Turkey’s governing party has said that it will abandon, for the time being, its efforts to allow head scarves to be worn by religiously observant Muslim women on university campuses.

The Justice and Development Party, whose roots are in political Islam, had made overturning the head-scarf ban a central part of its legislative agenda, and this year ushered through parliament two controversial constitutional amendments designed to pave the way for scarves to be worn.

Turkey’s constitutional court blocked that legislation in June, ruling that the government’s moves violated the Turkish republic’s secular principles.

The amendments also prompted a court challenge to the ruling party’s legal existence on the grounds that it was undermining secularism. Earlier this week the constitutional court rejected the attempt to shut down the party, but imposed financial restrictions on it as a “serious warning” to the party.

The day after that ruling, a leading party figure indicated in a television interview that, at least with regard to head scarves, the court’s warning is being heeded. “The head-scarf issue is not on our agenda now,” the official said. —Aisha Labi