US warns Turkey over efforts to bar main pro-Kurdish party
Turkey President Erdogan
The United States has warned that efforts to bar the main pro-Kurdish party from electoral politics in Turkey would undermine the nation's democracy.
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The US State Department said that such a move will deny millions of Turkish citizens the right to choose their representatives.
"We are... monitoring the initiation of efforts to dissolve the People's Democratic Party, a decision that would unduly subvert the will of Turkish voters, further undermine democracy in Turkey, and deny millions of Turkish citizens their chosen representation," State Department spokesman Ned Price said.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has often portrayed the Peoples' Democratic Party as a political front of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), however, the pro-Kurdish party says it is has come under attack due to its opposition to Erdogan's rule.
"We call on the government of Turkey to respect freedom of expression in line with protections in the Turkish constitution and with Turkey's international obligations," Ned Price urged the Turkish government.
The People's Democratic Party(HDP) has denied links to militants. However, the request to ban the party came from a Supreme Court prosecutor who while investigating the HDP alleged that it"was acting together with PKK terrorists and affiliated organisations, acting as an extension of such organisations".
Prosecutor Bekir Sahin alleged that it was an "attempt to destroy the indivisibility between the state and the people" even as the HDP said "heavy blow to democracy".
"We call on all the democratic forces, the social and political opposition, and on our people to join a common fight against this political coup," the party said.