Secularists stage mass protest

Istanbul: Up to a million people rallied in a sea of red Turkish flags yesterday, accusing the government of planning an Islamist state and demanding it withdraw its presidential candidate.

But despite the Istanbul protests and a threat from the powerful army to intervene in the election, Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul, architect of Turkey's EU membership drive, said he would remain the ruling AK Party's candidate for head of state.

The protesters flooded the streets of Turkey's largest city, praising the army and denouncing Gul and Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, whose AK Party enjoys a huge parliamentary majority, as a threat to a secular order separating state and religion.

"Turkey is secular and will remain secular," they chanted.

"Turkey is under threat from the AK Party leadership... We will not be able to express our thoughts like this if they stay in power," said protester Cigdem Yilmaz, 22, a student.

Top Turkish businessmen called for early parliamentary elections, which the AK party would appear well placed to win.

Islamist past

Many secularists are worried by Gul's Islamist past and the fact his wife wears the Muslim headscarf banned in universities and public offices. But the AK Party, which has vigorously pressed liberal reforms and European Union membership ambitions, since election in 2002, denies any secret agenda.

"As a woman I want to be free ... We are here to protest against being covered," said Canan Karatay, president of Istanbul Science University.

But Gul, a gently spoken diplomat known to EU leaders and viewed with confidence on markets, gave no ground.

"The process [of electing a president] has begun and will continue ... There can be no question of my candidacy being withdrawn," Gul told reporters in the capital Ankara.

Defiance

Such defiance would have been unthinkable 10 years ago when the army, with public support and without tanks, last ousted a democratically elected government it deemed too Islamist. The AK Party, which is expected to win general elections due by November, has cut the powers of the military as part of its EU reform drive.

The prospect of a member of the AK Party now becoming command-in-Chief of the armed forces and successor to secular republic founder Kemal Ataturk would gall the generals.