Turkish Court to Consider Call to Ban Ruling Party

Turkey's constitutional court said yesterday it was considering a request to ban the ruling party for allegedly trying to turn the country into an Islamic state by stealth.

The court said it would decide within the next 10 days whether to stage hearings on an application from the chief state prosecutor, Abdurrahman Yalcinkaya, to outlaw the moderately Islamist Justice and Development party (AKP), which was emphatically re-elected last year.

He is also seeking a five-year ban from politics for more than 70 senior AKP figures, including the prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and Abdullah Gul, the president, whose election last year was initially blocked by the court because his wife wears the Islamic headscarf. Gul was allowed to take office after declaring his commitment to secularism.

The latest move by the court exposes the fault line in Turkey's secular system and threatens to plunge the country into an era of political uncertainty, further complicating its application for EU membership and undermining its economy. In signs of market nervousness, the Turkish lira fell 4% against the dollar yesterday.

The indictment cites last month's lifting of the ban on female students wearing Islamic head scarves on university campuses. It also accuses the government of damaging Turkey's global standing by recasting the country as a moderate Islamic republic while dividing the population between believers and non-believers.

The AKP has hit back by threatening a constitutional amendment to curb the judiciary's power.