Turkey's ruling AK Party has proposed bringing parliamentary elections forward to ease tension after an increasingly bitter standoff between Islamists and secularists.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan called for an early election yesterday after Turkey's highest court ruled that the first round of voting for a new president was invalid.
The AK Party's presidential candidate, Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul, is a former Islamist and his decision to run has sparked protests.
His party has submitted a proposal to parliament for a general election to be brought forward to 24 June from 4 November. The AK Party is expected to win a second term after five years of strong economic growth since it came to power in 2002.
The AK Party will also propose the president is in future elected by voters and not by parliament.
A threat by the army, which regards itself as the guardian of Turkey's secular system, to intervene in the presidential poll, an opposition boycott of the first round vote in parliament and an anti-government rally of up to one million people last Sunday sharply increased tension in the country.
The political impasse has also raised concern about Turkey's negotiations to join the EU, and is being closely followed in the US.
