Turkish army chief meets PM

The meeting between General Ilker Basbug, chief of the Turkish military, and Erdogan came as tensions in the country rose after Taraf daily last week ran a headline story of an alleged clandestine action plan targeting the ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP, and all members of a religious sect named after its controversial leader, Fethullah Gulen.

No statement was made following the just over one-hour-long meeting held at the Prime Ministry, which hosts regular meetings between the two on Thursdays.

After conducting an investigation, the Turkish military announced Monday that none of its units were involved in the preparation of the alleged action plan to finish off the ruling party. The Turkish Security Forces, or TSK, will employ every effort to find out whether the document was authentic and if so it declared those responsible would be punished, the army said.

Basbug told Hurriyet daily in an interview published on Tuesday that military prosecutors would make a definite statement on whether such a document existed or not.

"We took statements from related people. We asked them and they say they did not do such work. Computers were seized and there was no clue of such work after technical analyses were made. That is, no such document was written on those computers," he added.

AKP officials, however, expressed their dissatisfaction with the army statements on Monday, a day after Erdogan said his government was looking into the matter and a legal case would be launched if necessary.

A senior naval officer, Dursun Cicek, accused of crafting the four-page document in April, will give his deposition to a Turkish prosecutor assigned in the country's controversial Ergenekon probe on Wednesday.

The plan, allegedly drafted by the General Staff’s operations division, is said to contain efforts to fight fundamentalism, end the activities of religious movements, particularly the ruling AKP and the Gulen movement that are accused of trying to undermine Turkey’s secular order and establish an Islamic state.

Photo is an archive image.