Turkey’s ruling party has announced that the country must lift a ban on headscarves at universities as part of its democratic reforms aimed at EU membership.

The move is certain to anger the country’s secular elite which includes generals and judges who view the clothing ban as vital for the separation of state and religion, but the Turkish foreign minister Ali Babacan stated in a recent news conference that;

“Turkey is a country which has to make political reforms to achieve the strategic goal of full membership in the European Union, which it has chosen,”

A joint statement by the ruling AK Party and nationalist MHP also announced;

“Agreement has been reached. “The issue of the headscarf was evaluated in terms of rights and freedoms and the technical work (on lifting the ban) is continuing.”

The EU has pressed Turkey to boost freedom of expression and minority rights but has no position on the headscarf issue.

However, the secularists accuse the popular centre-right, pro-business AK Party of plotting to boost the role of Islam as a religion in Turkey, a claim which the Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan and his party deny.

Mr Erdogan, whose own wife and daughter wear the headscarf, insists it is a matter of human rights in a country where about two-thirds of women cover their heads.

Opinion polls also show strong public support for lifting the headscarf ban with many women currently opting not to go to university because they want to keep their heads covered.

Last year, the issue helped spark early parliamentary polls following mass secularist rallies and tough army warnings.

The powerful military, which views itself as the ultimate guarantor of Turkey’s secular order, has not yet commented but it is unlikely to welcome the latest moves.

The army has ousted four democratically elected governments in the past 50 years, most recently in 1997 when with public support it drove out a cabinet it viewed as too Islamic.

Critics say the secular and wealthy elite have for nearly 100 years used Islam as an excuse to keep control of key state institutions for its own benefi t, saying that they fear their own position, should the country establish a more conservative position in the future.