Ankara, Turkey - A senior general on Monday affirmed the importance of secularism in Turkey amid debates over a draft constitution that some secularists see as a cover for boosting the role of Islam.
Turkey's powerful military views itself as the ultimate guarantor of the secular order and is closely watching the Islamist-rooted government's plans to overhaul the country's constitution after its election victory in July.
"The functional definitions of the secularism principle in the constitution should not become a topic of discussion," General Ilker Basbug, head of the land forces, told army cadets at a ceremony marking the start of a new academic year.
The ruling AK Party says the new charter, set to replace a text dating back to an era of military rule in the early 1980s, will bolster individual rights and freedoms and bring Turkey closer to the European Union, which it hopes to join.
But secularists fear the government will use the charter to erode the separation of state and religion, by for example lifting a ban on the Muslim headscarf in universities and by reforming secular bodies such as the Constitutional Court and the board overseeing higher education.
The government denies claims it has an Islamist agenda and says it remains fully committed to Turkey's secular system.
"Movements against secularism and ethnic nationalists have a common target, which is the structure of the nation state," said Basbug.
"Ethnic nationalists" is a term used to denote Kurdish separatists who want to create a homeland in southeast Turkey.