On February 28, 1997, the military effectively deposed the duly elected prime minister, Necmettin Erbakan, who had been in office less than a year, leading to the collapse of Erbakan’s coalition government. It was Turkey’s last military coup, and perhaps the most unusual. Though Erbakan remained in office a few months more, at least in theory, he became nothing but a cog in the military’s wheel. The military forced him to sign a number of anti-Islamist decrees. The Turkish Army had long considered itself the guardian of the secular state, which is regarded as a legacy handed down by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. The military had intervened in Turkish politics with some regularity, staging what it saw as “justified” coups in 1960, 1971, 1980 and 1997.
In 2012, Turkish Parliament established a commission to investigate military coups, most importantly the Feb, 28 coup. Turkey has been trying 103 people accused of involvement in the Feb. 28 coup, 76 of whom were jailed pending trial, for “involvement in forcibly overthrowing and toppling the government of the Turkish Republic.”