ISTANBUL, Turkey (AP) — Turkey's military always has something to say, be it about defense, the independence of judges or religion in schools. And two decades after the country's third and last coup, everyone's still listening.
Twenty years ago Tuesday, Turkey's military leaders arrested the prime minister and opposition leaders, took over the only television station and announced they were in charge.
After three years, they restored elected government. But ever since, the question remains how much power was actually given back to civilian leaders.
Although the generals no longer intervene in the day-to-day running of Turkey, all crucial decisions seem to need their approval, and critics say the generals may be the greatest obstacle to Turkey becoming fully democratic and achieving its dream of European Union membership.
Geographically and culturally, Turkey straddles Europe and Asia and sees the borderless, tariff-free, single-currency European Union as its gateway to prosperity. The military views itself as the guarantor of the secular modern state founded by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, himself a soldier, in the 1920s on the ruins of the Ottoman Empire.
"The prominence of the army in politics is an impediment for Turkey to become a full member of the European Union," political analyst Fehmi Koru said. "It is against democratic principles. The (European Union's) criteria tell us that the army must be under the control of civilians."
In coup times, Istanbul would be patrolled by armed soldiers enforcing curfews. Today, it's a vibrant, chaotic city of 12 million people — but the police struggling to keep order are civilian, not military.
Still, Turks are forever speculating on what the military is doing behind the scenes.
The debate returned to the forefront last week after the chief of the armed forces, Gen. Huseyin Kivrikoglu, publicly urged Turkey's political leaders to purge the civil service of officials who sympathize with Islamic militancy.
The government is eager to do so, but President Ahmet Necdet Sezer says Parliament must approve.
The military chief said he didn't care how it was done, as long as the purge took place. The army's job, he reminded Turks, was "to protect the republic's immutable characteristics: the democratic, secular and social state of law."
In the past, the military identified the extreme left and right as the main threats to the state. Nowadays it is more worried about Islamic militants. The general staff pressed Parliament into passing a law that effectively shut down religious secondary schools. Kivrikoglu recently said that radical Islamic elements had infiltrated the judiciary.
The military also directs state policy toward Turkey's 12 million Kurds. Overriding liberals in the civilian government, the generals oppose giving the Kurds language rights.
They reject any compromise, even though Kurdish rebels fighting for autonomy in Turkey's southeast announced an end to armed struggle earlier this year.
The military took over the country three times between 1960 and 1980 — the last time to quell leftist-rightist street battles that were killing about a dozen people a day.
During the Cold War, the coups tended to be forgiven in the West because Turkey was a vital NATO member, and the generals could be relied on to restore civilian government once their objectives were achieved.
"The Turkish military is not a corporate body that defends its own interests like a South American army. They have always pulled out, and very quickly," said Sencer Ayata, a sociology professor at Ankara's Middle Eastern Technical University.
But "they reserve the right to intervene as they have demonstrated several times in the past decades when they feel that the country has been mismanaged to the point of endangering its future," said Bulent Aliriza of the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.
The top generals use the National Security Council — theoretically only an advisory board — to shape state policies. Through that council, they engineered the downfall of Turkey's first Islamic-led government in 1997.
With governments rarely lasting more than a year, and nearly all parties tainted by corruption, polls show the military remains the most trusted institution in Turkey.
"Abroad, some circles use the term 'militaristic democracy' to describe Turkey, and there are people in the country who do not like this, but it is good to have 'militaristic democracy,"' wrote a columnist for the Cumhuriyet daily, Ilhan Selcuk, on Wednesday, adding that without the military Turkey risks becoming an Islamic state like Iran.
"There is no sort of political will in this country, organized or powerful enough to overcome the deep ideological and cultural conflicts of Turkey," said Ayata, the sociology professor, referring to radical Islam and Kurdish separatism. "In the absence of that will, it remains to the military to deal with them, in their way."
The European Union named Turkey as a candidate for membership in December, but is pressing it to improve its human rights record and end its 16-year war with Kurdish rebels.
But if Turkey wants to enter the European Union, the military may have no choice but to step back, analysts say.
In a written statement to The Associated Press, the general staff said it supports Turkey's candidacy for European Union membership, but warned it would not make "any concessions on the Republic's basic principles such as the unity of the state and secularism."