Police using tear gas, smoke bombs and water cannons failed to stop thousands of secularists who forged ahead to Mustafa Kemal Ataturk's mausoleum in a march that highlighted the divide over secularism on the 89th anniversary of the founding of modern Turkey.

Police removed roadblocks as tens of thousands of flag-waving secularists marched to the mausoleum of Turkey's founder following clashes outside the parliament building in Ankara where Ataturk declared the republic, CNN-Turk television said.

Police use tear gas to disperse the demonstrators. Credit:Reuters

"Some policemen kicked youths who only wanted to unfurl Turkish flags," Kemal Kilicdaroglu, head of the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), told CNN-Turk. "It is very sad. How can a government that is against the republic call itself the government of the republic?"

Marchers were reacting to the Islamic-rooted government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, which they accuse of raising the profile of Islam in predominantly Muslim and officially secular Turkey. The government has recently allowed Koran courses in schools while lifting the ban on graduates of imam and preacher schools to become military cadets.