The New Nation - Internet Edition

AFP, Ankara

Turkey's top court agreed Monday to rule on whether the governing AKP party should be banned for anti-secular activity, in a case that could threaten national stability and Ankara's bid to join the EU.

The 11 judges of the Constitutional Court unanimously decided that they could hear the case against the Justice and Development Party (AKP) filed by the country's top prosecutor on March 14.

A final verdict is expected to take up to six months.

The judges ruled by a majority vote that President Abdullah Gul, who belonged to the AKP until he was elected head of state in August, should be included in the legal proceedings.

In his petition to the court, the chief prosecutor of the Court of Appeals, Abdurrahman Yalcinkaya, accused the AKP of undermining Turkey's secular order as part of a plan to replace it with an Islamist system.

As well as a ban on the party, he also asked the Constitutional Court to bar 71 party officials, including Gul and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, from politics for five years.

The AKP now has one month to present its initial defence to the court, which has banned more than 20 parties since the 1960s.