DAR AL ISLAM- TURKEY: "IT WOULD BE A MISTAKE TO PIT SECULARISM AGAINST ISLAM"

Turkish PM says mistake to pit secularism against Islam
by ERCAN ERSOY

Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, commenting on mass secularist rallies against his Islamist-rooted government, said on Tuesday it was wrong to depict religion and secularism as being in conflict in Turkey.

"It would be a mistake to pit secularism against Islam," Mr. Erdogan said during a televised conference on press freedom.

"I am a secularist, in the sense that I am defending a secular state," said Mr. Erdogan, a pious Muslim distrusted by Turkey's powerful secular elite because of his Islamist past.

Erdogan's government has been locked in a fierce battle with its secularist opponents over its choice of candidate for president, Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul, an ex-Islamist whose wife wears the Muslim head-scarf.

Under pressure from the secular establishment, including army generals and top judges as well as opposition parties, the government was forced to postpone the presidential contest and has called an early parliamentary election for July 22.

Keeping up the pressure on Mr. Erdogan's ruling AK Party, up to one million people joined an anti-government rally in the Aegean city of Izmir on Sunday, the latest in a series of mass protests in defence of Turkey's separation of state and religion.

Mr. Erdogan noted that protesters had carried banners saying "No to a military coup, no to Sharia (Islamic) law," and said his government fully shared that sentiment.

Turkey's military General Staff recently threatened to intervene in politics – as it has done four times in the past 50 years – if it felt the secular order was at risk.

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1) Turkish PM says mistake to pit secularism against Islam