Turkey’s Supreme Military Council removed ten officers for “reactionary” (used to mean Islamist) activities. From South East European Times:

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose government has been at odds with the military and Turkey’s secular elite, chaired the meeting. He and Defence MinisterVecdi Gonul expressed reservations about the officer expulsions, but acknowledged that under the current system, Council decisions cannot be appealed. The AKP reportedly plans to change the system as part of a planned constitutional reform.

The military, meanwhile, continues to insist that the AKP choose a secularist president to succeed incumbent Ahmet Necdet Sezer. In April, as Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul sought to become president, the military published a sharply worded warning. Gul’s bid then failed.

“We are still behind what we said on April 12th,” General Staff chief General Yasar Buyukanit told reporters last week. “There is no change on that.”

The Turkish military has a quasi-constitutional role in keeping Turkey secular, a role which AKP has said they seek to change.  Of course these events comes after a landslide victory for the Islamist AKP, which we talked about earlier here, a landslide which was praised by both Hamas and Gordon Brown. Will the strength of the military be enough to keep Turkey from an Islamist fate? I’m not optimistic.