ANKARA
The leader of Turkey’s Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) on Friday called on the country’s two largest parties to try to form a coalition government “one last time”.
Devlet Bahceli said it was an “historic necessity and a national responsibility” for the Justice and Development (AK) Party and the Republican People’s Party (CHP) to form a coalition.
His call came a day after AK Party leader and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and CHP leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu failed to find enough common ground to form an administration.
Turkey now seems set for a rerun of the June 7 general election that saw no party achieve a simple majority in parliament.
Bahceli pointed out that the failure of coalition talks would not benefit anyone when Turkey is in the midst of a renewed conflict with Kurdish separatists.
“Fiddling around with power games and making up excuses not to find an agreement when fire is all around us is tantamount to destroying this beloved country,” he said.
Bahceli urged his fellow leaders, whose parties control more than two-thirds of parliamentary seats between them, not to waste more than 50 hours of negotiations.
He said he would be willing to meet Davutoglu on Monday but refused to budge on the MHP’s prior conditions for entering government - conditions Davutoglu is highly unlikely to accept.
“In case our principles and conditions shared with the public are accepted, then the 46-year-old Nationalist Movement Party is determined to roll up its sleeves,” he said.
Negotiations between the AK Party and the CHP started on July 13. The deadline to form a government expires on Aug. 23, when either the president or parliament can call a new election.
Any new poll is likely to take place in late November although Turkey’s election authority has the power to cut the 90-day period by half.
