(Bloomberg) -- A key ally of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan urged the prosecutor's office to seek the shutdown of the pro-Kurdish HDP party.
Devlet Bahceli, head of the nationalist MHP party, said the HDP should be banned for allegedly encouraging Kurds to protest Turkey's failure to stop deadly Islamic State attacks on the Syrian Kurdish town of Kobani in 2014. He also accused the HDP of supporting separatist Kurdish militants during violent clashes with Turkish security forces in 2015.
If the prosecutor doesn't move ahead on this demand, MHP will seek the pro-Kurdish party's closure under the country's political parties law, Bahceli said.
Turkey Prosecutor Starts Probe Into Opposition HDP Congress: AA
The HDP won an unprecedented 80 seats in a mid-2015 parliamentary election, denying Erdogan's AK Party a majority for the first time. AKP regained its legislative majority in a re-vote, and the government later cracked down on the HDP, stripping its lawmakers of their immunity from prosecution and arresting several top members, including a former leader of the party.
Turkey has waged war for nearly four decades against autonomy-seeking Kurdish militants in the country's southeast.
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