ANKARA, Turkey — Turkey's highest court dissolved the Islamic-oriented Welfare Party on Friday and banned six of its leaders from politics, accusing them of undermining the country's long tradition of secular rule during a stormy year in government.
The decision was a new triumph for the army-led secularist elite that forced Necmettin Erbakan, the Welfare Party leader, to resign as prime minister in June. Some of Turkey's Western allies criticized the ban on this predominantly Muslim country's largest party as a blow to its shaky democracy.
Erbakan, 71, and five other Welfare members of parliament were stripped of their seats and barred from political activity for five years. The party's assets were seized.
The Constitutional Court cited Erbakan's speeches and acts of his government as reasons for its ruling.
As prime minister, Erbakan formed closer ties with Iran and Libya and allowed civil servants to work shorter hours during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. He once boasted that Welfare's Islamic-guided principles would prevail in Turkey, whether the transition was "sweet or bloody."
"It is unthinkable to have a democracy without political parties," Chief Justice Ahmet Necdet Sezer wrote for the majority in the 9-2 ruling. "But it doesn't mean that no limits should be put on them."
Erbakan, appearing unruffled at a news conference, called the ban "a grave judicial mistake" and vowed to file a complaint against Turkey with the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France.
The party, which regrouped after being outlawed by the army in 1971 and 1980, is being reorganized again under a new name, Virtue, and "will grow even stronger," Erbakan said.
Turkey is a North Atlantic Treaty Organization member and key American ally in the region, with its unique role straddling the Balkans, the Middle East and the Caucasus. But the Turks, who were received warmly in Washington last month, in the last few weeks have been rebuffed by the Europeans and the Islamic world.
European Union nations, which last month cited Turkey's poor human rights record in shelving its membership application, were quick to condemn the ban. "We are concerned at the implications for democratic pluralism and freedom of expression and will be discussing this urgently with our European partners," said British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook.
*
