Turkey's military warned Monday of "centres of evil" seeking to undermine the country's secular system, on the eve of a decisive parliamentary vote that will install a former Islamist as president.
"Our nation has been watching the behaviour of separatists who cannot digest the unitary structure of the Turkish Republic and centres of evil who are trying to systematically erode the country's secular structure," army chief Yasar Buyukanit said in a message published on the general staff's Internet site.
The army will not "be deterred by such attacks" and will continue to defend the basic tenets of the republic set out by the country's founding father Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in 1923, he added.
"The Turkish Armed Forces will not make any concessions … in its duty of guarding the Turkish Republic, a secular and social state based on the rule of law," Buyukanit said.
His message was issued to mark Victory Day on August 30 when forces led by Ataturk won a decisive victory in its independence war against invading foreign powers in 1922.
The statement made no reference to Tuesday's vote in parliament in which Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul is all but certain to be elected president.
Gul's first bid to become president in April had triggered a political crisis and a warning by the army, which has unseated four governments in as many decades, that it stood ready to defend the secular system.
In a bid to end the crisis, the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) — the conservative off-shoot of a now-banned Islamist party — called an early general election and won a landslide victory, which it saw as a popular mandate to re-nominate Gul.
Opponents charge that the AKP has a secret agenda to undermine the country's secular system and will have a free hand to do so with Gul as head of state.
The AKP says it has disavowed its Islamist roots and is fully committed to the country's secular fabric.
