Turkish military speaks out on coup inquiry

Reuters
Friday, January 16, 2009
ANKARA: Turkey's powerful military on Friday criticized a widening investigation into an alleged coup plot that has led to the arrests of several senior officers.

Eighty-six people including retired army officers, politicians and lawyers are on trial in a case that has rattled markets and raised tensions between the Islamist-rooted AK Party government and the secularist establishment.

In the military's first comments since the police arrested last week more than 40 people, including senior ranking officers, the General Staff said the probe into the right-wing "Ergenekon" group was damaging the Turkish state.

"Basic human rights and principles of law are being breached, like the constitutional principle of nobody is guilty unless found so by a court, or the principle of innocence and right to a fair trial," Brigadier General Metin Gurak, spokesman for the General Staff, told a news conference.

"Those who are expected to act responsibly are hurting individuals, institutions, the judiciary and finally the state itself," Gurak said.

The detention of officers has caused deep concern in Turkey's powerful military, which has enjoyed an untouchable status since the foundation of modern Turkey and which has unseated governments four times in the past 50 years.

The widening investigation has rattled Turkish markets, already hurt by the global financial crisis. Analysts have warned the inquiry may be explosive in a country with a long history of political instability and threatens to complicate Ankara's efforts to tackle economic turmoil.

President Abdullah Gul on Friday urged Turkish media, which have gone into a frenzy over the Ergenekon probe with 24-hour coverage, to act responsibly.

"Nobody should exert pressure on the judiciary in this process and the media should refrain from putting forward names of many people in the media in an irresponsible way," he told a news conference.