ANKARA
Turkish Parliament Speaker Cemil Cicek has returned the main opposition's request for a parliamentary inquiry committee to investigate allegations of corruption against Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) has claimed in its request that Erdogan could not be excluded from investigations into the four former ministers accused of graft.
However, Cicek returned the request Wednesday citing an article of the constitution on "freedom of communication," over wiretapping of Erdogan's phone calls with his son.
"Everyone has the right to freedom of communication. Secrecy of communication is fundamental," the 22nd article of the Turkish constitution stipulates.
Former Economy Minister Zafer Caglayan, Interior Minister Muammer Guler and Environment and Urbanization Minister Erdogan Bayraktar resigned from their posts after an anti-graft probe was launched on 17 December last year and EU Minister Egemen Bagis was discharged from office in a cabinet reshuffle.
A parliamentary inquiry committee was set up on 6 May to investigate the former ministers.
The committee, made up of 16 lawmakers, will issue a report at the end of a two-month investigation.
Two Istanbul-based anti-graft operations launched on December 17 and 25 led to the arrest of high-profile figures including the sons of the three ministers as well as several businessmen. All those detained under the probe were later released pending trial.
The Turkish government decried the probes a "dirty plot" against it, constructed by a "parallel" group of bureaucrats which it said were nestled within the country's key institutions including the judiciary and police, targeting Turkey's stability and development.
The group, allegedly run by a movement led by US-based Turkish Islamic preacher Fethullah Gulen has been accused of conducting illegal wiretappings of thousands of people in Turkey.
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