ANKARA, March 14 (Reuters) - A state prosecutor asked
Turkey's top court on Friday to shut the ruling AK Party for
anti-secular activities, ratcheting up tensions between the
secularist judiciary and the Islamist-rooted government.
Turkish television channels quoted the Court of Appeals
Chief Prosecutor Abdurrahman Yalcinkaya as saying he also wanted
President Abdullah Gul, Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan and senior
AK Party members banned from politics for five years.
He said a government move to lift a ban on women students
wearing the Muslim headscarf amounted to anti-secular actions.
Turkey, which is seeking European Union membership, is
predominantly Muslim but has an officially secular system.
After an emergency meeting of senior party leaders on Friday
evening chaired by Erdogan, the AK Party issued a statement
describing the prosecutor's move as "a great embarrassment".
"A part of the judiciary should not turn the law into the
vehicle of a power struggle. If it does, it is the judiciary
itself and the supremacy of the law that will suffer the
greatest damage," said the statement, read out by senior party
lawmaker Dengir Mir Mehmet Firat.
"The target of the Court of Appeals state prosecutor in
opening this case is not the AK Party, it is Turkish democracy
and the will of the people," it said.
Gul said that as head of state he must stay above politics
but he added the prosecutor's move could harm Turkey.
"With a political party with such a large majority in
parliament, we must think what Turkey will win and what it will
lose from a demand like this," Gul was quoted by state-run
Anatolian news agency as saying during a visit to Senegal.
The AK Party has been locked in a battle with Turkey's
secularist establishment, including judges and army generals,
since it first came to power in 2002. Secularists says the AK
Party is seeking to undermine separation of state and religion.
The AK Party denies it has any Islamist agenda.
It was not immediately clear whether the move would hurt
financial markets, which were closed when it came.
Prosecutor asks Turkish court to close AKP | France 24
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