ANKARA, July 25: Former Turkish prime minister Bulent Ecevit, the man who sent Turkish troops into northern Cyprus in 1974, quit the leadership of his Democratic Left Party on Sunday, ending a 50-year political career.

Ecevit, 79, who sent the troops in after a Greek coup on the Mediterranean island, also headed the previous coalition government that won European Union candidacy for Turkey in 1999.

But he was ousted in the 2002 general election which brought PM Tayyip Erdogan's Justice and Development Party (AKP) into power in the aftermath of a severe financial crisis which slashed national output by almost 10 percent and left millions jobless.

In a farewell address to party members, Ecevit urged the government to stick to the secularist reforms of modern Turkey's founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. "We in Turkey should first consolidate the secularism of Ataturk before working to open the doors to the EU," he said.

The current AKP government has its roots in political Islam but has joining the EU - a Turkish goal since 1963 - as its priority. Ecevit, like many other Turkish secularists, believes the ruling party is using EU-inspired reforms to bring Islam back into politics. -Reuters