Turkish army chief says president must be secular

By Paul de Bendern and Selcuk Gokoluk

ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey's top general on Monday reiterated that the military wanted the next president to uphold the country's secular values, potentially reviving tensions between the secularist establishment and the government.

The comments from Chief of General Staff General Yasar Buyukanit come amid recent concerns in financial markets about the presidency after an initial attempt to hold a presidential election was derailed earlier this year.

"We are still behind what we said. There is no change on that," Buyukanit told reporters when asked whether he stood behind his comments on April 12, insisting the next head of state have genuine secular credentials.

"We said what we said with conviction," he said at a reception for northern Cyprus at a military compound in Ankara.

These were the first comments from the powerful military on the subject since Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's AK Party, which has its roots in political Islam, won a resounding victory in a parliamentary election on July 22.

Erdogan brought forward that election by months after the army-backed secular elite blocked his choice of an ex-Islamist ally -- Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul -- as the next president.

Parliament is set to convene on Saturday and the first major issue which it faces will be the election to choose a successor for the staunchly secular Ahmet Necdet Sezer, who is a fierce critic of the AK Party and has close ties to the armed forces.

ISLAMIST PAST