Turkey's Gul slams top court, vows reform

ANKARA, June 29 (Reuters) Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said in an interview shown today that a recent ruling by Turkey's top court would drag the nation into chaos and he vowed judicial reforms if his ruling AK Party wins elections in July.

Last month, the Constitutional Court blocked Gul's bid to become Turkey's president in an election in parliament. Its judges are part of Turkey's secular elite which suspects the AK Party of harbouring a hidden Islamist agenda.

''The Constitutional Court's ruling will in the future drag Turkey into chaos... The court has started to behave like a Senate, but parliament is the institution where politics should be conducted,'' Gul told CNN Turk television.

He reaffirmed the AK Party's plans to reform Turkey's judicial system if, as widely expected, it wins the July 22 parliamentary polls, which have been called months ahead of schedule to defuse the crisis over the presidential election.

''The structure of the Constitutional Court must be changed...

What we see today is the politicisation of the law. Turkey does not deserve this,'' Gul said.

The court infuriated the government by upholding an opposition appeal and ruling that two thirds of deputies, or 367, must be present in the parliament during the first and second rounds of the presidential election for it to be valid.

The constitution does not state what the quorum must be for a presidential election vote, though for most parliamentary business it is set at just 184 MPs.

The government says the 367 quorum has not been met in previous presidential elections. By setting the bar so high, it says, the court has made the election of future presidents very hard because opposition parties can just boycott the sessions.

In a text explaining its quorum decision, the court said this week it had wanted to encourage parties in parliament to compromise over presidential candidates.

The AK Party has 352 seats in the outgoing parliament. Many analysts agree that the court ruling was politically motivated and was aimed at blocking Gul, a former Islamist whose wife wears the Muslim headscarf.

An opinion poll published in today's pro-government Yeni Safak newspaper showed the AK Party winning about 40 per cent of votes in July, echoing other recent surveys. This would be enough for it to form a single-party government again.

But efforts to reform the courts -- a bastion of secularism -- could stoke tensions further between the AK Party and the secular elite, which also includes powerful army generals.

The AK Party denies any Islamist agenda. It has presided over strong economic growth and the historic launch of European Union entry talks since sweeping to power in 2002.

REUTERS SKB RAI1851