ANKARA: Turkey is facing the biggest threat to its unity and security since the modern republic was founded in 1923, according to the head of its armed forces.

Enjoying a period of unprecedented economic growth and political stability, Turks could be forgiven for thinking they had misheard the comments of Gen Yasar Buyukanit, head of the General Staff, made during a recent trip to Washington.

But the general’s remarks raised few eyebrows in Turkey, a European Union candidate nation, where they were seen as part of an ongoing campaign by the army and other secularists to shape the outcome of May’s presidential election.

His words were also a timely reminder of the army’s enduring political influence as Turkey marks the 10th anniversary this week of its ‘post-modern’ coup, when the generals last drove from power an elected government they considered too Islamist.

“The main target of Buyukanit’s words was Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan,” said Lale Sariibrahimoglu, Turkey correspondent of the respected Jane’s Defence Weekly.

“We all know the military does not want Erdogan or indeed anybody whose wife wears the (Islamic) headscarf to run for the presidency ... But the military is frustrated, it knows it cannot act as it did ten years ago because of constraints like the EU.”

On Feb 28, 1997, the army-dominated National Security Council (MGK) issued a stern warning to then-premier Necmettin Erbakan, who had infuriated secularists by inviting religious sheikhs to his residence and by cosying up to Libya and Iran.

A few months later, without tanks or guns and with broad public support, the army had forced Erbakan from power.

TRANSFORMATION: Turkey today is a different country, transformed by years of economic growth averaging eight per cent, by stable government and by EU-linked reforms that have trimmed the army’s power.

The MGK now has a civilian secretary.

Despite the military’s distaste for Erdogan and his ruling AK Party, a successor to Erbakan’s Welfare Party, and its fears over the presidential contest, nobody expects a replay of 1997.

“Public statements are the only way the military now has of galvanising public opinion,” said Gareth Jenkins, a veteran Istanbul-based writer on Turkey’s military.

“The presidential election is Buyukanit’s first big challenge as chief of the General Staff and he needs to show his supporters he will not be passive.”

This is a period when we need ... reconciliation and understanding more than ever,” wrote Yusuf Kanli this week in the Turkish Daily News paper.

—Reuters