Turkey's chief of staff Thursday lashed out at a "psychological campaign" to smear the army and warned of a "confrontation" over claims it was seeking to discredit and even oust the ruling party.

His remarks followed suggestions that a deadly attack on soldiers last week might have been orchestrated to undermine the government.

"Some circles have been carrying out a (…) psychological campaign against the armed forces, based on fabricated incidents and lies," Ilker Basbug said in a live broadcast from the Black Sea port of Trabzon.

Seven soldiers were killed in an ambush in northern Turkey last week, claimed subsequently by the rebel Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

But there were veiled suggestions, voiced also by government members, that the attack, in a region far from PKK hotbeds, might have been a plot to raise tensions and sabotage an already faltering government drive to expand Kurdish freedoms.

"PKK supporters may link terror incidents to the army, but politicians, academics and the media cannot and should not make such innuendoes," Basbug said.

The powerful, staunchly secularist Turkish army has complained of a smear campaign over the past several months over allegations, carried mostly by pro-government media, that the military was plotting against the ruling Islamist-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP).

Most recently, reports said the navy plotted bomb attacks against Turkey's tiny Christian minority in a bid to turn Western countries against the AKP.

Some of the more serious claims have been made in documents with dubious authenticity and anonymous letters.

"The judicial authorities should act with more caution on anonymous letters and the testimonies of secret witnesses and informers," Basbug said.

"In such cases… cooperation with the armed forces is necessary," he said. "Otherwise, this may lead to a confrontation between institutions."

Dozens of suspects, among them retired generals, are currently on trial as part of a controversial case against an alleged secularist network accused of plotting assassinations and political chaos to prompt a military coup.

Prosecutors have targeted also prominent journalists and intellectuals known as AKP critics, triggering accusations that the probe is a government-sponsored campaign to bully and silence opponents.

The Turkish army, which sees itself as the guardian of Turkey's secular system, has unseated four governments since 1960, but has kept a low profile over the past two years.

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