Turkey’s FM Gul elected president, Cyprus monitors developments

Turkey’s Islamist Foreign Minister, Abdullah Gul, was sworn in as the country’s eleventh president Tuesday evening during a ceremony at the National Assembly in Ankara following an easy victory in the parliamentary poll earlier in the day.

Cyprus Foreign Minister Erato Kozakou Marcoullis said that the government in Nicosia is closely monitoring developments, following the standoff that pitted secularists and the armed forces against the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP).

At a swearing-in ceremony boycotted by General Yasar Buyukanit, commander of the staunchly secular Turkish Army, and the main opposition party, Abdullah Gul promised to uphold human rights, freedom of speech and to not discriminate on any grounds.

“I will represent all citizens. I will be totally impartial,” Gul told the members of parliament, in the absence of his wife, Harunisa, whose wearing of a head-scarf had infuriated the secularists and the ‘deep state’ controlled by the armed forces.

“Turkey is a democratic and secular republic based on social justice. These are the basic values of our constitution. We should defend and work to strengthen these values,” the new president said.

Gul won 339 votes against 70 of Sabahatin Cakmakoglu and 13 of Huseyin Tayfur Icli, while 24 abstained and two votes were invalid.

He had failed to receive a two-thirds majority in the previous two rounds last week and needed a simple majority of 276 votes in the 550-seat parliament.

Gul later paid his respects at the mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk and from there went to the Presidential Palace where his predecessor, Ahmet Sezer, handed over power in a ceremony held behind closed doors.

While the presidency is largely symbolic, president Sezer used his office to block the AKP-controlled government on controversial legislation and the appointment of Islamists to key state positions.

The president is also the commander-in-chief of the armed forces whose leader had earlier issued a statement saying that the secular state was under attack every day.

 

— Cyprus monitoring developments, says FM

 

The intense verbal interference of the Turkish army in political developments in the country concern Cyprus as well as the European Union, Foreign Minister Erato Kozakou Marcoullis said Tuesday.

In statements after her return from Bled, Slovenia, where she participated in the conference on “EU 2002: Enlargement and Completion”, Marcoullis repeated that irrespective of the election procedures in Turkey, the Cyprus problem remains in the hands of the Turkish army.

She told reporters that Cyprus was “very concerned, just as the EU is concerned too, by the strong verbal tone of the army’s intervention”, she said, adding that whatever elections take place in Turkey, be that of the government, the National Assembly or the President, these cannot bring changes as far as Turkey’s stance on the Cyprus problem is concerned.

“We are closely monitoring developments and we are informing our partners”, said Marcoullis, adding that during her contacts in Slovenia, she put forward all Turkish threats “as well as all other issues and our serious concerns and asked for our EU partners’ solidarity”.

Marcoullis also described her participation in the Bled conference as very interesting and extremely useful; reminding that Slovenia is the first country among the new EU states which will take over in January 2008 the EU presidency. The conference was organised by the Slovenian Foreign Ministry in preparation for the assumption of the six-month rotating EU presidency.

During the conference, Marcoullis held a number of bilateral meetings with her counterparts from Slovenia, the Czech Republic, Albania, Montenegro and Hungary, as well as high ranking EU officials, the SG of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe and former Finnish President and currently UN special envoy for Kosovo Martti Ahtisaari.