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Virtue Party Leader Say New Party to Keep Religion Out of Politics
ANKARA, July 12 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Leading members of a faction from Turkey's banned pro-Islamic Virtue party said their planned new party will keep religion out of politics and make peace with the pro-secular military, news agencies reported.
The leading members made the pledge in newspaper interviews published Thursday, French AFP News Agency reported.
"We will not be a religious party, not even the party of the pious. People who are not pious can well join us," Abdullah Gul told the mass-circulation Turkish daily Hurriyet.
"We can be religious only as individuals," he added.
Gul is a prominent figure in the so-called "modernist" wing of the Virtue Party, which was banned last month by the constitutional court for activities against the strictly secular order in predominantly Muslim Turkey.
Last month, Turkey's constitutional court accused Virtue of being a "focal point" of anti-secular activities and also an illegal continuation of the outlawed Welfare Party.
The court outlawed Virtue, the main opposition party, on fears that a contrary decision would encourage other Muslim movements.
Virtue has always denied the charge, along with accusations that it is the legal successor to the Welfare Party, which briefly held power five years ago and which was itself banned.
After declaring the verdict June 22nd, Virtue leader Recai Kutan said the verdict was a "a blow to Turkey's search for democracy and law".
"Let nobody be deceived," Kutan added, "In Turkey in its present state, there is no democracy."
Virtue has become the latest in a series of pro-Islamic parties to be closed down under Turkey's strictly secular system
In the last 40 years, the Turkish constitutional court has issued verdicts to outlaw more than 40 Turkish parties under different accusations.
Meanwhile, another leading reformist, Bulent Arinc, told the Turkish liberal Milliyet newspaper that, "we will pay attention to maintain the best dialogue with the armed forces... we will not quarrel with any institution."
The "modernist" movement is in a process of forming a new party, while Virtue's "traditionalist" wing is working to set up its own party, which is expected to maintain an Islam-based agenda, the French news agency AFP reported.
Gul pledged that the new party would denounce populism and would promote intra-party democracy and "American-style" transparency.
Political observers said divisions between former Virtue members would weaken the Islamic political movement in Turkey, which has survived since the 1970s despite constant clampdowns by the pro-Western elite led by the powerful military.
The cracks in Virtue's ranks emerged long before it was banned over the influence wielded behind the scenes by leading Islamic advocate Necmettin Erbakan, AFP reported.
The "modernists" have stressed the need to address a broader electorate and not just voters sympathetic to the Erbakan-style Islamic rhetoric that has attracted Turkey's generals' wrath.
Istanbul's popular former mayor, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is the driving force behind the splinter movement.
Virtue was widely seen as more "moderate" than some of its other pro-Islamic predecessors.
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