Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday hailed his AKP government's 10 years in power as a "revolution" in Turkish politics, ending a legacy of military coups and exalting the will of the people.

"Not only a new party came to power... but a revolution in mentality took place," Erdogan told his party's rank and file at an annual camp in Kizilcahamam near Ankara.

Erdogan, whose Islamic-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP) first won election on November 3, 2002 on a wave of popular support after years of unstable coalition governments, said his party introduced a new understanding of politics.

He declared that the AKP believed in advanced democracy, rights and freedoms, and not the "pro-coup" and "elitist mentality" which had dominated Turkish politics for decades.

"Genuine republicans who embraced the nation" came to power a decade ago, he said in a speech often interrupted by applause.

Erdogan hailed November 3 as marking a "milestone" and a "new beginning" not only for his AKP but for the entire country.

After coming to power in 2002, Erdogan has sought to tackle head-on Turkey's powerful military, the self-appointed guardians of the secular state which carried out four coups over half a century and had threatened the AKP with a political ban.

"Neither the state nor the republic needs a guardian," said Erdogan. "Nor does the nation need a nanny. This glorious nation has the will and strength to protect its own republic and state."

Erdogan's AKP government has trimmed the powers of the once-mighty generals through an extensive legal process which has seen more than 300 army officers put behind bars for alleged coup plots.

"It might be possible to rule the country under the control of a handful of elites ... but in a democratic republic, you must take your strength from the people," said Erdogan.

For 10 years, the AKP has boasted of major success in transforming the economy after a devastating meltdown in 2001 and has introduced strict budgetary discipline, recording growth rates of over eight percent in the last two years alone.

In his speech, Erdogan praised the government's economic achievements and big infrastructure projects but failed to comment on the sharp slowdown forecast in Turkey's growth in 2012 owing to the crisis in the eurozone, its main market.

Turkey's tough-talking leader also enters a new decade under a cloud of criticism over the country's human rights record, the Kurdish conflict and the intentions of his Islamic-rooted party.

Under Erdogan's rule, the split has become more pronounced between supporters of the AKP government and its opponents who fear Turkey's secular traditions are in peril.

"The Turkish people have no problem with the republic," said Erdogan, accusing the opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) of spreading fears that the country's secularism is under threat.

In his speech, however, Erdogan failed to address Ankara's rights record, an issue also raised by the European Union. He merely complained over the stalled EU accession talks saying the 27-nation bloc had "kept Turkey waiting at its door for 50 years."

On the nearly three-decade-old Kurdish conflict, Erdogan said like Turkey's other problems, it would be resolved through "stronger democracy, more freedoms and a stronger economy."

The violence has escalated in tbe Kurdish-majority southeast since the collapse of talks with the banned Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in 2011, nixing the prospect of a negotiated settlement to the conflict which has already claimed some 45,000 lives since 1984.

On Saturday, Erdogan warned hunger strikers demanding the release of an imprisoned Kurdish rebel leader against "blackmail."

"We will not release the terrorist chief just because you say so or resort to such an action," he said.

Around 700 hunger strikers are calling for the release of Abdullah Ocalan, who has been serving a life sentence in a remote island off Istanbul since 1999.