AKP eyes to extend deadline for charter

ANKARA - Hürriyet Daily News

Charter panel mulls a new deadline in meeting presided by Çiçek. AA photo

Parliament’s Constitution Reconciliation Commission discussed whether they would be able to finalize their drafting of the new Constitution by the end of the year at a meeting presided over by Parliamentary Speaker Cemil Çiçek on Dec. 26.

The deadline stressed times by Premier Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was actually a “target” in the 15-article deal text signed by the Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the opposition when work on the new charter began last year.

The AKP’s Mustafa Şentop proposed the end of February 2013 be set as the new deadline for the commission’s work.

Opposition’s stance

The opposition, although still resist to any sort of deadline being set, whether it is a later date than earlier suggested by the AKP, has said they are also determined not to be the party who leaves the negotiating table first. The AKP’s final decision for the new deadline will be left up to Erdoğan, who thus far hasn’t hidden his impatience at seeing the commission finalize its work by the end of the year.

The general feeling within the AKP is that work should be finalize before the end of February with the commission then moving on to building bilateral cooperation with aspirant opposition parties. “If the CHP [Republican People’s Party] comes, we will do it with the CHP; and if the MHP [Nationalist Movement Party] comes, we will do it with them. What matters is achieving maximum common ground,” Erdoğan said in November. Opposition parties seem determined not the leave the charter table until the end.

However, the AKP is also dedicated to finalizing the new charter work, Şentop told the Hürriyet Daily News.