Istanbul, Turkey ? Five days after a party with roots in political Islam won Turkey’s national elections, the head of the strongly secular military issued a statement Friday vowing to “protect the republic against all types of threats, especially fundamentalism and separatist activities.”

Turkish analysts said the statement was a routine recitation of the general staff’s historical view of itself as the guarantor of Turkey’s secular system, offered as usual on the anniversary of the death of Kemal Ataturk, the general who established modern Turkey in 1923 on strictly secular principles. But the statement also underscored tensions surrounding the ascension of the Justice and Development Party, which won an outright majority in parliament Sunday.

The party scored its victory on an emphatically populist economic appeal, emphasizing centrist credentials and playing down its Islamic connections. But the party chairman and several other of its leading lights previously were active in overtly Islamic parties, including the now-defunct Welfare Party that the military forced out of power in 1997 after 12 months of erratic and unpopular rule. The chairman, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, cannot become prime minister because he was convicted of “Islamic sedition” in 1998, while he was a member of the Welfare Party and mayor of Istanbul.

In the wake of Sunday’s balloting, Justice and Development Party officials and the general staff have spoken respectfully of one another. “We had a very democratic, incident-free election,” said the chief of staff, Gen. Hilmi Ozkok, during a visit to Washington to discuss plans for a possible U.S. strike against neighboring Iraq. “The outcome is the will of our people, and I can only respect it.”

The Justice and Development Party has avoided confrontation since its impressive win. Erdogan announced the party would seek no immediate change on one of the military’s pet issues, the ban in public offices and at universities against the head scarf many Turkish women feel their faith compels them to wear. In interviews, Erdogan brushed aside inquiries about the military’s skepticism of his party’s professed respect for Turkey’s secular tradition.

“I find this question very, very wrong,” Erdogan said on election night. “Under the constitution, we are a political party. We can never have any clash with the general staff. There is no overlap.”

In fact, civilian and military officials meet monthly in the powerful National Security Council, the body that applied the fatal pressure on the Welfare Party government five years ago.

Several observers said the upcoming government likely would get the benefit of the doubt even from a watchful military, and only partly because of the party’s strong electoral mandate. Another, more immediate reason is the keen eye of European Union officials. Turkey, a NATO member that bridges Europe and Asia, desperately wants to join the EU. But among the organization’s stated reservations :quot; which include Turkey’s record of torture by the police and other human rights violations :quot; is the military’s history of meddling in politics.