United States concerned about efforts to dissolve the People’s Democratic Party in Turkey

The US State Department said it was following “events in Turkey” “closely”, including “The disturbing movements” on Wednesday to “strip MP Omer Faruk Gergerlioglu of his parliamentary seat”.

Department spokesman Ned Price also announced that they are continuing to “the start of efforts to dissolve the People’s Democratic Party (HDP)“, A decision which he said” would unduly hijack the will of Turkish voters, further undermine democracy in Turkey and deny millions of Turkish citizens the representation they have chosen. “

Washington therefore calls on the Ankara government to “respect freedom of expression in accordance with the protections of the Turkish Constitution and Turkey’s international obligations”.

This Wednesday, Turkish parliament withdrew its seat from HDP MP Omer Faruk Gergerlioglu due to suspected links to terrorist groups, a measure adopted after the Turkish justice system decided to maintain a two-year prison sentence against him for disseminating terrorist propaganda on social networks in 2016.

Gergerlioglu called the action a “coup d’etat in parliament” and predicted that he “will resist. Two other HDP deputies were kicked out of parliament last year after a court approved their alleged links to terrorist groups .

On another side, The Turkish prosecutor’s office also filed a complaint on Wednesday to dissolve the pro-Kurdish opposition Democratic People’s Party (HDP) formation., which the Turkish government widely accuses of having links with the guerrillas of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

Oscillating in the era of Donald Trump, relations between the United States and the United States and Turkey are already strained under the new government of Joe Biden, and the dispute between the two countries, which are nevertheless allies, could even get worse.

If the order in which the new US president contacts his peers is a mirror of the state of bilateral relations, Recep Tayyip Erdogan must be worried: more than three weeks after entering the White House, the call has not yet come.

The head of US diplomacy, Antony Blinken, has also not contacted his counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu.

The dialogue between Washington and Ankara has certainly not seen its best moments of the past four years, But Trump and Erdogan “had a warm personal relationship,” recalls researcher Steven Cook of the US Council on Foreign Relations think tank.

A “friendship” that the Democrats have continued to reproach the Republican magnate.

With information from Europa Press

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