Turkey allows female soldiers to wear headscarves

Ankara: Turkey will allow female soldiers to wear a headscarf with their uniforms, defence ministry officials said on Wednesday.
Headscarves were long banned in the civil service and in universities, something the AKP successfully overturned. Defence officials said the change stipulated that the head covering, which could be worn with an official uniform under a hat or cap, should not cover the face and should be patternless and in harmony with the uniform's colour.
A ban on civilian personnel in the military wearing headscarves was lifted in November 2016.
The armed forces for decades wielded considerable power in Turkey, carrying out a series of coups between 1960 and 1980 and triggering the collapse of Turkey's first extremist-led government in 1997.
However, Erdogan has gradually eroded the army's influence.
Last July, a group of rogue soldiers commandeered tanks, warplanes and helicopters, and attacked parliament in an attempt to overthrow the government. M
ore than 240 people were killed in the failed putsch.
Ankara blames the attempted coup on U.S.-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen and his followers.
He denies the accusations.
Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey, forged the secular republic in the 1920s after the collapse of the Ottoman empire.
Turks are to vote on April 16 in a referendum on constitutional reform sharply broadening the president's powers. Opponents fear the change will bring a lurch towards authoritarianism while the government says the reform is needed to ensure political stability.