18 September 2015•Update: 18 September 2015
ANKARA
Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Tugrul Turkes has announced his resignation from the basic membership of his Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) and the party's parliamentary group membership.
"I resign from my membership of the MHP and the party's parliamentary group as per the party conditions and the recent state of Turkish politics," Turkes wrote in his resignation letter Friday.
He sent the letter to the MHP chairman, the Turkish Parliamentary Speaker’s Office and the Supreme Court of Appeals Prosecutor's Office.
Earlier on September 5, the MHP's central disciplinary committee said that it had expelled Turkes after he accepted an offer to join the country's caretaker Cabinet in defiance of his party's instructions to do otherwise.
Turkes, an elected Ankara deputy, is the son of MHP founder Alparslan Turkes. He was the first Turkish parliamentarian to accept Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu's invitation to join the interim government. He was given the deputy prime minister’s post in the interim Cabinet formed on August 28 in the run-up to the November 1 election.
The provisional government, which will steer Turkey to a rerun of June’s general election on Nov. 1, includes representatives from Davutoglu’s Justice and Development (AK) Party, Turkes and two from Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP).
The Republican People's Party (CHP) -- the second largest in Turkey’s parliament – had refused to join the interim Cabinet.
The June 7 general election saw a stalemate with no party winning the majority necessary to form a single party government.
