Word: secularist
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Turkey's powerful military has frequently indicated its readiness to launch a cross-border operation, but Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has resisted - until now. Newly under pressure from the secularist army over his party's Islamic roots, Erdogan's thinking about military action in Iraq has clearly changed, telling the ATV Turkish television network that parliament would now approve a military strike if the army sought it. "It is out of the question for us to disagree on this issue with our... soldiers," he said. He also indicated he would not seek the U.S.'s approval, which has opposed...
...also been careful not to push an Islamic agenda too aggressively. Erdogan, for example, ran for office in 2002 on promises to lift a 1981 secularist ban on head scarves in universities and other public buildings, but has so far refrained from doing so. Still, the party has also made its share of missteps. Last year Erdogan nominated a specialist in Islamic banking with no expert knowledge of interest rates to lead the country's central bank (the decision was vetoed). The party also introduced (and subsequently dropped) a law banning adultery. Turkey's newspapers are filled with stories...
...widespread such practices are is hard to measure. But secularist Turks have been quick to raise the alarm. An overwhelming majority distrusted Erdogan anyway, despite his repeated insistence that he supports a secular, democratic state. As evidence against him, these skeptics cited comments he made before he was elected that democracy is "like a streetcar-you ride it to the end and then you get off." The party has often been judged less for its performance than for what it represents. Secularists feel this is "an existential issue," explains Altinay, "and therefore that any route to stopping them is acceptable...
...President possesses little legislative or executive power, other than wielding a veto. But the office carries huge symbolic importance, especially for the Turkish military, since one of the President's titles-albeit a ceremonial one-is commander-in-chief. The incumbent President, Ahmet Necdet Sezer, is a staunch secularist who was only too willing to wield his veto power to quash legislation and appointments he deemed too Islamist. As the ruling party, the AKP had a constitutional right to appoint one of its own to replace Sezer, and Erdogan came close to nominating himself...
...Much of this mess could have been averted. The AKP could have nominated someone else for President, such as the innocuous Defense Minister Vecdi Gonul, whom secularists view with less trepidation than Gul. The military could have stayed out of politics. And the secularist opposition could have refrained from trying to short-circuit the democratic process with the help of a dubious, last-minute legal gambit...