AK Party grassroots favor MHP in Turkish coalition

ANKARA

 The grassroots of Turkey’s Justice and Development (AK) Party favors a coalition government with the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) despite the latter’s reluctance to help form a government, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said on Wednesday night.

The prime minister, who is in the process of trying to form a government with an opposition party, held talks with the MHP, the Republican People’s Party (CHP) and Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) this week.

“There has been more of a tendency towards the MHP,” he said in a late night interview with private news channel NTV. "They have no strong reaction against the CHP but not much inclination towards the HDP."

A second round of talks is due to take place next week after Eid al-Fitr, the post-Ramadan holiday.

Davutoglu, who was given 45 days to form a government on July 9, told the interviewer that the AK Party’s grassroots would back any decision by the leadership.

"They say they will always stand by me, telling me not to feel myself in need of a coalition," he said. "This voice gives one confidence but the opinion for forming a coalition partnership prevails at the grassroots level."

On Tuesday, MHP leader Devlet Bahceli reiterated that his party preferred to remain in opposition than join a coalition. However, Davutoglu did not rule out a possible coalition with the MHP, which garnered 80 seats in the June 7 general election.

"We agreed with Bahceli to reconvene for a possible second meeting," he said. "I read some headlines like the MHP closed the door [on joining government], which is not right according to my perception.

"Bahceli's position has not changed since the evening of election day. He did not say anything new that closed the door to us but reiterated what he said on June 7."

Davutoglu said talks with CHP leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu had focused on the 14 principles the CHP, which came runner-up in the election with 132 seats, wishes to impose as part of a coalition deal.

"I told Kilicdaroglu that eight or nine of them are principles and abstract items that we can agree on conceptually while only two or three need further discussion," he said.

The AK Party remains the largest party with 258 seats in the 550-member parliament, 18 short of a parliamentary majority.

The left-leaning CHP or the nationalist MHP have seemed the most likely coalition partner, with the pro-Kurdish HDP ruling themselves out of any partnership with the AK Party.

Davutoglu’s talks with the HDP leadership on Wednesday focused on the Kurdish conflict in Turkey’s southeastern provinces -- the subject of a "solution process" launched in 2013 to bring nearly 30 years of violence to an end.

The premier said the HDP’s links to the PKK -- proscribed as a terrorist group in Turkey, the EU and the U.S. -- were a cause for concern and called for the HDP to loosen its ties to the group. "We have to get rid of such illnesses," he said.