ANKARA, Turkey: Turkey's premier wants to avoid tensions before presidential elections next month, he said Tuesday, with secularist circles strongly opposing his possible candidacy.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, of the Islamic-rooted government, has not said whether he will run for president in May.
There is strong opposition from secularists to an Erdogan candidacy because the position — although largely ceremonial — is regarded as a bastion of secularism, and many do not want to see his wife, who wears an Islamic-style head scarf, move into the presidential palace.
"Our real goal is to focus on our country's development without tensions in our country," Erdogan told reporters before flying to Syria for a one-day visit to watch a friendly soccer match between Turkey and Syria.
"As the ruling party, we have a strategy and we will announce our candidates when the time is right."
Some secularist groups, including some unions and associations, planned to organize demonstrations in the coming weeks to declare their opposition to an Erdogan presidency.
President Ahmet Necdet Sezer, a staunch secularist, will step down in May. Political parties were expected to announce their candidates after mid-April. The new president will be elected by parliament, where Erdogan's Justice and Development Party holds the majority.
On Monday, Erdogan addressed supporters during a party meeting in the central Anatolian city of Eskisehir. Some supporters want to see him rise to the top of the state in a show of force of the country's political Islamic movement, but others want to him to be prime minister for another term. His party is likely to lead polls in November.
The new president will likely be a lawmaker from Erdogan's party and is widely expected to work in harmony with the government.
Sezer, a former Constitutional Court judge, vetoed a record number of laws he deemed violated the secular constitution and has blocked government efforts to appoint hundreds of reportedly Islamic-oriented candidates to important civil service positions.
Sezer has often cautioned against "the threat of Islamic fundamentalism," an apparent reference to the appointment of Islamic-minded officials to key civil service positions and statements by officials in Erdogan's party questioning the definition of secularism.
Erdogan's government denies it has an Islamic agenda, but pro-secular Turks charge the government is slowly moving the country toward increased religious rule, threatening the secular state that was founded by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in 1923 from the ashes of the Ottoman Empire.
The Associated Press
Published: April 3, 2007 / istanbul-bilbao
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