Turkey tensions to persist unless Ergenekon leaders arrested

PanARMENIAN.Net - With the Turkish political elite being divided into Kemalists and Islamists, the current situation in Turkey is rather complicated, an Armenian professor said.



"Kemalists, who are linked tightly to Ergenekon, are losing influence," professor Ruben Safrastyan, director of the Institute of Oriental Studies at the RA Academy of Sciences, told a news conference in Yerevan today.



"The ruling AK party pursues a more balanced policy that Kemalists. Nevertheless, tensions in Turkey will persist unless Ergenekon leaders are arrested," he said.



The investigation exposed links between Ergenekon and an armed attack on the Turkish Council of State in 2006 that left a judge dead, a bombing of a secularist newspaper, threats and attacks against people accused of being unpatriotic and the 1996 Susurluk incident, as well as links to the plans of some groups in the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) to overthrow the present government. Ergenekon is also supposed to have a role in the murder of Hrant Dink.