ANKARA: Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan denied tension between his government and the military as state prosecutors investigating an alleged assassination plot searched an army office on Sunday.
It was the search of the office in two days and followed the arrest on Saturday of eight soldiers. The investigation was launched after Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc said a security guard at his home in Ankara saw a car carrying two officers near the house several times.
Arinc is a powerful figure in the Islamist-rooted AK Party government and has often been at odds with the generals.
“Nobody will benefit from showing as if there were problems between the institutions. Every claim is being investigated,” Erdogan told a business gathering on Sunday. The reports fueled rumors of mounting tension between the AK Party and the armed forces, seen as guarantor of the secular constitution.
“An entire institution should not be blamed for the mistakes of individuals. Nobody has the right to hurt the peace in the country with rumors and allegations,” Erdogan said. The Chief of General Staff Ilker Basbug and land forces commander Isik Kosaner met Erdogan on Saturday after the soldiers’ arrests. The National Security Council, where the assassination plot is expected to be discussed, will convene on Monday. Opposition nationalist politicians accuse the AK Party of whipping up scares to win sympathy as the country moves toward a general election due by mid-2011.
