President says secularism is in peril
President Ahmet Necdet Sezer said the country’s secular system of government faced its gravest danger since the founding of the republic in 1923, in comments seen as a direct attack against the ruling Justice and Development Party ahead of a parliamentary vote next month that could give Turkey its first head of state with Islamist roots.
Sezer, whose seven-year tenure ends May 16, and the rest of Turkey’s secular elite -- which includes the army generals and judges -- fear Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan will become president and try to undermine Turkey’s strict separation of state and religion.
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