Police kick off fifth operation against post-modern coup

ANKARA – Doğan News Agency

Hürriyet photo

Turkish police are conducting raids in four provinces this morning in an operation that comes as part of a probe into Turkey's so-called "post-modern coup" of Feb. 28, 1997.

A specially authorized prosecutor in Ankara ordered the detention of retired Lt. Gen. Vural Akar in the Aegean province of Muğla. Akar, accompanied by police officers, was taken to Ankara, according to reports.

The raids constitute the fifth wave of the ongoing probe.

Police also detained another retired lieutenant general living in the Aegean province of İzmir and sent him to Ankara. Operations are also occurring in Istanbul and Ankara.

Retired Gen. Çetin Doğan and Engin Alan, who are both detained suspects in the “Balyoz” (Sledgehammer) trial, will also be involved in the Feb. 28 probe.

The “post-modern coup,” or the “Feb. 28 process,” refers to a harsh army-led campaign that forced Turkey’s first Islamist prime minister, Necmettin Erbakan, to resign in June 1997 after only a year in office. The process took its name from the Feb. 28, 1997, meeting of the National Security Council (MGK), at which Turkey’s then-omnipotent military imposed a series of tough secularist demands on Erbakan that mainly aimed at curbing Islamic education in the face of what was perceived to be a growing threat to Turkey’s secular system.