ISTANBUL - TURKISH police detained 20 people, including 10 serving military officers, on Thursday in connection with an investigation into an alleged plot to topple the government, CNN Turk television said.
The arrests were made in five provinces around the country and followed the discovery in April of a cache of weapons outside of Istanbul, CNN Turk said.
The latest arrests are part of a probe into an ultra-nationalist group known as Ergenekon, accused of planning bomb attacks and assassinations to foment social unrest and destabilise Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's government.
They are accused of trying to undermine the ruling AK Party because of its suspected Islamist agenda and its bid to make Turkey the first Muslim member of the European Union.
About 140 people are already on trial in the case, including retired military officers, lawyers and journalists.
The 10 officers who were arrested on Thursday work at Ankara's military hospital, and anti-terrorism police were searching the homes of some of them, CNN Turk said. Two civilians who work at a military facility were also detained.
Erdogan's critics have said the probe is a political crackdown against the opposition.
The widening investigation has at times unnerved financial markets and increased tensions between the government and the powerful military, self-appointed guardians of Turkish secularism.
Turkey's military has staged three outright coups and pressured a fourth government, the first led by Islamists, to step down in 1997. -- REUTERS
