ANKARA, (Reuters) – Turkey’s top military brass resigned yesterday, in the latest and possibly decisive round of a long battle between the traditional secularist establishment embodied by the army and the Islam-rooted government of Tayyip Erdogan that has dominated Turkey for nearly a decade.
The head of Turkey’s military quit yesterday along with the army, navy and airforce chiefs in protest against what he called the unjust detention of 250 military officers held on charges of conspiracy against Prime Minister Erdogan’s government.
The unprecedented move by the High Command in NATO’s second largest armed forces sent shockwaves through Turkey.
It lays open the deep rift between a military badged with the legacy of Mustafa Kemal Atatruk, founder of the Turkish Republic, and a rival elite represented by Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AK), with Islamist roots and a vast following in the conservative heartland of Anatolia.
