Ankara calls EU envoy meeting as HDP boycotts Turkey parliament after arrests

The pro-Kurdish People's Democratic Party (HDP) on Sunday said it was halting all its activities in the Turkish parliament after nine of its MPs, including the two co-leaders, were arrested.

On the same day, Turkey's EU Affairs Minister Omer Celik called all the bloc's envoys in Ankara for a meeting, the ministry said, following searing European criticism of the arrest of pro-Kurdish MPs.

Sunday's announcement means that MPs from the HDP, the third-largest party in parliament with 59 seats, will no longer sit in the Turkish parliament or take part in any commission work.

"Our parliamentary faction and party executive have taken the decision to halt our work in the legislative organs in the face of this comprehensive and dark attack," the HDP said in a statement.

Instead of sitting in parliament, its remaining MPs who are not under arrest will go from "house to house, village to village and district to district" to meet people, it said.

It said that at the end of these consultations, proposals will be made over how to go forward.

Nine MPs from the HDP, including its co-leaders Selahattin Demirtas and Figen Yuksekdag, were on Friday jailed pending trial by the courts in a move that caused international consternation.

They have been charged with membership and promotion of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). 

The HDP has always denied being a front for the PKK, which has waged a more than three-decade insurgency against Turkey. 

HDP party spokesman Ayhan Bilgen said in comments published by Turkish media that the decisions means that "HDP will not take part in the general session of parliament or commissions".

Declaring that Turkey was at a "turning point," he said any decision on whether to replace the imprisoned Demirtas and Yuksekdag while they were jailed would be taken in the next days.

The meeting called by Celik will take place on Monday, when he will give an address to the European envoys "on the latest developments in our country," the EU affairs ministry said in a statement.

The EU Commission and member states have reacted angrily to the jailing of the nine HDP MPs.

EU foreign affairs head Federica Mogherini and EU Enlargement Commissioner Johannes Hahn said in a joint statement the EU was "gravely concerned," adding that Demirtas and Yuksekdag were "our trusted and valued interlocutors."

"These developments," they said, "compromise parliamentary democracy in Turkey."

Compounding the tensions, an Istanbul court on Saturday ordered the jailing pending trial of nine executives and editorial staff from the opposition Cumhuriyet newspaper.

Turkey has been involved in efforts to join the EU since the 1960s, with formal talks starting in 2005. The process has been mired in problems, which the current tensions will do nothing to help.

So far, only 16 chapters of the 35-chapter accession process have been opened for Turkey.