Turkey is moving to close its second-largest opposition party, the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), in what is widely seen as perhaps the last bolt for a government that has exhausted all other options as its public support craters and the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) faces an uphill battle in the next national elections.
Accusing the HDP of links to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government has arrested thousands of party officials in recent years, including more than 700 in the last month, and almost all elected HDP mayors and a number of members of parliament have been removed from their posts. The latest crackdown on the HDP was sparked by a clash last month in Kurdish-run northern Iraq, in which 13 abducted Turkish soldiers and police officers were killed in an operation meant to free them. (The PKK—which has battled the Turkish government since the 1980s and is designated as a terrorist group by Turkey, the European Union, and the United States—says the hostages were killed in Turkish airstrikes.)
