Turkish PM attacked for telling Gul critics to leave

By Staff
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Google Oneindia News

ANKARA, Aug 22 (Reuters) Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan came under fire today for calling on Turks who refused to accept Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul as their next president to leave Turkey.

Turkey, a Muslim country with a strictly secular constitution, is polarised over whether or not Gul, a respected diplomat with a past in political Islam, should become the next head of state.

Top-selling Turkish newspapers, non-governmental organisations and opposition parties described as undemocratic Erdogan's attack on Hurriyet newspaper columnist Bekir Coskun.

''The people who say that (Gul is not my president), must renounce their citizenship,'' Erdogan said on television late on Monday, according to Hurriyet, the country's largest daily.

''You're this country's citizen, the president is your president, the prime minister is your prime minister.'' Gul is running as the ruling AK Party's sole candidate in a race which has heightened tensions between the Islamist-rooted government and the military as well as with the secular elite.

''From now on no one can speak of a secular state ... political Islam has taken another step forward,'' Coskun had written in a column on August 15. He said Gul would ''not be my president''.

Erdogan's critics today called on him to apologise for his response to Coskun.

DISTRUST ''It is clear that tolerance, democratic thought and a sense of law does not lie behind these comments,'' said Deniz Baykal, leader of the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP).

''How can the prime minister tell a respected journalist to leave Turkey?'' asked Baykal, whose party is boycotting the presidential election process because of Gul's candidacy.

Radikal newspaper columnist Murat Yetkin said Erdogan's comments echoed those of far-right groups who in the past had used to say about Turkey ''love it or leave it''.

''Prime Minister Erdogan showed the understanding of an autocratic leader. In the next statement, he may even send dissenting writers into exile,'' wrote Sedat Ergin, a columnist at leading liberal daily Milliyet.

Pro-government newspapers played down the controversy.

The foreign minister won the first round of the presidential election in parliament on Monday but fell just short of securing the two-thirds majority needed to become the European Union-candidate country's next head of state immediately.

He is expected to win enough votes in a further round on August 28, when he will need only a simple majority. The AK Party has a majority in parliament.

The presidency has traditionally been held by the secular elite and a former Islamist has never been elected president.

Secularists deeply distrust the centre-right pro-business AK Party and accuse it of seeking to chip away at the separation of state and religion. The AK Party strongly denies the charge.

Gul has pledged to uphold secularism in the predominantly Muslim country and reach out to all Turks.

The secular elite blocked Gul's first bid to become president in April, triggering a parliamentary election in July, which was intended to defuse the crisis over the presidency.

The AK Party won a landslide re-election on July 22.

REUTERS AK KN1756

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