More coalition talks in Turkey
August 13, 2015
Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu was set to meet Thursday with Kemal Kilicdaroglu, leader of the main opposition center-left Republican People's Party (CHP). Their first negotiating round (pictured above) ended inconclusively last Monday.
If no working coalition is formed by August 23 to replace Turkey's AKP-run interim government, then the founder of the APK otherwise known as the Justice and Development Party (AKP) and current President Recep Tayyip Erdogan could call a fresh election.
Speculation centers on November 22, one week after a scheduled G20 summit in Turkey.
The coalition impasse comes as Ankara wages its biggest security operations in years against the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) rebels in northern Iraq and southeast Turkey and cross-border strikes against "Islamic State" ("IS") militants in Syria.
The violence has effectively derailed a 2013 ceasefire between Ankara and the PKK. Turkey's armed forces said Kurdish militants had attacked military outposts in eastern Turkey on Wednesday night. Seven PKK fighters were killed, the military said.
Multiple differences at sluggish talks
Thursday's coalition talks reportedly hinged on differences between the ruling AKP and the secular CHP over foreign policy, education and presidential powers.
The newspaper Haberturk published results from an Andy-Ar survey on Wedneday showing support for the CHP rising from 25 percent in June to 27 percent currently. Support for pro-Kurdish HDP and the nationalist MHP was receding.
Erdogan's critics claim he wants another poll to enable his AKP to win back a majority via parliament so it can change the constitution and grant him greater powers as executive president.
In June's election, support for the AKP fell to 41 percent.
Reciprocal attacks
In recent weeks, the Kurdish rebels replied to renewed strikes by Erdogan's administration against PKK targets in northern Iraq by attacking on Turkish soldiers and police at diverse outposts, leaving at least 26 security force members killed.
Turkey's state-run Anadolu news agency claimed last week that some 260 Kurdish rebels had been killed in extensive Turkish air raids on PKK targets.
IS also targeted in 'synchronized war'
Erdogan's administration also joined US-led air strikes on Islamic State (IS) militants in neighboring Syria in late July after vehemently denying claims that it had failed to do enough to halt the rise of the IS.
It has described its strikes as a "synchronized war on terror." Critics quoted by Reuters say the security crackdown is aimed mainly a Kurdish militants.
US warplanes made their first airstrikes against IS targets from Turkey on Wednesday. Ankara had agreed in late June to permit the US to station F-16s, with 300 personnel, at the Incirlik air base in southern Turkey.
Turkish society was rocked on 20 July by a suicide bombing attributed to the IS in Suruc, a border town near Syria. The bomber killed 32 people, mostly young Kurds gathered to plan rebuilding of the recaptured town of Kobani in Syria.
Tensions escalated to undermine HDP?
Many Kurdish politicians accuse Erdogan of escalating the tensions to undermine another party, Turkey's pro-Kurdish HDP opposition party, which won 13 percent and entered parliament for the first time in June.
Last Saturday, Selahattin Demirtas, the leader of the pro-Kurdish HDP, which had acted as facilitator in past peace efforts, urged the PKK to "remove its finger from the trigger."
Turkey: 700 foreign 'terrorists' expelled
On Wednesday, Davutoglu's head of media relations, Cemalettin Hasimi told reporters in Paris that Turkey had arrested and expelled more than 700 "foreign terrorist fighters" as they had tried to enter Syria, presumably to join the IS.
Prosecutors flee
On Monday, two Turkish prosecutors, who in late 2013 led a high-profile probe into alleged corruption within Erdogan's inner circle, fled to Armenia.
Erdogan last year portrayed that scandal as a coup attempt orchestrated by a former ally, US-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen.
ipj/kms (AP. Reuters, AFP)