The Turkish government has lifted a ban on female army officers wearing the Muslim headscarf.

The army is the last Turkish institution to see the ban removed. It has long been seen as the guardian of Turkey’s secular constitution.

Wearing headscarves in public institutions was banned in the 1980s.

However, Islamist-leaning President Recep Tayyip Erdogan argues that the ban is an illiberal vestige of the past.

The issue has been controversial in Turkey for many years.

Secularists regard the headscarf as a symbol of religious conservatism and have accused President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of pushing an Islamist agenda, converting many public schools into religious ones as part of his pledge to raise “a pious generation”.

Over the past decade the Muslim headscarf ban has been removed for schools, universities, the civil service and in August for the police.