"The murder of a senior judge is reigniting a religious dispute in Turkey and undermining support for Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government before elections next year."
" President Ahmet Necdet Sezer blamed the attack on Islamic extremists and accused Erdogan's ruling Justice and Development Party of fanning unrest by backing fewer curbs on headscarves. The dispute helped push the lira down 16 percent against the dollar last month on concern a religious feud would hamper Turkey's chances of joining the European Union. The benchmark stock index slid 12 percent in the week after the attack.
``The killing is possibly part of a very big power struggle between reform-minded and more statist, authoritarian tendencies,'' said Soli Ozel, a political scientist at Bilgi University in Istanbul. ``This kind of polarization is not good for the country, and it threatens to pull Turkey off course."
Bloomberg.com: Europe
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