Kurdish leader, Turkey polls impossible amid security crisis

The leader of the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democracy Party in Turkey said Wednesday it was "impossible" to hold snap polls in November because of the surge in violence between security forces and Kurdish rebels.

"The (necessary) conditions don't exist in the southeast to hold the elections. Our comrades who returned from the region have nothing good to say," Selahattin Demirtas was quoted as saying on the Hurriyet newspaper's website.

"If violence continues, the elections cannot be organised. It is impossible to hold the polls under these circumstances," he said.

The election, called for November 1, comes at a time of escalating violence in the mainly Kurdish southeast which has shattered a 2013 ceasefire and for now killed off hopes of ending the three-decade insurgency that has claimed tens of thousands of lives.

Some 60 members of the Turkish security forces have been killed over the past five weeks as militants from the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) hit back at a relentless government air and ground campaign, in the most significant losses sustained by the military and police in recent years.
Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu formed a so-called "election cabinet" after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called the new elections following inconclusive polls in June.

The power-sharing interim government includes the first ever representatives from the HDP, which entered parliament for the first time in June after winning 13 percent of the vote.

Demirtas said his party was hoping to secure 20 percent this time around, claiming the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) would call off the elections if  opinion polls indicate it may lose votes.
Source: AFP