Turks approved sweeping changes to their military-era constitution Sunday --a referendum hailed by the government as a leap toward full democracy in a regional power still struggling with internal divisions.With 99 per cent of the vote counted, 58 per cent had cast ballots in favor of the constitutional amendments, state-run TRT television said.
About 42 per cent voted ''no,'' heeding opposition claims that the reforms would shackle the independence of the courts.
The referendum on 26 amendments to a constitution that was crafted after a 1980 military coup had become a battleground between the Islamic-oriented government and traditional power elites that believe Turkey's secular principles are under threat.
It amounted to a vote of confidence in the ruling Justice and Development Party ahead of elections next year.
''We have crossed a historic threshold toward advanced democracy and the supremacy of law,'' Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in a nationally televised speech at his party headquarters in Istanbul.
''The regime of tutelage in Turkey will now come to an end,'' he said. ''The mentality will be so that those enthusiastic for military coups will see their enthusiasms stuck inside them.''
Street clashes marred voting at several polling stations in provinces with large Kurdish populations.
A Kurdish party had urged supporters to boycott the ballot, arguing that the proposed changes would not advance the rights of the ethnic minority.
Since Saturday, police nationwide detained 138 people suspected of threatening people into boycotting the vote or casting their ballot in a certain way, Interior Minister Besir Atalay said.