Speaking in an interview Tuesday with Turkey’s leading news station NTV, said that Erkan Mumcu said that the headscarf ban imposed on university students was a small part of a much larger problem with the university system.

Mumcu claimed there was a fascist attitude in running of Turkey’s universities. “As long as this continues there is no point in focussing on the headscarf creating a polarisation in it and then telling that you would take it to a referendum,” the ANAP chairman said.

He also said that his party did not see it valid enough to take into consideration the proposal by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan have the headscarf ban lifted only at universities operated by foundations.