KEY POINTS:
ISTANBUL - Turkish police have arrested two retired top generals they believe were members of a state-backed gang suspected of a large number of high-profile killings and a plot to murder Nobel Prize-winning novelist Orhan Pamuk.
Former military police chief Sener Eruygur, and Hursit Tolon, a former Army number two, were among 25 people taken into custody in Ankara yesterday in the latest twist in investigations that began last year.
Dozens of people - including another retired general and a prominent ultra-nationalist lawyer - are in custody on charges of "provoking armed rebellion against the Government".
The plotters' plan allegedly was to assassinate public intellectuals and Kurdish politicians, and even target military personnel, as part of a campaign to destabilise Turkish society and force military intervention.
The arrests mark a sudden intensification of a power struggle consuming the country. The targeting of two members of the secular establishment came on the same day that the ruling party was fighting court charges aimed at shutting it down.
The country's senior prosecutor has brought a case against the AK Party of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, accusing it of trying to establish an Islamic state. If it results in the party being banned, it is likely to lead to political turmoil and an early election.
The latest developments could dim Turkey's chances of joining the EU.
Editor of the liberal daily Radikal Ismet Berkan compared the plan to the civil unrest in 1960 that preceded the first of Turkey's three full-on coups.
"The difference is that, this time, for the first time in Turkey's history, four-star generals - the big fish - have been hauled in by a civilian prosecutor."
- INDEPENDENT
