Outlawed Turkish party to reform July 3, 2001 Posted: 1322 GMT
ISTANBUL, Turkey -- The former leader of Turkey's banned pro-Islamic party is to launch a new political group.
The new party does not have a name yet but will probably be formed in the next two weeks, Virtue Party leader Recai Kutan told the Associated Press news agency.
Virtue was banned by the Constitutional Court ban on the Virtue Party after it found the party to have broken constitutional rules on anti-secular activity.
Kutan said the new party would seek to abolish the "antidemocratic" laws and sections in the constitution that lead to Virtue's closure.
Virtue had held 102 seats of Turkey's 550-seat parliament and Kutan said he hoped that all the party's lawmakers, who have become independent members of parliament, would join the new party, ensuring a unified Islamic movement.
"Our party has been closed but we are not defeated ... we take our strength from our unity and togetherness," Kutan told a press conference.
However just 25 former Virtue party lawmakers attended the press conference, private NTV television has reported.
The Virtue Party had been deeply divided, with a moderate wing calling for a move to a position more central on the political spectrum and there is widespread expectation that the moderates may launch a separate party.
"They have the democratic right to form a separate party, nobody can deny it," Kutan said. "But our supporters won't look favourably on such a separation."
The Constitutional Court last month ruled that the Virtue Party was violating the fundamentals of the secular principles of the Turkish constitution, implying they were using religious symbols for political purposes.
In its decision, the court ordered the treasury to confiscate the party's funds and two deputies were stripped of their seats.
However the court rejected a charge by the chief prosecutor that the Virtue Party was simply a continuation under a different name of the Welfare Party, banned in 1998 on the grounds that it was engaged in fundamentalist activity and violating secular principles.