ANKARA—Turkey's government urged female students on Monday not to flout a ban on the wearing of Muslim headscarves at university until it has been fully lifted.
In a landmark decision on Saturday that has alarmed Turkey's secular elite, parliament voted overwhelmingly to amend the country's constitution to allow women students to wear the headscarf on campus if they so wish.
But President Abdullah Gul must first approve the reform and parliament must also amend a law governing the state body for higher education before the changes can take effect.
Turkish television showed some female students entering a university campus on Monday with their heads covered. Security guards turned away one student and other women removed their headscarves at their university gate.
Asked about the violations, government spokesman Cemil Cicek told a news conference: "We urge everybody to obey the law. We must avoid any impetuous or rowdy behaviour."
The headscarf reform is controversial and highly divisive in overwhelmingly Muslim but secular Turkey.
The Islamist-rooted AK Party government says the reform is an issue of religious and individual freedom in a country where two thirds of women—including the wives and daughters of the president and prime minister—wear the headscarf.
But the secular elite, including army generals, judges and university rectors, fear the change will erode Turkey's separation of state and religion. Tens of thousands of secularists staged a protest rally in Ankara on Saturday.
"Turkey has been debating this issue for 40 years... The government remains open to suggestions (on how to implement the change)," Cicek said, striking a conciliatory note.
"This constitutional reform has been achieved with the approval of 411 deputies representing 70 percent of citizens," Cicek added, stressing the democratic nature of the changes.
Sezer Komsuoglu, rector of Kocaeli University near Istanbul, told NTV private broadcaster that about 10 women students had entered that campus in headscarves on Monday, but said they had removed the garments during lessons.
Other universities mostly insisted women remove their headscarves at the gate as usual, Turkish television reported.
The staunchly secularist main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) has said it will ask the Constitutional Court to quash the headscarf reform once it has been enacted.
Opinion polls show a majority of Turks back an easing of the ban. Even after the reforms, women professors as well as civil servants will still be banned from covering their heads.
