Turkish police launch second operation against 'post-modern coup'

Hurriyet.com.tr

Gen Erol Özkasnak is seen at his residence in Bodrum. DHA photo

Police are conducting raids on locations in six provinces today in a fresh operation that has been launched as part of a probe into Turkey's so-called "post-modern coup" of Feb. 28, 1997.
 
A specially authorized prosecutor in Ankara issued search warrants for addresses in Ankara, Istanbul, İzmir, Adana, Muğla, Eskişehir and Afyonkarahisar. 
 
Detention orders were issued for numerous retired and active-duty military officers. The then-general secretary of the General Staff retired Gen. Erol Özkasnak was detained.
 
Gendarmerie started a search at Özkasnak's residence in the resort town of Bodrum in Muğla at around 8 a.m. Özkasnak was at his residence and invited police officers, who later arrived at the scene, into his house. The gendarmerie left Özkasnak's residence after police arrived and set up a perimeter around the dwelling. Journalists were not allowed near Özkasnak's home, reports said. 
 
Eighteen suspects were arrested in last week's wave of detentions. Among the arrested was then-Deputy Chief of General Staff Gen. Çevik Bir.
 
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.