Police detained close to 600 left-wing demonstrators in Istanbul on Tuesday and fired tear gas to prevent a rally from entering Taksim Square, the BBC reported.

The rally commemorated 30 years from the bloody incident in which 34 people lost their lives in a stampede in the city.

But it came with tensions already high because of the presidential election, in which foreign minister Abdullah Gul from the ruling AK party, with strong roots in political Islam, is the only candidate.

Public transport in the multi-million city was paralysed, as the authorities sealed off main roads, cancelled ferries and closed underground stations, the BBC said.

Close to 700,000 people rallied to support the secularist nature of the Turkish political system and to protest against AK, which they fear is pursuing an Islamist agenda.

The army, traditionally the stronghold of secularism in the country, which has intervened more than once in the past to enforce the legacy of Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the secularist state, has already warned it would not hesitate to do so again.

The current crisis is further aggravated by the inconclusive first round of the presidential election in the country's Parliament on Friday, when the opposition walked out before the vote.

They now claim that the vote should be invalidated because of the absence of a two-thirds quorum. The Turkish Constitutional Court could issue a ruling on the opposition's appeal as early as Tuesday.

If the appeal is rejected, the parliament will meet for a second round of voting, but if the court accepts it, snap polls will have to be called in the next three months.

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