Dogan and Konca were the first two legislators from the party to take ministerial posts in what was widely seen as a hopeful development in Turkey’s fraught relationship with its Kurdish minority.
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Nationwide rage against Kurds has reached a fever pitch over the past month with the escalation of violent clashes between Turkish security forces and Kurdish militants.
The party could win as much as 5 percent more than it did in June, the Bipartisan Policy Center said in its report this month, putting it just past the 276 seats required for a parliamentary majority.
Erdogan has repeatedly accused the HDP of being a front for the PKK, which is blamed for a string of bomb and shooting attacks that have killed dozens of soldiers and police in the majority Kurdish southeast in recent weeks.
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 resignation of the two ministers comes as regional offices of the HDP continue to come under attack from Turkish far-right activists.
“Our party building was set on fire by AKP branch administrators who threatened our party at a meeting 10 days ago, and the mayor of the town from the AKP“, HDP Derecik branch co-chair Cabbar Taş alleged.
Erdogan provoked controversy after appearing to conflate the HDP and PKK in a speech at an “anti-terrorism” rally at the weekend, while claiming there was “no longer” a Kurdish problem in the country.
At an “anti-terrorism rally” this weekend, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan looked out over a sea of red national flags and implored supporters to vote on Nov.1 for “domestic” candidates.
“This election will be held in November and that is the date we are preparing for”, he said.
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“A logic of war has been put into place”, Konca, a member of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democracy Party (HDP), told a press conference, describing the climate in the country as worse than during the height of the conflict between the state and the rebels in the 1990s.
