Erdogan wants to erase secular Turkey: critics

Ankara

MUSTAFA Kemal Ataturk's statue in the main square of Rize, a small town nestled among tea plantations on Turkey's Black Sea coast, has been gone since December - its absence a powerful symbol of the future.

Rize is the birthplace of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and his critics believe the question of what he really wants is finally clear after 15 years of his rule: To erase the secular state Ataturk rescued from the dismembered Ottoman Empire and recast the republic in his own, equally autocratic yet more Islamist image.

Turkey is changing, said Nabi Avci, a long-time adviser to Erdogan and now minister of culture and touris…