2 Turkish ex-generals arrested amid power struggle

Rift between Erdogan's party, secularists grows

Riot police stood at the entrance of the Ankara office of the pro-secular newspaper Cumhuriyet yesterday. Turkey's government has been accused of having an Islamic agenda. (Burhan Ozbilici/associated press)

ISTANBUL - Turkish police arrested two retired generals yesterday on suspicion of plotting against the Islamic-leaning government as the rift between the prime minister and the defenders of the country's secular principles widened.

Just after yesterday's arrests, Turkey's top prosecutor laid out his case in court that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's party has undermined the secularism enshrined in the constitution and should be disbanded.

Erdogan's government has been locked for years in a power struggle with secular groups supported by the military and other state institutions, including the judiciary. He has faced a secularist backlash over suspicions that the government has an Islamic agenda and is trying to dilute the Western lifestyle of many Turks.

The pressure on the government has mounted since 2007, when thousands of secularists took to the streets to protest.

A year ago, the divide deepened when the constitutional court rejected government legislation to permit head scarves at universities. It ruled the amendments were unconstitutional.

Since taking power in November 2002, Erdogan's Justice and Development Party has repeatedly denied that it is trying to impose religion on politics and society.

It accuses its opponents of undermining democracy by plotting to overthrow the legitimately elected government, and says the reforms it made to permit eventual entry into the European Union are proof of that. The EU remains dissatisfied with Turkey's restrictions on freedom of expression.

Erdogan denied yesterday that the police operation in which the two former generals and 18 other people were arrested was politically motivated or designed to silence government critics, even though it was carried out just before top prosecutor Abdurrahman Yalcinkaya outlined his case against Erdogan's party.

Turkish police launched simultaneous raids in at least three provinces hours before Yalcinkaya appeared in court, the private Dogan news agency said.

Dozens of people, including retired military officers, have previously been detained during the investigation against an alleged network of extreme nationalists called "Ergenekon."

But onetime generals Hursit Tolon and Sener Eruygur, who were detained yesterday, were the highest ranking former soldiers to be arrested so far. Eruygur was a major organizer in antigovernment rallies last year.

The Justice and Development Party holds a comfortable majority in Parliament, having won its second mandate last year after a long confrontation with the secularist opposition backed by the judiciary and the military.

In March, prosecutor Yalcinkaya asked the Constitutional Court to shut the party down and bar 71 people from politics for five years, including Erdogan and President Abdullah Gul.

Yalcinkaya reaffirmed his position yesterday, the Anatolia news agency reported. He appeared before the top court in a private session, arguing that there was a "clear and present" danger that the ruling party was seeking to impose Islamic law on Turkey, the agency said.

A conflict over Turkey's national identity has brewed since Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, an army officer in World War I, founded the secular republic after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. He gave the vote to women, restricted Islamic dress, and replaced the Arabic script with the Roman alphabet.

But Islam remained potent at the grass-roots level, and some leaders with a religious background portrayed themselves as an alternative to the secular establishment.