Turkey snap election called after coalition talks fail Published duration 21 August 2015

image copyright AP image caption President Erdogan is calling a new vote just months after the last general election

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has announced that Turkey will hold snap elections, expected on 1 November.

Voters will go to the polls again after Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu abandoned efforts to form a coalition government.

Mr Davutoglu's AK Party lost its 12-year majority rule in Turkey in elections in June largely because of the success of the pro-Kurdish HDP.

Coalition talks with the nationalist MHP and main opposition CHP failed.

The political uncertainty comes amid rising violence in Turkey and neighbouring Iraq and Syria.

Election 're-run'

President Erdogan will ask Prime Minister Davutoglu early next week to form a temporary power-sharing government, senior officials said.

The Republican People's Party (CHP), which came second in June's vote, had asked for a mandate to try to form a new government.

But the president instead opted for a "re-run" of the elections.

media caption Emre Temel from the BBC's Turkish Service: "According to the polls a new election won't give a different result"

Mr Erdogan, who founded the AK Party in 2001, previously denied allegations that he had undermined the coalition talks in order to force a new vote.

June's result appeared to block his plans to boost the powers of the presidency in Turkey.

The AKP secured 41% at the polls the last time around and had to seek support from a rival party to form a coalition government. But it failed to find agreement with both the CHP and Nationalist Movement Party (MHP).

An uneasy two-year ceasefire with the PKK fell apart last month, after a suicide bomb blamed on IS killed 32 young activists in the largely Kurdish city of Suruc, close to the Syrian border.