Do More With Reuters
Partner Services

Turkey army chief reaffirms headscarf stance

Wed Jan 30, 2008 3:40pm IST
 
Email | Print | | Single Page
[-] Text [+]

By Evren Mesci

ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey's top general on Wednesday tacitly reiterated the army's opposition to women wearing the Muslim headscarf at university, a day after the religiously oriented government proposed easing a ban on the attire.

"All segments of Turkish society know what the military thinks about the headscarf issue. I do not want to speak on this matter," General Yasar Buyukanit told reporters in his first public comments since the government announced its plans.

The army views itself as the guarantor of Turkey's secular order and has often warned of what it says is creeping Islamisation under Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's religiously oriented government.

Turkish secularists, including the army, see the headscarf as a threat to the secular order.

But it was not immediately clear whether or how the military might try to stop the planned reform. The army failed last year to block the election of ex-Islamist Abdullah Gul as president despite stiff warnings.

Nobody in today's Turkey seriously expects a military coup, though as recently as 1997 the generals, acting with public support, ousted a government it deemed too Islamist.

Financial markets were little changed after Buyukanit's comments, made during a televised meeting with a Macedonian minister visiting Ankara.

  Continued...

REUTERS WEEKEND

Glory for Big B

Lifetime award for Bollywood actor Amitabh Bachchan.  Video 

'Trashy' Affair

Beijing man turns unwanted plastic bags into kites.  Video 

 
The new Droid phone, a Motorola Inc. and Verizon Wireless phone based on Google Inc's Android 2.0 system, is shown at a media event in New York October 28, 2009.REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
Motorola Droid

Not the Droid you’re looking for?  Blog 

View of the Casa Poporului or House of the People, now the Parliament Palace, in downtown Bucharest November 6, 2009.  REUTERS/Bogdan Cristel
Travel Postcard

48 hours in Bucharest for architecture buffs.  Full Article 

 
Russian Finance Minister Alexey Kudrin poses with his G20 colleagues and central bank leaders during the family photo at the G20 Finance Ministers meeting at a hotel in St. Andrews, Scotland. REUTERS/POOL New
Pledge to support economies

G20 financial leaders pledged to prepare strategies to end emergency support for their economies, but to keep the aid flowing until recovery was assured.  Full Article | Related Story 

Photo
Photo
Miss England gives up crown over brawl reports Friday, 6 Nov 2009 

LONDON (Reuters) - Beauty pageant winner Miss England gave up her title on Friday after reports she had been involved in a nightclub brawl with another beauty queen.  Full Article