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Prosecutor asks Turkish court to close ruling party
A state prosecutor asked Turkey's top court on Friday to shut the ruling AK Party for anti-secular activities, intensifying tensions between the secular elite 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.
He's trying to start something, which makes me wonder who's behind him. And who plans to finish it.
Turkey, which is seeking European Union membership, is predominantly Muslim but an officially secular system. "With a political party with this much of a 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 in Dakar, 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 Turkish financial markets which were closed when the announcement was made.
Posted by: Fred 2008-03-15
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=233376