Two ministers from Turkey's pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) resigned from the interim government on Tuesday in a sign of rising tensions with the ruling AK Party after the collapse of a truce between Kurdish fighters and the military.
President Tayyip Erdogan has stepped up criticism of the HDP since it took an unexpected 13 percent of the vote in June polls, depriving the AK Party (AKP) of an overall majority for the first time since 2002.
With a re-run of the vote set for Nov. 1, Erdogan, who founded the AKP, has accused the pro-Kurdish HDP opposition of links to fighters of the banned Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), deemed a terrorist organisation by both Washington and Ankara.
The HDP condemns the violence in the southeast and denies backing the PKK.
The government has resumed attacks on Kurdish militant camps in northern Iraq since a fragile ceasefire collapsed in July. At least 70 servicemen and hundreds of PKK have been killed.
On Tuesday, Turkey's only two HDP cabinet ministers, EU Minister Ali Haydar Konca and Development Minister Muslum Dogan, said they would resign from Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu's month-old caretaker government.
FLASHPOINT
Konca told a news conference the two faced difficulties that prevented them carrying out ministerial duties, adding that the interior minister had not been receptive to their concerns about a security crisis in the largely Kurdish town of Cizre.
Cizre, near Turkey's borders with Syria and Iraq, has become a flashpoint in two months of deepening violence in the largely Kurdish southeast.
The HDP said this month that more than 20 civilians had been killed in security operations there, while the government said it had killed as many as 32 militants and one civilian.
While Davutoglu's caretaker government was set up as an interim arrangement to steer the country toward Nov.1 elections, the sudden departure of its only two HDP ministers is likely to underscore concerns about widening polarisation in Turkey.
Opinion polls suggest the HDP will again clear the 10 percent threshold for representation in parliament, reducing the AKP's hopes of securing an overall majority.
A succession of Kurdish parties have been banned by courts over the years in Turkey. The HDP, however, has succeeded in widening its support base, bringing in non-Kurds opposed to Erdogan and disillusioned with the main opposition CHP.
At a rally over the weekend, Erdogan implored supporters to back only "domestic" candidates come November, in what was widely seen as an attack on those sympathetic to the Kurdish minority.
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