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ANKARA (AFP) - Turkey's three-way governing coalition decided Tuesday to submit to parliament a controversial decree that was rejected by the president twice, in a move largely seen as submission to the demands made by the nation's leader. "The cabinet will undertake necessary efforts for the draft law to be evaluated by the parliament with priority" when it opens in October, said a written statement issued by the prime minister's office after a meeting between coalition leaders. Tuesday's meeting was called after President Ahmet Necdet Sezer refused to approve the decree for a second time Monday on the grounds that it was in clear contradiction to the constitution, prompting a political deadlock. The document, which bypasses parliament, enables the expulsion of civil servants from public service for life on the basis of reports by state inspectors that they are linked to subversive Islamist or separatist Kurdish movements. In an annex attached to the decree, which was returned to Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit, Sezer said disciplinary actions should be enforced by a parliament-approved law and not through government-issued decrees. But Ecevit and his coalition partners said Tuesday that they were "not convinced" by the president's arguments, which they said were contradicting the constitution themselves. Coalition leaders claimed that Sezer should have signed the decree and then appealed to the constitutional court for its cancellation if he deemed it wrong. "It is deeply sad that the president has resisted against opting for this choice," the statement said. The leaders also kept up their harsh criticism of Sezer's stance, which they said hampered state efforts to prevent separatist or Islamists from infiltrating the state. "By preventing this decree ... the president has, even though unintentionally, encouraged the enemies of the regime," it added. Tuesday's decision marks a defeat for the government against Sezer, a former jurist, over the much-criticized decree, which it avoided from submitting to parliament in the first place. The coalition's reluctance to push the decree through parliament stemmed from fears that the opposition could block the law, which the government says, is urgently needed. The rejected decree comes as part of a massive crackdown led by the powerful army since 1997 to eliminate political Islam, which the country's generals deem the major threat to the country's secular order. But the document has come under fire from human rights organizations, trade unions, bar associations, the press, and the opposition on the grounds that it violates basic human and labor rights. |
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