PRESIDENT ABDULLAH Gul insisted last week that Turkey’s crisis over the arrest of leading military officers suspected of organising a coup will be “solved within the framework of the constitution and our laws”. Chief of the general staff General Ilker Basbug, who met prime minister Tayyip Erdogan over the weekend on the issue, has reassuringly called coups a thing of the past but has also warned that “military patience has its limits”. However, both the constitution and the laws badly need amending to prevent such a major impasse recurring.
The tension goes back to the foundation in the 1920s of the state when Kemal Ataturk modelled Turkey closely on republican secular France in an effort to create a society liberated from Ottoman cultural influences. A strict separation of state institutions from religion was necessary to guarantee the country’s progress and independence, he insisted. The constitution and legal system reinforced these norms. And to make sure they were adhered to, the respected armed forces were given a crucial role in policing them.
That is why last week’s images of some 51 leading officers under arrest for questioning – two were charged on Sunday – are so riveting and disquieting. They are suspected of trying to organise a coup against the Justice and Development (AKP) government in 2003, following its election victory, the second plot now under investigation. Many of Turkey’s secular elite believe the AKP has a secret agenda to roll back secular modernity and impose strict Islamic codes of behaviour. Following a previous standoff the party was re-elected in a landslide in 2007 but has since been prosecuted unsuccessfully for proposing to relax the ban on headscarves in universities.
The current crisis arises from similar fears. The AKP combines a reformist programme with conservative religious social values. It represents a new commercial middle class with roots in Anatolia, and the wide appeal of its combination of modernity and Islam has fascinating implications for neighbouring states. Its success has opened up Turkey as a far more vibrant and enterprising society, driven by the aspiration to join an EU which it believes would vindicate its programme by better recognising Turkey’s own diversity. This all puts the secular elite, including the army, on the defensive.
Mr Erdogan has promised a package of constitutional changes, specifically on the reform of the judiciary and role of political parties, within the month. Whether they will ease tensions is far from certain.