ANKARA - Turkey's ruling party is to sue an 82-year-old who attacked its policies in a message Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan found stuck in the visitors' book at the home of the state's founding father, press reports said Wednesday.
Erdogan ripped out the two-page criticism written by retired worker Mehmet Fathi Dorduncu when he came across it in the book during a visit to Kemal Ataturk's home in the northern Greek city of Salonika.
Dordonuc accused Erdogan's Justice and Development Party (AKP) of "exploiting the religious feelings" of Turks and encouraging a pro-Islamic trend in the mainly Muslim but officially secular country.
He also branded Erdogan a "slave" of the United States and the European Union, which Turkey is trying to join.
After Monday's cabinet meeting government spokesman and Justice Minister Cemil Cicek implicitly called for legal action against Dorduncu, calling his letter "a sort of communique from an illegal organisation."
A number of ministers concurred, while member of parliament Mahmut Durdu told the daily Sabah he would spit in Dorduncu's face.
Erdogan is a former Islamist who has reinvented himself as a "democratic conservative." The AKP regularly denies allegations that it has a secret Islamist agenda.
05/10/2006 08:50 GMT