ISTANBUL (AP) — In 2010, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan sat beside the armed forces chief at an annual meeting to decide on appointments in the military command. On Monday, he sat alone at the head of the table, a symbol of civilian authority over the generals whose top commanders resigned last week in a dispute with the government.

The symbolism of the seating scheme delivered the message that Turkey's military, which once staged coups and presided over the writing of the constitution in the early 1980s, had lost another battle in a power struggle with a government with strong electoral support.
The body language said the same thing, too. Journalists were briefly allowed into the meeting room at military headquarters in the capital, Ankara, and Erdogan sat with his fists on the table while the generals flanking him kept their hands below and out of sight.
The emphatic imagery helped settle the public mood in Turkey, where an earlier era of instability dwells in the national psyche, despite political reforms and major economic and diplomatic advances under Erdogan since 2003. Turks recall a 2001 meeting in which the president lobbed a copy of the constitution at Erdogan's predecessor during a quarrel, spooking the markets amid a financial crisis.
On Friday, the nation's top four military commanders, including the chief of staff, resigned in protest against the arrest and prosecution in the past few years of hundreds of retired and active-duty military officers in alleged coup plots. Some observers feared Turkey was on the brink of a new crisis, but in removing themselves from the scene, the commanders effectively yielded to the government.
It was notable that the top brass announced their exit after the markets closed on Friday, suggesting they were wanted to avoid inflicting financial chaos on the country in case the currency plunged. The Turkish lira dropped, but it was trading flat on Monday.
Erdogan's roots in political Islam have alarmed hardline secularists in the military and other institutions, and some Turks fear he is backtracking on reform pledges despite the electoral triumphs of his ruling party and vows to draft a new, more democratic constitution.
The prime minister, who has presided over an extraordinary surge in Turkey's international profile, has handled the military upheaval with the same forceful style. The military council meeting that he chaired on Monday will appoint new commanders, and Gen. Necdet Ozel, until recently the military police commander, was poised to fill the vacuum by becoming the new chief of staff.
Ozel, appointed as army commander on Friday, is also the acting chief of staff. The seats of chief of staff of the navy, air force and military police are also vacant. The appointments process, which could include dismissals or trigger more protest resignations, was expected to take several days.
One of the commanders at the meeting is ensnared in the coup plot investigations. Turkish prosecutors on Friday issued an arrest warrant for Gen. Nusret Tasdeler, army head in the Aegean Sea region, along with 21 other suspects, including six more generals, in an alleged Internet campaign to destabilize the government.
Tasdeler's appearance at the meeting with Erdogan suggested he was in a defiant mood or felt that he had done nothing wrong, though other implicated generals have eventually turned themselves in to prosecutors without resistance.
The Turkish military is involved in NATO operations in Afghanistan and Libya, though it is not directly involved in combat. It is also fighting Kurdish rebels concentrated in southeast Turkey.
On a day of symbolism Monday, Erdogan also showed solidarity with the generals, accompanying them on a wreath-laying ceremony at the mausoleum of national founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, a former army officer and war hero who replaced Islam, a pillar of Ottoman rule, with a state creed of secularism. The prime minister, in a blue suit and sunglasses, walked ahead, no companion at his side.
The generals trailed behind.
Photo: Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan chairs the annual Supreme Military Council on August 1 in Ankara. (Getty Images)