Turkey Charges 86 Nationalists With Plotting Coup

ANKARA, Turkey, July 14 -- Prosecutors on Monday charged 86 nationalists, including former army officers and a best-selling writer, of plotting to overthrow Turkey's Islamic-oriented government, escalating a power struggle between the ruling party's supporters and secular opposition forces.

Aykut Cengiz Engin, the chief prosecutor in Istanbul, said the suspects were charged either with forming or belonging to a terrorist organization or with provoking an armed uprising with the aim of bringing down the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The suspects are believed to be part of a nationalist network called Ergenekon, which takes its name from a legendary valley in Central Asia believed to be the ancestral homeland of Turks.

The opposition says the case smacks of political revenge against secularist groups -- including the military -- at a time when the country's top court is deliberating whether to disband the ruling party for alleged anti-secular activity.

Erdogan's supporters say the lawsuit will help strengthen democracy in a country that has experienced several military interventions in the past half-century.

The indictment accuses the suspects of "attempting to prevent the functioning of the Turkish government or of eradicating it, by using oppression and force," the prosecutor said. The suspects allegedly devised plans to create a climate of civil unrest to provoke a military coup.

The prosecutor did not name those charged, but they are believed to include at least one retired general and an opposition politician, who were arrested over the past year.

Hard-line secular Turks contend that Erdogan's government is trying to erode Turkey's secular laws and is making too many concessions on national interests to join the European Union.