Turkey's prime minister said on Wednesday a law that prohibits women wearing the Muslim headscarf at university was against freedom of belief, in his strongest hint yet the AK Party might try again to lift the ban.

Turkey's Constitutional Court struck down in 2008 an attempt by the ruling AK Party to remove the ban. But after voters approved constitutional changes in September to overhaul the court, AK Party officials have put the sensitive issue back on the government's agenda.

"We agree with society on the headscarf issue," Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said in a speech to university students in Istanbul, which was broadcast live.

"We do not want to disappoint our youth. There is no sense in being so interventionist in freedom of belief and education anymore," Erdogan said.

His comments come months before a election that will herald a new constitution if his party wins.

Wearing the Muslim headscarf is a touchy issue in European Union candidate Turkey, an overwhelmingly Muslim nation with a strictly secular constitution.