Turkey's ruling AK Party, which has Islamist roots, signalled
plans to ease a ban on the wearing of the Islamic headscarf in
universities under a new draft constitution.
"This (new) constitution will solve the headscarf problem in a more
libertarian spirit," Dengir Firat, a deputy chairman of the AK
Party, told CNN Turk television.
The AK party has hinted many times that it wants to modify or if
possible remove the headscarf ban, which also applies to government
offices.
Any moves to scrap the ban is sure to revive tensions between Prime
Minister Tayyip Erdogan's centre-right AK Party government and
Turkey's secular elite, which includes powerful army generals, top
judges and university rectors.
The secularists view the headscarf as a symbol of political Islam
and, therefore, as a direct challenge to Turkey's separation of
religion and state.
They also distrust the AK Party because of its Islamist past and
the fact the wives of Erdogan and other senior ministers wear the
headscarf.
The secularists tried earlier this year to block the election by
parliament of the AK Party's Abdullah Gul as Turkey's
president.
Gul finally became president in August after Erdogan called a
snap parliamentary election his AK Party won.
The AK Party is due to publish its draft constitution on December
15.
It has said the draft, due to replace a text dating back to a
time of military rule in the 1980s, will boost individual freedoms
in Turkey, a European Union candidate.
Firat said the government wanted a wider debate about the
principles and aims of the new constitution, adding that opponents
were trying to whip up secularist fears artificially by
concentrating solely on the headscarf issue.
"The headscarf is an extension of freedom of belief," he said.
