Sezer argued the constitutional amendments were based on "subjective, concrete and personal aims".

ANKARA, December 20 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Turkish President Ahmet Necdet Sezer on Thursday, December 19, vetoed constitutional amendments which would have paved the way for Recep Tayyip Erdogan, leader of the ruling Justice and Development Party (APK), to be elected to parliament and become prime minister.

Sezer sent the amendments back to parliament to be debated again on the grounds that they were based on "subjective, concrete and personal aims", his office said in a statement.

The amendments, adopted by an overwhelming majority in parliament last week with the backing of the opposition Republican People's Party, would have allowed Erdogan to run in future elections, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Erdogan, 48, was banned from taking part in the November 3 elections because of a 1998 conviction after reciting a poem allegedly with Islamic tones at a political rally.

Senior AKP officials promptly hit back at the president over the veto.

"What is personal is not the amendments themselves, but the act of returning them to parliament," the AKP deputy chairman Hayati Yazici was quoted as saying by the Anatolia news agency.

The AKP parliamentary group chairman Salih Kapusuz, meanwhile, criticized Sezer's move as "wrong".

"I did not see any serious or consistent justification" to the veto, Kapusuz said.

The parliament "will debate the amendments next week and send them to Sezer without any changes," he asserted.

If the amendments are adopted for a second time without modifications, Sezer will be forced to approve them but he reserves the right to ask the constitutional court to annul the amendments.

If lawmakers make changes to the amendments in their second debate, Sezer can veto them again.

Last week's amendments barred only those convicted on "terrorism charges" from running in elections and not those convicted of "ideological offences", like Erdogan.

A second amendment eased conditions under which a by-election can be called.

The changes would have allowed the AKP leader to run in by-elections as early as February or March next year following a decision by the electoral board to cancel election results in Siirt, in the southeast of the country, because ballots boxes were broken.

"Efforts to rapidly put the said constitutional arrangements into force following the decision of the electoral board reveal their subjective and personal nature," Sezer said in a written justification of his refusal, a copy of which was distributed by his press office.

"The said amendments do not fall in line with the principle of the rule of law due to their subjective and personal nature," he argued.

The AKP won a landslide victory in the November election and set up the country's first single-party government in years.

The government is headed by Erdogan's right-hand man, Abdullah Gul, who is seen by many as only a temporary prime minister.