Turkey’s latest political crisis was triggered on April 24 by prime minister Recep Erdogan’s nomination of foreign minister Abdullah Gul as the ruling AK party’s candidate for president. Many had hoped that he would opt for a candidate from outside the party in order to assuage the fears of the fiercely secularist sections of the population, who demonstrated with an almost million-strong march on April 29 that they are genuinely afraid that Turkey might become an Islamic state.
Lawrence White,
June 04, 2007