ISTANBUL, April 1, 2008 (AFP) - Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan on Tuesday called for a reform of the country's judicial system, one day after Turkey's top court agreed to hear a case to ban the ruling party.

'All the problems come from the fact that we still lack reform in several areas,' Babacan told an international conference here on Turkey's bid to join the European Union.

'We have done a lot on economy, a lot in terms of democratisation, and it is very obvious that must do a lot on judiciary reforms as well,' he said.

Turkey's top judiciary body, the Constitutional Court, decided Monday that it would hear a case to ban the governing Justice and Development Party (AKP) on charges of seeking to undermine the country's strictly secular regime.

A verdict is expected to take up to six months.

Since it first came to power in 2002, the AKP, an off-shoot of a banned Islamist movement, has been locked in a bitter battle with secularists -- including the army, the judiciary and some academics -- who suspect it of secretly seeking to usher in religious rule.

Last year, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan called early elections after a tense stand-off with secularists over the party's choice for the presidency. The AKP won an easy re-election with nearly 47 percent of the vote.

Babacan said the government needed to 'continue reforms with a strong political will.' Ankara remained determined to pursue its membership talks with the EU that began in 2005, he added.

'One important result (of the negotiations) is that there has been a big shift of power. Now our citizens are more empowered than they used to be and they feel it, they use it,' he said. 'So power is no longer the privilege of a few, but a common asset.'

The AKP has rejected accusations that it is seeking to end secularism. But moves such as its bid to abolish a ban on the Islamic headscarf in universities and forbidding alcohol sales in restaurants run by AKP local councils have kept suspicions alive.