“The AKP needed the votes of the nationalist, anti-minority MHP in parliament to lift a ban on headscarves. In return, AKP has announced that it is backing down from its minorities bill that would have, among other things, returned property and assets that had been confiscated from Christian, Jewish and other minority religious groups by the state.”

As I understand it, for the above quoted passage, the MHP actually gained nothing from ‘backing down’, and that the AKP gained everything, or at least enough, by pushing through the change in the constitution. The AKP had bargained from a position of strength, and I don’t believe that they had lost anything by backing off from passing the minorities bill.

Not that I would want illiberal nationalists like the MHP to ‘gain’ either. It’s just that if the lifting of the headscarves ban in universities is not complemented by other forms of liberalization in Turkey, then the (liberal) secular forces would would be worse for it.

“This reform is crucial for Turkey’s EU membership bid. The fact that AKP is willing to give it up in return for MHP support on the headscarf vote…”

I don’t quite see this. How is the AKP giving up the EU bid in return for MHP’s support in un-banning headscarves? Because - and correct me if I’m wrong - isn’t this constitutional change supposedly a step towards the so-called liberalization required precisely in order to join the EU?