The failed plot to overthrow President Erdogan has revealed the unstable political landscape and the concerns of minorities in the once defiantly secular country

the fizzling out of the attempted military coup in Turkey in a matter of hours last weekend brought sighs of relief worldwide that serious instability had been avoided.

But with hundreds left dead and injured, and a mass purge now underway of presumed opponents of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the short-lived drama has exposed deep fissures, raising fears that Turkey could slide further from Western standards of democracy.

Over the past decade, first as premier and then as president, Erdogan has steered Turkey away from the strict secular system established by its modern founder, Kemal Ataturk, and confirmed by its 1937 constitution, calculating a strongly Islamic nation will best help it survive multiple threats from within and without. This, together with Erdogan’s authoritarian style, has worried Turkey’s non-Muslim minorities. It also appears to have motivated the coup plotters, whose statement talked of restoring Turkey’s “secular democracy”.

At around 10 p.m. last Friday, tanks converged on  parliament and television buildings in Ankara and helicopters strafed the presidential palace, while rebel troops took up positions in Istanbul and blocked bridges across the Bosphorus.