cravat and walking with a slight stoop, as police took him for questioning. Turkish markets, weakened by five days of tension since a first wave of detentions on Monday, had begun to recover on Friday on hopes that the likelihood of a confrontation between the government, in power since 2002, and the secularist military was receding with the release of three other retired generals. But reports police had detained 17 more serving military officers and one retired officer in a second wave of detentions sparked renewed selling, and fresh concern over a standoff. Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has warned the military they are not above the law and accused the media of fanning alarm among investors. Erdogan's party, which denies accusations it has a secret Islamist agenda, is banking on an economic recovery to win over voters ahead of an election due early next year. The military has overthrown four governments in Turkey in the past 50 years and with some of its officers still in detention, and more than 30 charged, markets remain nervous. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #5 I still remember how they screwed us on the 4th ID during OIF I. They screwed us on the 4th ID because somebody in the US State Department decided to 'leak' a story that a certain amount of aid was going to be given to Turkey as a quid pro qo for letting the 4th ID through. Turkey was po'ed enough to cancel the agreement. It wasn't a quid pro qo (as later info showed), but the damage was done. Precisely as someone in State intended. |
| Posted by: Pappy 2010-02-28 23:10 |
| #4 His name is Gul? Like Gul Dukat? Hmm. |
| Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain 2010-02-28 12:24 |
| #3 Was told by an ex-pat the rationals were evaporating, and by another the Hagia Sofia is fantastic so long as you stay in the designated area. |
| Posted by: swksvolFF 2010-02-28 12:14 |
| #2 Personally, I'd like to see Gul and Erdogan kicking at the end of a military rope. I still remember how they screwed us on the 4th ID during OIF I. |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2010-02-28 01:52 |
| #1 Its the people that want the Ottoman Empire to return (AK) versus the Army and the Kemalists, who do not want a return to feudalism and the backwardness that the AK party and their Islamist & Sharia fudamentalists will bring. |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2010-02-28 01:50 |