FOR the sake of stability in the Middle East, it is extremely advisable that all parties on all asides of the current crisis in Turkey take a step back before provoking something that could go beyond anyone's desires. The past 40-odd years have seen a succession of military coups for a variety of reasons, many of which took place in the name of securing the secular nature of the state as prescribed by Mustafa Kamal Ataturk, who founded the Turkish Republic in the early part of this century. Turkey has gone back and forth from military rule with democracy with a surprising regularity. That regularity appeared to have been disrupted last year with the election of an AKP majority to the country's parliament and the ascendance of Recep Tayyip Erdogan to the post of prime minister, a post from which he had formerly been barred because of a hardline Islamist past that had, at one time. landed him in jail. He ascendancy struck fear in the hearts of Turkey's strict secularists, especially since it was widely known that his wife wore a headscarf, an Islamic symbol that had long been banned on Turkey's university campuses. The headscarf ban was struck down earlier this year and the AKP was hauled into court on charges that it was an Islamist party dedicated to destroying the secular nature of the Turkish government. Just as that trial was getting underway, the Turkish police announced a number of arrests of opposition figures, many of them military men, charging them with plotting to overthrow the government. In general, the AKP has acted respectably, hardly thrusting a hardline Islamist agenda on the country. The headscarf issue may be a signature issue, but many if not most Turks regard the headscarf purely as a religious symbol and not a political one. But suspicions are rife that the much publicized arrests were purely political in nature, designed both to silence and intimidate government critics. Whatever the truth, such gamesmanship could have extreme consequences, especially in light of both sides' continued support for EU membership. At the moment, both camps would appear to be skating at the very edge of the values that the EU has laid out for its members. __
