Turkish PM meet army chief amid crisis over role of Islam

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan met with the head of the country’s armed forces today, a week after the military threatened to intervene in an ongoing presidential election if it thought secularism was in danger.

The military, which harbours deep suspicions of Erdogan and his Islamic-rooted party, became a major player in the elections last week when it said it was ready to take action as the “absolute defender of secularism” in Turkey.

The statement was widely read as a warning that generals would be willing to overthrow Erdogan’s government if they thought it would stop the rise of political Islam.

It was condemned by the European Union, which says the military must stay out of politics in Turkey.

Erdogan’s meeting with Gen Yasar Buyukanit in Istanbul was not announced on official schedules and was closed to the press.

The military’s warning came last week as Erdogan was attempting to have Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul, a close ally and pious Muslim, elected president.

The choice prompted mass protests by more than a million pro-secular Turks in Istanbul and Ankara, and the fallout eventually led Erdogan to call for snap early elections to reform Parliament and help resolve the crisis.

But despite the intense opposition, the government said Friday it was pushing ahead with its bid to get Gul elected to the post, a traditional bastion of secularism in Turkey.

Deputy Prime Minister Abdullatif Sener said today that the ruling party was trying to win enough backing to elect him on Sunday when Parliament votes again. Analysts said, however, that it would be hard for the ruling party to get enough votes to do so.

The government’s push seemed likely to lead to further tensions with the influential and widely revered military, which has overthrown governments in the past.

Erdogan opted for early general elections as a way to defuse tension, and Parliament decided yesterday to hold them on July 22.

The United States, a Nato ally, and the European Union – which Turkey aspires to join – have both warned Turkey to prevent its military from defying civilian leaders.

The secularist opposition boycotted the first round of voting last week and the Constitutional Court annulled it earlier this week, saying there had been no quorum. Parliament will vote again on Sunday.

“We are trying to reach a quorum to solve the deadlock,” Sener said today. “If we can succeed, then we will have elected the president.”

The government’s lobbying efforts come amid talk of possible alliances among opposition parties.

Most lawmakers from two conservative parties, Motherland and True Path, had also boycotted the vote in the first round. They are now engaged in intense talks on how to join forces for a stronger say in the elections.

Parliament Thursday held a first-round of voting on a constitutional amendment that would lower the minimum age for election to Parliament to 25, from 30, and a measure which would make it harder for a pro-Kurdish party to field independent candidates in elections. The second and final round of voting will be held on Sunday.

Currently, a party needs 10% of the vote to win seats in Parliament. The Kurdish group, the Democratic Society Party, had planned to circumvent that rule by making its candidates stand as independents, who would then form a party with their individual seats once they got into Parliament.

The move comes despite the European Union’s call on Turkey to reduce the threshold and ensure wider representation in Parliament.

The government’s proposals also included reducing the presidential term from the current seven years, to five, and allow the president to stand for re-election for a second term. Another proposal was to hold general elections every four years instead of five.