Early Poll Prospects Grow As Turkish Air Strikes Muddy Coalition Talks

Turkey looks increasingly likely to face an early general election, with its air strikes against terrorist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) militants in Iraq and the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) radical terrorist organization in Syria stirring nationalist sentiment and coalition talks making little apparent progress.

The NATO member launched near-simultaneous bombing campaigns in Iraq and Syria a week ago, opening up conflict on two fronts as the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) tries to find a junior coalition partner after losing its parliamentary majority in the country's June general election. The military action against the PKK camps in northern Iraq has cheered the opposition Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), long opposed to a peace process with the PKK terrorists, raising the possibility it could support a short-lived minority AK Party government if it took the country to a new election.

Speaking to journalists travelling with him on a trip to Asia, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan -- a co-founder of the AK Party -- was quoted on Friday as again warning of the dangers of fragile coalitions and extolling the virtues of single-party rule. "If we see a positive result from coalition talks, fine. If not, we should immediately appeal to the national will and let the nation decide so that we save ourselves from the current situation," he was quoted as saying by the Hurriyet newspaper.

"What I am against is a permanent minority government. A minority government on the condition that it will take the country to elections is perfectly possible," he said, adding that such a government could be formed with outside support from at least one opposition party.

Turkey's parties have until Aug. 23 to agree a working government or Erdoğan could call a new election. Critics of the president see a fresh vote as his preferred option, offering an opportunity for the AK Party to regain its parliamentary majority and govern alone. If the party were to win two-thirds of the seats, it could also change the Constitution and fulfill Erdoğan's ambition of creating a more powerful executive presidency.

The AK Party has been holding initial talks with the main secularist opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), the second-biggest party in Parliament, but those discussions are due to end on Monday and there has been little sign of concrete progress.

"You've got to form the coalition in your mind first. We can see that there is no coalition with the CHP in the minds of the AK Party," one senior official from the CHP told Reuters.

Wooing the nationalists

Senior AK Party officials said the party would conduct a survey of public opinion between Aug. 1-10 and decide on the basis of that whether to press ahead with coalition efforts or move towards an early election.

"If these surveys point to a single-party government, we can expect coalition talks to end. Then we will call for an early election," one of the officials told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. "But if there's a different picture, we can expect one of the two alternatives, the CHP or the MHP. Nobody should overlook the possibility of a coalition with the MHP."

The MHP has previously indicated it does not want to share power with the AK Party. However, the prospect of the collapse of the Kurdish peace process could prompt it to agree at least to a short-lived deal leading to a new election. AK Party officials say they may meet their MHP counterparts next week. "If the peace process is terminated and our other conditions are met, we would make whatever sacrifice is necessary," MHP leader Devlet Bahçeli told reporters.

Braving nationalist anger, Erdoğan introduced tentative reforms on Kurdish rights and in 2012 opened negotiations to try to end a PKK insurgency that has killed 40,000 people since 1984. A fragile cease-fire had been holding since March 2013. The leader of the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), whose strong showing in the June election deprived the AK Party of its majority, accused Erdoğan on Thursday of launching the military action in Syria and Iraq to avenge Kurdish gains.

Government officials strongly deny this, saying the action against the PKK was taken in response to a series of killings of police officers and soldiers by the Kurdish militants in recent weeks. At least 15 members of the security forces have been killed in attacks blamed on the PKK since July 21.

(Cihan/Today's Zaman)