Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul was elected the country's president yesterday, the first former Islamist to take the post in the secular but predominantly Muslim country's modern history.

Armed forces chief General Yasar Buyukanit said on Monday he saw "centers of evil" seeking to undermine the secular republic, a statement suggesting the army would not stand on the sidelines if it saw the separation between religion and state threatened.

"Abdullah Gul in the third round obtained an absolute majority and was elected the 11th president of Turkey with 339 votes," parliament speaker Koksal Toptan said after the vote.

The Islamist-rooted AK Party has 341 seats in the 550-seat chamber. Two other candidates also stood for president.

Gul (C) is surrounded by MPs during the third round of the presidential elections at the Turkish Parliament in Ankara, August 28, 2007.

Gul has established himself as a respected diplomat since the AK Party was first elected in 2002, securing the launch of Turkey's European Union entry talks. He pledges to be a leader for all Turks, but he is not to the taste of a military that suspects the AK Party of harboring a secret Islamist agenda.

Many observers expect Gul, who broke with an Islamist party in 1999, will try to avoid confrontation.

"You shouldn't expect radical moves with Gul as president. Both his opponents, who are scared he might do so, will be surprised and his supporters hoping for radical moves will be disappointed," said academic expert Cengiz Candar.

After sworn in as president at the Parliamentary General Assembly, Gul said that he would embrace all Turkish citizens without discrimination.? "I will maintain my impartiality and do everything in my power to ensure harmony among state organs,"

"Secularism, one of the basic principles of the Republic, is a social peace role as well as a model that liberalizes different living styles in a democratic life which is a system of rights and liberties," he underlined.

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said Gul's election could give new impetus to the EU accession process.

The secular elite and Turkey's generals, who have ousted four governments since 1960, are wary of Gul's Islamist past and alarmed at the prospect of his wife wearing the Islamic headscarf in the Cankaya presidential palace.

(China Daily via agencies August 29, 2007)