ISTANBUL: The head of Turkey’s armed forces warned the government on Monday that the possibility of military intervention still existed and that the government should be sensitive to the country’s secularist constitution.

General Hilmi Ozkok, the chief of the Turkish general staff, said that the government’s policy of re-employing those expelled from the army for their religious activities was offensive.

He also appeared to reject changes to the role of the military in reforms intended to ease the entry of the country into the EU. The Turkish army has carried out four coups in four decades.

Last week Gen Ozkok met the prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The proceedings of the meeting were leaked to the media as a series of warnings from the military leader to the head of the government. Mr Erdogan denied that the meeting was anything like that. But no such denial was forthcoming from the military.

At Monday’s briefing Gen Ozkok’s most incendiary remarks were on the question of a repeat of the kind of military intervention which saw an openly pro-religious government eased out of power with the military’s help in 1997.

“That was cause and effect” he said “and if the cause is still there then the effect will be there also.” Asked if the military would intervene again, he refused to answer.—Dawn/The Guardian News Service.