Turkey’s Constitutional Court may have been urged to reject a challenge to the presidential election. The country’s main secular opposition party applied to the court to suspend the poll. It said a vote in Parliament last Friday was illegal, as a quorum of MPs was not present.

Newspapers have reported a court prosecutor has recommended rejecting the opposition bid. The dispute centres on the ruling AK party’s choice of presidential candidate – Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul. Secularists fear he and the Prime Minister want to undermine Turkey’s strict separation of state and religion.

In a bid to ease the tension, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan appealed for national unity yesterday in a televised address. The Court is expected to make a ruling over the next two days.

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