ANKARA: Turkish authorities detained more than 21 ultra-nationalists, including two prominent retired generals yesterday in a widening police investigation into a suspected coup plot against the government. Police swooped shortly before the Constitutional Court began hearing a legal case in which the governing Justice and Development Party (AKP) is charged with trying to establish an Islamic state and could be closed, a move that might lead to an early parliamentary election.Turkish stocks fell six per cent and the lira currency almost 2pc on concerns of prolonged political uncertainty which political analysts say could damage Ankara's hopes of joining the EU.
Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said the detentions were linked to a long-running probe into Ergenekon, a shadowy, ultra-nationalist and hardline secularist group suspected of planning bombings and assassinations calculated to trigger an army takeover.
Anatolian said among those detained were prominent retired generals Hursit Tolon and Sener Eruygur, the former chief of gendarmerie forces and head of an association. Ankara Chamber of Commerce chairman Sinan Aygun and Mustafa Balbay, Ankara representative of Cumhuriyet newspaper were also detained. All four are known as vocal government critics.
More than 40 people, including a retired general, lawyers and politicians have been arrested over the past year for suspected links to Ergenekon. The military, which has repeatedly criticised the government, has denied any links to the group.
Half of those detained were members of the powerful Kemalist Thought Association (ADD). ADD helped push millions of Turks onto the streets to protest against the election of former foreign minister Abdullah Gul as president last year, sparking an early parliamentary election.
Shortly after the detentions, chief prosecutor outlined his case in the Constitutional Court to close the the governing Islamist-rooted AKP, which was re-elected only last year. The prosecutor also wants to ban 71 political figures, including Erdogan, from party politics for five years for seeking to turn officially secular, but predominantly Muslim, Turkey into an Islamic state.
Among those arrested in the police operation that also spread to Istanbul, the northern city of Trabzon and Antalya in the south were Ufuk Buyukcelebi, the editor-in-chief of the daily Tercuman and a retired colonel, television reports said.