"The joint proposal of the AK and the MHP for changing the constitution and the law is expected to be presented to parliament today," Devlet Bahceli, the MHP leader, told party members on Tuesday, January 29, reported Reuters.

A constitutional change needs a two-thirds majority in the 550-seat assembly.

The AKP and MHP have more than enough legislators to change the constitution and the Higher Education Law which ban hijab on campus.

Muslim women attend a protest against the hijab ban in the old city in Istanbul January 25, 2008.

Under the deal agreed by the two parties a day earlier, women at universities are permitted to cover their heads by tying the headscarf in the traditional way beneath the chin.

A majority of women use the traditional "basortusu" - head cover in Turkish - that is more or less loosely knotted under the chin for protection against the elements or for modesty.

It can come off just as easily as it can be tied on and raises no objections.

The ban would remain on the wrap-round headscarf, which secularists claim is associated with political Islam, as well as face-veil.

"Under this plan, the face must remain open and so a person will not be permitted to conceal her identity," Bahceli assured party members.

The ban will also continue for teachers and women working in public offices.

Hijab, an obligatory code of dress in Islam, was banned in public buildings, universities, schools and government buildings in Muslim-majority Turkey shortly after a 1980 military coup.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose wife and daughters are veiled, had promised before his first electoral victory in 2002 that the "unfair ban will be abolished."

He insists that respect for basic human rights is his sole motivation in pushing through the amendments.

• Opposition

Although the change is a done deal, the debate over the issue is far from over.

Some claim that the move will cause immense problems and deal a blow to the separation of state and religion, one of the founding principles of the modern Turkish Republic.

"This is truly dangerous," Ergun Ozbudun, a professor of constitutional law who heads a committee set up to overhaul existing basic law, the legacy of a 1980 military coup, told Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Fatih Hilmioglu, president of Inonu University in the northern city of Samsun, warned that lifting the ban "will cause chaos on campus."

The staunchly secularist Republican People's Party (CHP), the main opposition party, stands firmly against lifting the ban.

"The prime minister is using this uniform to distract public opinion from the country's real problems," charged Cevdet Selvi, the party's vice president.

So far, there has been no comment from the powerful army establishment, which sees itself as the ultimate guardian of the secular order.

Secularists see hijab as a threat to the fiercely-guarded secular system entrenched by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, who threw religion out of public life as he rebuilt Turkey from the ruins of the Ottoman Empire.

• "Indefensible"

Many women see the new development as putting an end to a measure that has long denied women the right to higher education.

Ayse Gul Altinay, a professor at Sabanci University, believes the ban was "indefensible".

"It had been so inflexible for so long," she told the New York Times Tuesday.

Altinay, who does not cover her hair, has deliberately included the writings of hijab-wearing women in her courses so that their voices are heard.

She believes that years of blocking what many see as a basic demand has built up frustration.

"Unfortunately, we've asked for it."

Opinion polls suggest that an overwhelming majority of Turks support lifting the ban in universities.

For Hilal Kaplan, a graduate student in sociology, secularists' argument that hijab poses a threat to the secular system is nonsense.

"I am the walking proof of the failure of their theory," she told the Times.

"I'm an enlightened woman, and I wear the head scarf. It just doesn't make sense to them."