Elements of the Turkish military mounted a coup on Friday night with the aim of overthrowing the government headed by president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has been accused of increasing autocracy.
Tanks were seen on the bridge over the Bosphorus in Istanbul and at the airport. Military jets and helicopters were reported flying overhead there and in Ankara, the capital. Gunfire was heard near military headquarters in Istanbul.
The military has long been at odds with Erdogan, who dismissed to barracks the generals, anointed by modern Turkey’s founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk as the guardian of the vehemently secular republic.
Erdogan has been accused by senior army figures and the traditional political opposition of trying to transform Turkey into an Islamic state by introducing religion into schools, permitting the wearing of formerly banned conservative headscarves by women in public places, and granting power to religious figures.
Erdogan has also renewed a 30-year conflict with the country’s Kurds after negotiations broke down last summer and embroiled Turkey in the war in neighbouring Syria by allowing fundamentalist fighters to cross Turkish territory into Syria with the aim of toppling the secular government of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.
Islamic State attacks
Following an attempt by the government to crack down on Islamic State, the group has mounted a series of suicide bombings in Istanbul, Ankara, provincial Turkish towns and on military posts along the border with Syria, killing more than 260 people.
Erdogan became prime minister in 2003 following a sweeping victory by his fundamentalist Justice and Development Party (AKP) in the 2002 general election.
He initially pledged to rule as a democratic leader but since 2013 has become increasingly autocratic.
He cracked down on the press and the moderately fundamentalist Gulen movement which had partnered the AKP in governance. Following a corruption scandal at the end of 2013, he fired hundreds of police, prosecutors and judges, and placed the judicial system firmly under his control.
In 2014, he became Turkey’s first directly elected president after he could no longer serve as prime minister.
Erdogan intially supported Turkey's accession to the European Union but when the process stalled, shifted his attention to the Middle East with the aim of becoming the leading figure in a region of fundamentalist states where the Muslim Brotherhood predominated.
Alienated neighbours
His regional policies alienated Turkey’s neighbours with which Ankara had had good relations until Erdogan began to carry out his policies.
If this coup succeeds, it will be the first direct intervention by the military since 1980, when it installed a military government under army chief Kenan Evren, who ruled until 1989.
I was in Istanbul at the time the tanks rolled into the streets and took over Turkey that September, arresting an estimated 500,000 people, executing 50 and disappearing scores.
In 1997 the army forced the fundamentalist-led coalition under Necdmettin Erbakan to resign on the ground that he was transforming Turkey into an “Islamist” state.
Erbakan’s Welfare party was the foundation of Erdogan’s AKP and represented the same devout, conservative constituency which has kept the AKP in power for nearly 14 years.