Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan was quoted on Friday as saying he had no fixation on becoming president amid rising tensions between staunch secularists and the ruling AK Party over next month's election. "I have no insistence on the (presidential) palace. I have no insistence on becoming president ... My insistence is that this country be a place where its citizens live in peace," he was quoted in Radikal newspaper as saying.Turkey's powerful secular elite, including army generals and judges, are worried that Erdogan, a former Islamist, will take the top job and undermine the strict division between state and religion -- principles dating back to the foundation of the republic by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.
Erdogan's ruling AK Party is expected to name its candidate next Wednesday. As the party has a big majority in parliament,its candidate is virtually certain to become president once the staunchly secularist incumbent Ahmet Necdet Sezer's term ends. Erdogan, Turkey's most popular politician who has presided over strong economic growth and the launch of European Union entry talks, denies claims that he has an Islamist agenda.
The head of the powerful military, General Yasar Buyukanit, issued a veiled warning to the ruling AK Party on Thursday,saying the next head of state should be a faithful follower of the country's secular order. "We hope the next president will be somebody genuinely bound by the basic values of the republic, including secularism, not somebody who just pays lip service to them," Buyukanit told a rare news conference.