Off the wire
• U.S. EPA seeks to address greenhouse gas emissions from aircraft  • Urgent: U.S. dollar drops for third day  • Botswana team arrives in Uganda ahead of Afcon qualifier  • Spanish stock market rises 1.46 pct, closes at 11,097 points  • Urgent: Oil prices rise as U.S. supplies fall  • "Boat of migrants" makes plea at European Parliament  • LME base metals close mixed on Wednesday  • Irish police arrest 60 people in drug dealing probe  • Bahrain summons Iraqi envoy over terror plots  • Burundi's police kill 1, raise anger of protesters against president's third term  
You are here: 　 Home

Turkey's ruling AKP open to all coalition options in forming new gov't: PM

Xinhua, June 11, 2015 Adjust font size:

Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) is open to all kinds of coalition options as it is seeking to form a new government after parliamentary elections, outgoing Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said on Wednesday.

They would consider an early election only if all other alternatives have been exhausted, the prime minister said in an interview with TRT state broadcaster after his party lost the parliamentary majority in Sunday's election.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, co-founder of the AKP and former prime minister, was not involved in coalition talks with opposition parties, Davutoglu said, adding that Erdogan would only step in those negotiations if a crisis would emerge.

The president has accepted Davutoglu's resignation and asked him to stay on until a new government is put in place.

His party would continue to pursue settlement process with the outlawed Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK) on whatever coalition formula coming out of the talks, the interim head of government said.

"We wanted to shift the presidential system, but the people did not let," the prime minister said.

Erdogan aimed to win a two-thirds majority of seats to switch Turkey from a parliamentary to presidential system, but non-official election results show that he has to scuttle plans for powerful presidential system.

The AKP failed to maintain strong public support in what was described as the most critical election for Turkey although it is still the leading party.

The AKP led the polls with 40.8 percent of votes across Turkey, down from almost 50 percent in the last parliamentary election in 2011.

According to an unofficial count of about 100 percent of the votes, the ruling AKP is seen as winning 258 seats, down from 326 it won in 2011, in the 550-seat parliament. The AKP currently holds 311 seats in parliament.

As the AKP is 18 seats shy of the 276 seats required to form a single-party government, a coalition government looks likely. Turkey might also have a minority government that will take the country to an early election in a short period of time. Endit