The prospect of a snap election in Turkey is looming large after talks on forming a coalition government broke down on Thursday.
Turkey’s Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said on Thursday a fresh election now appeared to be the only option after last-ditch negotiations between his ruling Justice and Development Party and the main opposition, the Republican People’s Party, yielded no deal, AFP reported.
“The likelihood of going to (elections) has increased. In fact, it has become the only option,” Davutoglu said after the talks that lasted less than two hours.
He urged parliament to call for a new vote and said he would prefer it was held as soon as possible.
The premier did not say when the elections could be held but said a date should be set “at the closest time possible.”
Davutoglu also told a news conference the perception that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan did not want a coalition was “completely false.”
The premier has until August 23 to find a junior coalition partner or face a snap election.
The AKP could now try to strike a coalition agreement with the nationalist opposition MHP, but a senior ruling party official said the chances of such a deal were “very slim” and that a snap election in November was a high probability.
The AKP failed to win a parliamentary majority in an election on June 7, leaving it unable to govern alone for the first time since it came to power in 2002.
The political uncertainty coincides with Ankara’s two-pronged war against Islamic State militants in Syria and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party camps in Iraq, though the offensive so far has focused far more on PKK forces.
