Ankara's top prosecutor is on the verge of issuing a 2,500-page indictment against the AKP which promises to shine a bright light on the deepening divisions in Turkish society. At issue are two cases which could redefine both Islamic politics and Kemalist secularism in ways unprecedented in modern

In one, the prosecutor is arguing that the AKP and its 70 top members - including PM Erdogan and President Abdullah Gul - should be banned for aiming to impose Islamist rule. Arguments began on July 1 and are expected to wrap up within a few weeks.

Hours before the court began the hearing on the AKP, the Erdogan authorities made 23 pre-dawn arrests in its own case against an ultra-Kemalist gang called "Ergenekon", which it says sought to sow chaos to prompt a military coup d'etat against the elected government. Two retired four-star generals were locked up on July 6, the latest to be imprisoned on suspicion they were behind the shadowy organisation.

Kemalist opponents of the AKP - who often invoke the name of Turkey's secular founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk - say the detention of "patriots" is politically motivated. Indictments in the Ergenekon probe have not yet been issued, even though it has been 13 months since explosives were found in an Istanbul apartment, ushering Ergenekon into the Turkish lexicon for the first time as an ultra-Kemalist group with high-level contacts aimed to topple the AKP government.

The Turkish media have brimmed with reports of leaked details from the indictment against the alleged coup-plotters, including plans for mass protests, assassinations, and acts to provoke fear - all adding up to a decision by the military to seize control. Mustafa Akyol, a columnist for the Turkish Daily News, says: "This is all very mind-boggling. The question is whether this is true, and whether it will be documented and proved".

In a nation where secularism has long been a pillar of society - the military has staged four coups in as many decades, in its self-declared role as the protector of Kemalism - acts by virulent ultra-nationalists have rarely been challenged. Akyol says: "In Turkey, the common [view] is that if you are a patriot, if you love your country, you are a good guy, and whatever you do has some justification. Now it will be proven that patriots, people who love their country, can be criminals. They can kill".

Such groups have for decades been close to elite power centres. They are widely called the "Deep State" - renegade members of the security forces who act beyond the law, and believed to have secret but unproven connections with the military, police, and judiciary. Soli Ozel, a political scientist at Istanbul Bilgi University, says: The arrests "changed the political landscape in the country for good in favour of civilian supremacy in the balance of power", noting that it may be part of "a big cleaning up process, cleaning up the military from interventionists, from those who [want] to take Turkey away from its Western security orientation".

Among those arrested was a high-ranking editor of a Kemalist newspaper, and Sinan Aygun, the chairman of the Chamber of Commerce in Ankara who reportedly told police: "I am being taken away because I love Ataturk!"

PM Erdogan has been quoted in the newspaper Sabah as saying: "These gangs are not new in our country. Our aim is to get rid of them". Noting the initial police raids, Erdogan said: "There is a deep Turkey working against the Deep State. This prevents [the ultra-Kemalists] being as active as they once were".

Ozel says: "The tentacles of the Deep State are obviously pretty deep, but...there is no longer a life-support system for them, partly because Turkey, to progress politically from now on, has to cleanse itself from that element". Ozel adds that, legally, the case against Ergenekon and the prosecutor's charges against AKP may not be related, but politically are inter-connected.

Ozel points out: "If half the things that are being said about [Ergenekon] are correct, can they really have even contemplated this without support from serving military personnel? Obviously you can get to those connections, and [so] whoever is behind the [AKP] closure case may have to think twice".

Despite the political uncertainty, business continues in Turkey - a novel state of affairs considering how past stand-offs have crippled the economy, sometimes for even years on end. It is a fierce power struggle which will reignite the battle between Kemalists and Muslim conservatives (or neo-Ottomans).

Hugh Pope, the Turkey analyst for the International Crisis Group (ICG), says: "The whole question is what is the rule of law, and how should Turkey be run?. The scene in Ankara is two points of view that can't see a way forward". That bolsters suspicions about the handling of both inquires. AKP backers say the case against it is a "farce", while the Ergenekon case, too, has political overtones.

Fadi Hakura, a Turkey expert at the London think-tank Chatham House, says: Lack of public evidence means the charges "may have been exaggerated". He says Ergenekon's effort appeared "a bit shambolic and ill-organised. It could be true. But given the politically charged atmosphere, the timing of the arrests, the way they were done and the critical lack of an indictment does raise a lot of questions".