Twenty Turkish independent newly- elected parliament members submitted their petitions on Sunday to join the Democratic Society Party (DTP), the semi-official Anatolia news agency reported.
Turkish sources told Xinhua that the DTP supports the outlawed Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK), which has been listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union.
The independent deputies had a three-hour-long meeting with the DTP executives in the party's headquarters and submitted their petitions to join the party, according to Anatolia.
The DTP executives would apply to the Parliament Speaker's Office on Monday to form a party group in the parliament, the report added.
Sources said the 20 deputies were from the DTP but ran in the election as independents in order to evade a 10-percent vote threshold required to enter the parliament.
In the general election held on July 22, three parties out of the 14 parties participated the elections passed the 10 percent threshold to enter the parliament with the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) gaining 46.5 percent of votes, the CHP collecting 20.9 percent and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) 14.3 percent.
Seats that have been allocated to the parties are: AKP, 340; CHP, 112; MHP 70; independent candidates, 27.
The PKK has increased attacks on Turkish troops in southeastern Turkey in recent months, drawing Turkey's mounting intention of an incursion into northern Iraq to crush the group, which launched an armed campaign for an ethnic homeland in the mainly Kurdish southeastern Turkey in 1984, sparking decades of strife that has claimed more than 30,000 lives.
Source: Xinhua
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