Erdoğan and his ally Bahçeli agree to end emergency rule: Report

ANKARA

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his ally Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahçeli agreed not to extend the state of emergency, local media reported.

Erdoğan and Bahçeli discussed the emergency rule issue on June 27 during their first in-person meeting after the June 24 polls in which the “People’s Alliance,” formed by Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP), and the MHP won a parliamentary majority.

The state of emergency was first imposed on July 20, 2016, five days after a bloody coup attempt in Turkey. It has been extended every three months since then.

The emergency rule was extended with the votes of the AKP and the MHP in parliament on April 18.

During his campaign for the country’s twin presidential and parliamentary elections, Erdoğan vowed to lift the implementation after the polls.

“God willing, we will review the state of emergency after the elections and we may lift it. We will work on it after we form a cabinet. The issue will not linger on for very long,” the president said on June 8.

At the June 27 meeting, Erdoğan and Bahçeli reportedly also discussed the election results, the establishment of the new executive presidential system, and the alliance’s future in the new parliament.

Erdoğan was re-elected in the first round of presidential elections with 52.6 percent of the votes, but his AKP lost the majority in parliament after garnering 42.6 percent of the votes.

But the “People’s Alliance” managed to regain the majority, by securing a comfortable majority with 344 seats in parliament—295 seats for the AKP and 49 for the MHP.