Turkey's Gul vows to defend secularism as president

ANKARA, Aug 14 (Reuters) Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul confirmed today he would run again for Turkey's presidency and vowed to protect the secular constitution separating state and religion if elected.

Turkey's secular elite, including army generals, distrust Gul's Islamist past and the fact his wife wears the Muslim headscarf. They blocked his first bid to become president in May, forcing an early election his ruling AK Party won.

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

''Protection of secularism is one of my basic principles.

Nobody should worry about this,'' Gul told a news conference after formally registering as a candidate.

''Impartiality will definitely be my first and most important principle.'' He said he would try as head of state to embrace all Turks whatever their views.

Parliament is due to elect a new president in a series of votes starting next Monday. Only Gul has so far entered the race although the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) has said it will field a candidate.

Nominations close at midnight on Sunday, Aug. 19.

Gul's centre-right AK Party has 341 seats in the 550-member parliament and he is expected to win in the third round on Aug.

28 when he needs only a simple majority.

Trying to reassure his critics in the military and state bureaucracy, Gul evoked the memory of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, revered founder of the secular republic, saying he would follow the modernising vision of the soldier-statesman.

''Turkey is a great country... There is no problem that cannot be solved,'' he told the news conference.

SECULARIST SNUB But the leaders of Ataturk's Republican People's Party (CHP), the second biggest in parliament after Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's AK Party, refused to meet Gul today and repeated their fears over his Islamist background.

Gul said he had decided to risk a second bid for the presidency because of the support he had received from ordinary voters during the parliamentary election campaign. The AK Party won nearly 50 percent of the vote in July's election.

The 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.

The party says its victory in July 22 election 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.

In April, the army helped scupper Gul's first bid with a midnight Internet posting making clear its disapproval.

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.'' In Turkey, the president is commander in chief of the armed forces. He can also veto laws once and appoints top judges and university rectors. The judiciary and universities, along with the army, are key pillars of the secular order.

Reuters RSA DB2332