Turkey goes to the polls today (Sunday, Nov. 1) to choose its parliamentarians. The poll follows a June 7 election that turned the government upside down, removing the Islamist Justice and Development (AK) Party from a single-party majority.
A strong backer of the Muslim Brotherhood, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the rest of the AKP leadership forced the Nov. 1 election in an attempt to regain a parliament majority.
The November polls were called after the AKP failed to create a viable coalition government; ; President Erdogan refused to allow a different party to attempt to form a government instead.
Since June, the interim national unity caretaker government has negotiated two new agreements.
The first deal was reached with the European Union over measures to handle the growing Syrian refugee crisis in exchange for advancing negotiations over Turkey’s membership in the EU.
The second agreement was reached in mid-July with the United States over the use by USAF warplanes of Turkish air bases and air space while fighting Da’esh (ISIS) terrorists in Syria and Iraq.