TURKEY'S Islamists have agreed to let the conservative Motherland Party (Anap) leader, Mr Mesut Yilmaz, head a planned coalition between them until the beginning of next year, the semi official Anatolian news agency said yesterday.
The agency said the Islamist Welfare Party (RP) and Anap had also come near to agreement on the distribution of cabinet seats bat marathon talks that are to resume later this week.
"I will become prime minister first, for 10 months [in a rotating premiership system]," Mr Yilmaz told reporters after his meeting with the Welfare Party leader, Mr Necmettin Erbakan. "Accordingly, Erbakan is due to take over the post at the end of the year for an expected period of two years."
If this happens Mr Erbakan (69) will become the first pro Islamic prime minister of modern Turkey, whose founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, built the state on a secular basis in 1923.
Welfare won more votes than any secular party in general elections last December. But all parties except Anap have distanced themselves from the Islamists, who they see as a threat to Turkey's western orientation, which includes Nato membership and prospective EU membership.
Earlier yesterday the caretaker Prime Minister, Ms Tansu Ciller, warned the rival Anap leader not to seal a coalition deal that would give the Islamists their biggest share of power in Turkey's modern history.
"What I am saying is very clear - don't do it," Ms Ciller said in an interview with state run TRT television before the latest round of talks.
Ms Ciller, who has been largely sidelined from coalition talks in recent weeks, earlier told Mr Yilmaz he was playing with fire by allowing RP anywhere near the seat of power in secular Turkey.
For the sake of attaining the prime ministry for several months, do not bury your country and your party in darkness," she said in remarks carried by Anatolian. "This would be a big mistake."
Mr Yilmaz said members of both parties would form a commission to meet tomorrow to discuss the distribution of cabinet seats.
"Their work will end on Friday ... and then we will move on to negotiations on a coalition protocol," Mr Yilmaz said.
The announcement by the Anap leader confirmed that the deal hinges on a brief period of Anap rule to prepare the country for an eventual Islamic government.
On Saturday, Mr Erbakan and Mr Yilmaz said after talks that they had reached a general accord for a coalition to end the political crisis. However, the process was upset by Mr Yilmaz's unexpected insistence at the weekend that a minority government be formed by Motherland first before he could agree to a coalition with Welfare - a condition firmly rejected by Mr Erbakan.
Political sources said Mother land withdrew this condition yesterday, paving the way for continuation of the talks.