ISTANBUL, May 17 (Reuters) – Turkey said on Thursday it had
scrambled military jets to intercept an Israeli plane that
violated northern Cypriot airspace this week, and demanded an
explanation for the incursion.

An Israeli military spokesman declined to comment on the
accusation. But the incident marked a fresh source of tension
between the former allies.

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – A journalist’s fable portraying the Turkish military as a spoilt, overfed dog has provoked a rare show of unity by top generals and the Prime Minister seen by many as their nemesis.

“This is an individual whose pen always drips with filth,” Erdogan said of columnist Bekir Coskun, whose account of a privileged military that puts comfort and security before freedom drew on a fable from ancient Greek writer Aesop.

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey was drowning in waves of arrests of military officers accused of coup conspiracies and called for the investigations, which his government has backed, to be wrapped up more quickly.

Around 50 retired and serving officers, some very senior, have been held over the last month in raids linked to the 1997 toppling of Turkey’s first Islamist-led government. The arrests run parallel to trials of hundreds of officers, businessmen and academics accused of involvement in other alleged coup plots.

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Born of a 1960 coup, Turkey’s OYAK army pension fund has become a potent symbol of military economic power with interests from cement to car production. Now, as the generals’ political influence dwindles with arrests and coup trials, OYAK is attracting unwanted attention.

OYAK chairman Yildirim Turker, a retired lieutenant-general, languishes in jail awaiting trial on accusations dating back before his chairmanship to a 1997 ‘soft coup’ that forced an Islamist-led government from power. An OYAK security firm’s employees stand charged in connection with another coup plot and a parliamentary sub-commission has begun scrutinizing its activities after complaints from OYAK members.

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Former Turkish armed forces commander General Ilker Basbug failed to appear among defendants in a mass trial over suspected coup conspiracies, witnesses said, in an apparent protest at the merging of his case with other coup investigations.

The court held the first hearing on Monday combining a series of trials into suspected members of an alleged arch-nationalist network called Ergenekon.

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – The head of Turkey’s military-run business conglomerate was jailed on Thursday pending trial over the 1997 toppling of the country’s first Islamist led government, raising a symbolic challenge to the military’s economic power.

The Ankara court order to jail retired lieutenant-general Yildirim Turker along with eight other serving and retired officers, brought the number held pending trial to 35 since prosecutors launched an investigation earlier this month.

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Police detained the chairman of Turkey’s army pension fund, a powerful military-run industrial conglomerate, on Wednesday in an investigation of a military intervention that drove the country’s first Islamist-led government from power in 1997.

A police sweep, which also brought the arrest of a senior retired general, brought to around 50 the number detained in the latest of a series of judicial probes calling generals to account for a history of military takeovers as well as alleged coup attempts.

ANKARA (Reuters) – Leftist student Erdal Eren was just 17 when Turkey’s military hanged him after seizing power in a 1980 coup.

His cousin Gokhan is now among thousands calling the now silver-haired, 94-year-old coup leader General Kenan Evren to account in a trial this week which many Turks hope will help heal wounds from a history of military takeovers.

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Raising a clenched fist to supporters and storming at one point from the courtroom, former military chief Ilker Basbug has cut a defiant figure defending the army’s prestige at his trial for terrorism. But the extraordinary scenes have stirred mixed emotions among Turks and raised questions about the way a sprawling coup plot investigation is being handled.

“The Turkish army has never been defeated,” one fellow officer told General Basbug in court at the start of his trial this week in the Silivri high-security prison where the former commander has been jailed since January.

ISTANBUL, March 27 (Reuters) – Turkey’s central bank held
all of its key interest rates steady on Tuesday and pointed to
reductions in the volume of cheap cash it supplies to banks,
also warning it can tighten policy further if need be to tame
inflation.

The bank, seeking to support the lira currency while also
trying to stimulate a flagging economy in a complicated policy
mix, left its main one-week repo rate at a record low of 5.75
percent.