At 9.05am yesterday sirens sounded across Turkey, traffic halted and flags were lowered to half mast to mark the death, 70 years earlier, of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk - venerated as founder of the modern republic.

Thousands of students and office workers queued through the afternoon to pay their respects and lay flowers at Anitkabir, Ataturk's mausoleum in Ankara, to a backdrop of military music and booming recordings of his speeches.