Secular Turks draw a political line
Protests and warnings meet the Islamist-based ruling party's campaign to win the presidency.
By Laura King, Times Staff Writer
April 30, 2007

ISTANBUL, TURKEY — Amid a sea of Turkish flags, nearly three-quarters of a million people poured into the streets of Istanbul on Sunday to demand that parliament choose a president with no Islamist ties.

But the Islamist-rooted ruling party insisted that it would push ahead with the candidacy of Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul, chosen last week as its standard-bearer in parliamentary voting scheduled to take place in the coming two weeks.

Secular opposition parties have mounted a legal challenge to a first-round vote last week by lawmakers, and Turkey's powerful military, which considers itself the guardian of this overwhelmingly Muslim country's secular system, issued a sharply worded warning Friday night against the accession of any leader who does not fully support secular principles. the rest