TURKEY: With growing signs of Turkey being governed by a sinister 'deep state', is the country slipping as a democracy, asks Nicholas Birch in Istanbul
A surreptitious coup in Turkey? US secretary of state Condoleeza Rice sat down with Turkish civilian leaders yesterday to discuss Iran, Iraq and the future of Ankara's and Washington's troubled 50-year alliance.
But with 250,000 Turkish soldiers massing in southeast Turkey for the biggest operations since the country's last Kurdish separatist conflict petered out in 1999, it is questionable whether she picked the right interlocutors.
Conflict back then left Turkey's civilian government emasculated and the military sovereign. With the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), back at war since 2004, Turkish analysts fear the same process may be under way in a country that was in the course of being transformed by its EU accession bid.
Judging by the events of the past few weeks, the worst has already happened.
Real problems started when the funerals of four PKK militants in Diyarbakir late in March sparked days of rioting throughout the southeast. Some 14 people died in clashes with security forces, including three children younger than 10.
No less politicised than their PKK equivalents, soldiers' funerals have focused growing Turkish nationalism and provided a platform for generals adamant that liberal reforms have tied their hands in their fight against terror.
The government now appears to have taken the hint. Last week, cabinet ministers endorsed a hawkish new anti-terror Bill that their own Kurdish MPs warn risks driving Kurds further into the arms of the militants.
The Bill broadens the definition of terrorism, and criminalises parents of children involved in street protests. It also contains an article analysts fear will allow security forces act with total impunity.
Following the sacking of state prosecutor Ferhat Sarikaya last Friday, Turkey has further reasons to debate the issue of army impunity. Mr Sarikaya had been charged with investigating a bombing that killed one man in the southeastern town of Semdinli last November. Caught red-handed, the bombers turned out to be soldiers.
The question was, were they acting on their own - or as part of what Turks call the "deep state", a shadowy grouping of bureaucrats and soldiers believed to be behind hundreds of summary executions, disappearances and kidnappings in the 1990s?
No soldiers have ever been charged by Turkish courts, and many hoped prime minister Tayyip Erdogan's promise to follow the Semdinli case "as far as we have to" marked a turning point.
Mr Sarikaya duly obliged by calling for life sentences against the two soldiers. He described their bomb attack as a deliberate attempt to undermine Turkey's government and its democratisation process. But he also sparked a massive scandal by calling for the investigation of Turkey's number two general.
Yasar Buyukanit, his indictment hinted, had earlier commanded one of the bombers in a gang seeking to stir up tension in Kurdish areas.
The military responded by urging the government to punish the perpetrators of this "intentional onslaught . . . aimed at wearing down the Turkish armed forces". Most analysts admit Mr Sarikaya overstepped his authority. Indicting military officers in Turkey is the job of military prosecutors, and it is in any case impossible to bring generals as senior as Buyukanit to trial.
But last week's decision by a panel of judges to sack Mr Sarikaya was nevertheless met with widespread shock.
"Is this how a country run by a civilian system works," asks Ilnur Cevik, editor of English-language daily the New Anatolian. "After this, who will dare indict people in high places?"
Political analyst Cuneyt Ulsever, meanwhile, thinks the prosecutor's fate is the closest Turkey has got to a military coup since an Islamist government was forced from power in 1997.
"It was the prime minister who was banned from performing his duties that day," he says.
"We now have a symbolic prime minister."