Turkey's powerful military said on Friday it was watching a parliamentary presidential vote with concern, hours after an inconclusive first round that split Turkish secularists and the Islamist-rooted government.
In an unusually strong statement, the General Staff said the armed forces were the defender of the republic's secular system.
'The Turkish armed forces are watching this (election) situation with concern,' it said.
Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul, the ruling AK Party's candidate, failed to win sufficient votes in the first round of voting after opposition parties boycotted the session.
Turkey's secular elite, which includes army generals, top judges and the opposition parties, fear that Gul, a former Islamist, will try to erode Turkey's separation of politics and religion if elected.
The army ousted a government it viewed as too Islamist as recently as 1997. Gul served in that government.
He says his views have changed and he is now a conservative democrat.
The AK Party's main rival, the CHP, has asked the Constitutional Court to annul the vote on a technicality, raising the risk of protracted legal wrangling in the strategically important European Union candidate country.
If the court backs the CHP, a general election must be called within 90 days.
Gul, a gently-spoken diplomat, is respected abroad as the architect of Turkey's EU bid but the secularists point to his Islamist past and the fact his wife wears the Muslim headscarf.
Two weeks ago, hundreds of thousands of people rallied in Ankara in defence of secularism and against Erdogan himself running for the presidency.
Another rally is planned in Istanbul on Sunday.
Parliament is due to hold a second round of voting next Wednesday, though Gul is not expected to win the presidency until a third round set for May 9, when he only has to secure a simple majority in the 550-seat assembly.
