Word: erdogan
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...long after winning reelection in a landslide this summer, the mildly pro-Islamic Prime Minister of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is pressing ahead with one of the most sensitive issues in Turkish politics. Erdogan told reporters this week that he favors lifting the ban on the wearing of Islamic headscarves in universities. Under the existing constitution, enacted following a military coup in 1980, it is illegal to wear headscarves in state-funded institutions such as hospitals and universities. The rule was intended to prevent Islamist activists from taking root in the younger generation, but it has been widely criticized...
Iraq is not the only country in the region where there's rumors of a coup in the works. Ever since Prime Minister Erdogan's Justice and Development Party (AKP) swept Turkish parliamentary elections on July 22, and then elected AKP member Abdallah Gul President, the Turkish generals have been casting around for an excuse to take power. They mutter about Ergdogan being a fundamentalist and wobbly on security...
...with 660 pounds was found in Ankara on September 11, possibly meant to be detonated on September 12, the twenty-seventh anniversary of a Turkish military coup. The Turkish generals are counting on things getting worse in Iraq, with more chaos spilling across the border into Turkey. Erdogan told them he can work with the Iraqi Regional Kurdish Government to staunch the smuggling, as well as close down Kurdish separatist bases in Iraq used to launch attacks into Turkey...
...generals have heard it all before; they know Erdogan cannot deliver. No one can do anything about Iraq. The generals also know that whether Maliki stays or goes, the Iraqi government cannot exert control over its armed forces and police, enough at least to secure Turkey's border. But this is not the point - a failing Iraq is mounting justification to unseat Erdogan...
...Turkey's secularists remain deeply suspicious. Pointing to Gul and Erdogan's background as formerly hard-line Islamists, they argue that the AKP harbors a secret Islamist agenda. As President, Gul has the power to approve or veto legislation, and secularists fear that he will sign into law any bill passed by Erdogan's government without concern for the separation of religion and politics. They are also infuriated by the fact that his wife Hayrunnisa dons a headscarf - Islamic attire is restricted in government offices under laws that date back to Ataturk?s reforms...