Are you a threat to Turkey's secularism? Do you have a hidden agenda?

Gul (laughs): Before we were in office I'm sure you were warned 'oh these people are coming, you must be careful'. I'm sure you have been monitoring us these past four and a half years. As foreign minister of this country I have been representing the country outside. Did you find that kind of thing or not? (laughs again). I feel really sad because we have been modernising this country. We have been opening this country to the outside. Look at our record. If we had a hidden agenda why would we push so hard for Turkey to enter the European Union?

If that's the case why are the military so opposed to you becoming president?

G: Well I don't think this is personal. They cannot be against me personally. This is an open society. There are some civilians who have militant minds. They have been exploiting all these issues. I have been working with (the military) very closely. We are very active outside in Bosnia, Kosovo and Afghanistan and we are fighting terror. In the government and particularly at the foreign ministry we are shoulder to shoulder with the military. This is a political rather than a military issue. If you know recent Turkish political history the record (for military coups) is unfortunately not very successful, but don't forget that in the last five years Turkey has changed a lot and we have been a negotiating country with the European Union. This is not a joke. There were political criteria and democratic standards we needed to fulfil to start negotiations. We have fulfilled these standards sufficiently. Of course we have shortcomings but we will definitely overcome them. Recently there was a turbulence, but now it is over. Democracy is working.

Was the military more concerned with holding on to power? Was that the prime motive in opposing you?

G: No. Because the constitution is clear, the laws are clear, the terms of reference of all the institutions are all very clear.

What about the fear of millions of ordinary Turkish civilians who fear your presidency? This may be misplaced, but should you have done more to allay those fears?

G:They were huge crowds its true...I'm sure that from among those crowds I can get quite a big number of sympathisers for myself. If we had another demonstration we would get five times bigger crowds. But I don't want these divisions in the country. We are the government and we are the ruling party so we don't want that kind of separation of the people. Therefore we were under great pressure but we did not allow this to happen. When you look at these crowds they were modern, but when you look at the slogans, when you look at the rhetoric in the speeches they were against the EU, against privatization, against foreign direct investment. That’s why I say that we are not inward-looking, but when you analyse the speeches they were inward looking and just opposed to the freemarket economic system.

Did you anticipate so much opposition from the military or whoever to your nomination?

G: If the opposition parties were present in the assembly there would not be any problem there, so I don't blame others I just blame the political parties. The Constitution has been the same since 1980. We have not amended even a comma. And according to these rules three presidents were elected. But unfortunately this time the constitutional court decided that something was wrong with this. But still I got the highest vote among the three presidents. No President was elected in the first round and I was just six or seven votes short. The problem is not the military. There was some concern from the military and the government responded to this and that was all.

People have been saying that if AK party control the Prime Minister’s office and the Parliament Speaker’s office then there is no way the military is going to give up the presidency as well. You can’t dismiss the military statement.

G: No. No. If you believe this you cannot get the real picture here. It is civilians – it is the politicians. If they are not strong enough they exploit the military, they exploit the others. (My presidency) was not blocked by the military, it was blocked by the politicians. The military got an answer (to their statement) and that was all.

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