Turkey's constitutional committee dissolved

ANKARA

The Turkish parliamentary committee planning a new constitution for the country broke up on Tuesday after opposition party members walked out.

Omer Celik, deputy chairman of the ruling Justice and Development (AK) Party, accused the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) of sabotaging the process to draft a new charter.

“To tell the truth, the CHP does not want to do a new constitution,” he said at the AK Party’s headquarters in Ankara. “We want to make the first constitution of the new Turkey [but] they insist on the constitution of old Turkey.”

The Constitution Conciliation Committee of 12 deputies - three from each of Turkey’s four parliamentary parties - first met on Feb. 3 in a bid to redraw a constitution that dates back in parts to Turkey’s military regime of the 1980s.

Earlier, CHP committee member Bulent Tezcan told a news conference that Parliamentary Speaker Ismail Kahraman had announced the dissolution of the committee.

“As no consensus existed about the solution of preliminary issues, the parliamentary speaker said there was no consensus and the committee would not work from now on,” he said.

Garo Paylan from the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) said the three opposition parties at the committee defended the parliamentary system, which the AK Party wants to swap for a presidential model.

He added: “The table dissolved when the CHP said it would discuss nothing but the parliamentary system.”