ANKARA, Turkey - Turkey's top appeals court prosecutor has asked the Constitutional Court to ban from politics the leadership of the main opposition Islamist party, the state-run Anatolian news agency said on Friday.
The Virtue Party faces possible closure on charges it aims to topple Turkey's secular order and is the continuation of the Welfare Party, which stepped down from power in 1997 under military pressure. Welfare was shut down a year later.
Overwhelmingly Muslim Turkey strictly separates state and religion.
Prosecutor Sabih Kanadoglu sent the Constitutional Court, which is hearing the case against Virtue, an additional indictment asking it to bar the party's founders from politics for five years, the news agency said.
Financial markets are watching the case closely. If the court outlaws Virtue and expels most of its deputies from parliament, by-elections could be triggered, upsetting political stability.
The government is drawing up a new economic policy after a political clash panicked markets and sparked a crisis that undermined an IMF disinflation plan and slashed nearly a third off the value of the currency.
08:06 03-23-01
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