Bulletin de liaison et d'information - Institut kurde de Paris

Revue de Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka Çapê-Rivista Stampa-Dentro de la Prensa-Basm Özeti
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Turkish Army's No.1
Concern
By Kelly Couturier
Special to The Washington Post
Saturday, April 5 1997;Page A22
The Washington Post
A senior Turkish general said today that combating
anti-secular Islamic forces has become the military's top
priority, more pressing even than the fight against
Kurdish separatists.
The comments from the deputy chief of general staff,
Gen. Cevik Bir, strongly indicated that the army -- the
traditional guarantor of the secular state founded by
Mustafa Kemal Ataturk 73 years ago -- has no intention
of backing down in its current standoff with the Islamic
leaders who head Turkey's government. .
"As the military, we have given first priority to getting
rid of anti-secular movements, which are even trying
to infiltrate the army," Bir, one of the military's most
outspoken and influential leaders, said in an interview
at general staff headquarters.
In identifying the "anti-secular threat" as more serious
than a Kurdish separatist insurgency that has
preoccupied the armed forces for more than 12 years,
Bir gave voice to the anxiety felt by many in the secular
establishment here that the rise of the pro-Islamic
Welfare Party has eroded the country's secular laws,
traditions and identity.
Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan, the party's leader,
came to office as head of a coalition government last
June, becoming modern Turkey's first conservative
Islamic pdme minister and shocking the ardently
secular politicians who, with army backing, have run
the country for decades.
Against that background, the military-dominated
National Security Council last month handed Erbakan
a series of measures it said the government should
carry out to thwart what many see as the spread of
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