Turkey ? A freshly elected parliament, still dominated by the Islamic-leaning ruling party, was sworn in Saturday and expected to quickly take up the highly contentious issue of picking a new president.

An opposition leader, meanwhile, warned that the new government should preserve Turkey’s long-held secular principles – the core of the debate over the presidency. The new parliament also includes a group of Kurdish lawmakers accused of links to separatist rebels.

The opposition party and Turkey’s military have stressed that the next president, to be elected by parliament within a month, must uphold the country’s secular traditions.

Secularists reacted with outrage earlier this year when the ruling party proposed Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul, an observant Muslim whose wife wears a headscarf. The opposition boycotted the presidential vote in parliament, and secularists held massive rallies to protest the nomination.