Turkey’s president is calling for the global community to respect the results of the country’s parliamentary election.
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It was an apparent reference to Western media’s often critical coverage of AKP’s policies in the past few years, including the ruling party’s backsliding on democratic reforms and moves to muzzle critical voices.
The party cancelled rallies following the Ankara attack, and its co-chairman Selahettin Demirtas said on Sunday that it had not been “a fair or equal election”.
Erdogan said the outcome was a vote for stability, and a message to Kurdish insurgents in the country’s restive southeast that violence could not coexist with democracy.
In the mainly Kurdish southeastern city of Diyarbakir, security forces fired tear gas at stone-throwing protesters after support for the pro-Kurdish opposition fell perilously close to the 10 per cent threshold needed to enter Parliament.
Hundreds of people have died on both sides.
According to preliminary results, the AK Party secured 49.48 percent of the vote – much more than had been predicted by pollsters – giving it a wide majority (317 out of 550 seats) in parliament.
German government spokesman Steffen Seibert said Merkel welcomed the fact that the elections were peaceful and that Davutoglu promised in his victory speech that he wanted to overcome polarization and tensions in Turkish society. However, his party will fall short of a supermajority that he had sought in order to change Turkey’s constitution and boost his presidential powers.
A German foreign ministry spokeswoman said on election night there had been “positive noises” from Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu which had “raised hopes that the stuttering peace process with the Kurds will perhaps move forward again”.
Turkish warplanes have bombed bases of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in Turkey and northern Iraq, the army said on Tuesday.
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Official statements, mostly those congratulating Turkey’s Justice and Development (AK) Party on its electoral victory, poured into Ankara from around the world Monday. To win a majority, a party must win 276 seats in the national assembly.
