TURKEY: Turkish Foreign minister and Presidential candidate Abdullah Gul defends his wife's right to wear a Muslim headscarf

Turkish foreign minister and presidential candidate Abdullah Gul, whose wife wears a headscarf in traditional Muslim fashion, says the Turkish constitution gives everyone the right to dress as they please. Turkey's presidential candidate Abdullah Gul said on Wednesday (August 15) that the Turkish constitution guarantees his wife's right to wear a Muslim headscarf. "The constitution guarantees people's choices, and the right to dress as one pleases," he said. Turkey's secular elite, including the military, opposes Gul's bid for the presidency because of his Islamist past and the fact his wife Hayrunisa covers her head. The headscarf, seen by secularists as a threat to the separation of state and religion, is banned from public offices and schools, though more than half of Turkish women wear it. On Wednesday, a day after lodging his formal application and holding talks with opposition parties, Gul tried to get support for his candidacy from labour unions and business leaders. He reaffirmed his commitment to Turkey's secular order and vowed to act as an impartial head of state. "The president represents the unity of the state... The president must have equal distance from everybody and observe the principle of impartiality," Gul said. Parliament will hold a series of votes for the presidency starting next Monday. Gul is well placed to win in the third round on August 28 when he needs a simple majority in the 550-member parliament, where his ruling AK Party has 341 seats. The military helped derail Gul's first bid to become head of state in April with a statement warning of pervasive Islamisation in Turkey and signalling its opposition to Gul. That move forced Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan to call early parliamentary elections which his AK Party decisively won. Gul served in a cabinet ousted by the army 10 years ago for being too Islamist. He has denied secularist accusations that he is hiding an Islamist agenda.

ITN Source | August 16, 2007

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