Turkey's Gul confirms president bid, seeks backing

ANKARA, Aug 14 (Reuters) Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul confirmed today he would make a fresh bid for Turkey's presidency with the support of his ruling AK Party, but he will face hostility from secularists wary of his Islamist past.

Officials of the centre-right, Islamist-rooted party had said late yesterday that Gul would stand again, prompting concern that the decision might renew tension between the ruling party and the powerful secular elite, including army generals.

Turkey's lira currency lost 2 percent against the dollar and stocks also fell on global market jitters and investor fears of renewed disagreements over Gul's candidacy.

''I saw that my friends support my candidacy for the presidency and have asked political (opposition) leaders for meetings,'' Gul told reporters after a round of talks with the head of the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP).

Gul described his talks with MHP leader Devlet Bahceli as ''very beneficial and fruitful'', but did not say whether the MHP would back his presidential bid.

Bahceli effectively opened the door to Gul's bid when he said his 70 MPs would attend the voting sessions for a new president in parliament, ensuring the government secures the quorum of 367 deputies needed for the election to be valid.

The AK Party has 341 deputies in the 550-member assembly.

The first round of voting has been set for next Monday, but Gul is not expected to win until the third round on August 28 when he needs only a simple majority of votes in parliament.

Secularists dislike Gul's Islamist background and the fact his wife wears the Muslim headscarf. They derailed an earlier AK Party bid in May to have parliament elect Gul, a move that sparked early parliamentary elections that the party won.

The centre-right, pro-business AK Party believes Gul, a gently spoken diplomat and architect of Turkey's bid to join the European Union, is the best man to succeed staunchly secularist President Ahmet Necdet Sezer, whose mandate has now expired.

DEFYING ARMY The party says its victory in July 22 parliamentary elections gives it the moral and political right to re-nominate Gul and to show that elected politicians, not generals, run this largely Muslim but secular country of 74 million people.

The army ousted a government it deemed too Islamist just 10 years ago. Gul had served in that cabinet as a state minister.

Analysts played down fears of a military intervention now.

''The republican opposition can do little to stop Gul's presidency, given the AKP's overwhelming mandate, the legitimacy of the new government and Gul's huge popularity,'' said Ahmet Akarli, an economist at Goldman Sachs, in an investment note.

''The military would probably have to take a tactical step back and give the AKP and Gul the benefit of the doubt, as acting otherwise could prove counterproductive at this point.'' Echoing that view, Metin Heper, dean of the social sciences faculty at Ankara's Bilkent University, told Reuters the army needs public support in order to act in the political arena.

But the army will watch the presidential election process closely. In April, it helped scupper Gul's first bid with a midnight Internet posting making clear its disapproval.

Initial reaction to Gul's candidacy from the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) was predictably frosty.

''This name suggests not reconciliation but obstinate insistence (by the ruling party),'' Onur Oymen, a senior lawmaker of the staunchly secularist CHP, told the broadcaster CNN Turk.

REUTERS SBC KP1712