Sabah: President Abdullah Gül has begun to meet with leaders of the opposition parties on Wednesday in a bid to win for their support for a constitutional reform package the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government will bring to Parliament, the daily announced in its main story yesterday. On Wednesday, Gül met with Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Deniz Baykal. He was set to meet with Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahçeli and Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) leader Selahattin Demirtaş on Thursday. Gül wants the approval of a reform package through consensus in Parliament and thinks that a possible referendum will create tension in the country, the daily said.Star: Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu asked the US House Committee on Foreign Affairs, which is preparing to vote on Thursday on a resolution that seeks recognition of the killing of Armenians in 1915 as “genocide,” not to offend Turkey through approval of the resolution, warning that such a move would significantly damage bilateral ties between the two countries. “The US administration should convince the US House of Representatives not to vote in favor of the resolution. Trying to test relations with Turkey through political means and attempting to pressure Turkey is equivalent to ignoring it,” Davutoğlu said. Professor Henri Barkey, an expert on Turkey, asked the US Congress not to include the Armenian resolution in its agenda every year, describing it as “nonsense.”
Taraf: CHP leader Baykal, who announced that he would take a constitutional reform package initiated by the AK Party to the Constitutional Court if it is approved by Parliament, is administering the country through the judiciary, the daily said in its main story yesterday. Baykal said he would take the package to the Constitutional Court because he is afraid of the “politicization of the judiciary” through the package. The decision of the Constitutional Court, which has never turned down previous CHP requests, is obvious even today, the daily said, implying that the court would annul the package.
