SULAIMANI (ESTA) — European parliament’s rapporteur on Thursday criticized a move by Turkey towards the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), a week before EU leaders are due to discuss strained ties with Ankara at a summit.
A Turkish prosecutor filed a case with the constitutional court on Wednesday demanding a ban on the HDP over alleged ties to Kurdish militants, the culmination of a years-long crackdown against the third largest party in parliament.
The move marks the revival of a long history of Turkey banning political parties, including pro-Kurdish ones.
The prosecutor’s announcement of the case came on the same day that Turkey’s parliament stripped a prominent HDP deputy of his parliamentary status.
“Unapologetically [moving] towards the end of pluralism. What reaction does Turkey expect now from the European Union? A positive agenda?” said Nacho Sanchez Amor, the European Parliament’s rapporteur on Turkey, according to Reuters.
Turkey is a candidate for EU membership though accession talks have been stalled for years.
The U.S. State Department said on Wednesday that dissolving the HDP “would unduly subvert the will of Turkish voters, further undermine democracy in Turkey, and deny millions of Turkish citizens their chosen representation”.
The HDP had recently come under intensified pressure, with nationalist allies of President Tayyip Erdogan’s AK Party calling for it to be banned over alleged ties to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).
That coincided with falling poll support for the AKP and its nationalist allies as they battle the economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic. Elections are not scheduled until 2023.
Presidential communications director Fahrettin Altun said in the first government reaction it was “an indisputable fact that HDP has organic ties to PKK”, according to Reuters.
“HDP’s senior leaders and spokespeople, through their words and deeds, have repeatedly and consistently proved that they are the PKK’s political wing,” he said.
Devlet Bahceli, leader of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), also hailed the move.
“The HDP is a criminal organization disguised in a political cloak. It is a historic and moral duty for it to be shut and never to be reopened under another name.”
The HDP has said it would regroup in a new party if banned.
The Haberturk news website cited the indictment as saying the prosecutor demanded a political ban for more than 600 HDP officials – a severe obstacle to any such move, Reuters reported.
The HDP, which won 11.7% of the vote in a 2018 parliamentary election and has 55 seats in the 600-member parliament, accused the AKP of shaping politics through the courts. It denies any links to the militants.
