TURKISH Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu allegedly threatened a top Kurdish politician today, telling the HDP’s Pervin Buldan: “You do not have the right to live any more.”

He made the threat in a phone call to the People’s Democratic Party co-chair.

At a press conference later, Mr Soylu denied he threatened her, but admitted he had discussed alleged links between the HDP and banned Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).

“There is no political party called HDP,” the minister said, adding: “If the PKK tell them to stay in parliament, they stay, if PKK tells them to withdraw, they withdraw.”

He blamed the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) for bringing the HDP into parliament, as the CHP had encouraged people to vote for the HDP on June 24 to get it over the arbitrary 10 per cent threshold to take up seats.

"You carry this party with the following votes to the Turkish Grand National Assembly. There is no political party called HDP, there is an organisation called PKK,” Mr Soylu stormed.

Responding to Mr Soylu in Ankara yesterday, HDP spokesman Ayhan Bilgen warned: “We are turning into a mafia state,” saying the minister has “no right to assess whether we are a legal party.”

And he complained of potential fraud in the recent elections, drawing attention to the high number of invalid ballots in boxes where the party received no votes.

“There is a real problem in terms of invalid ballots. In the 26,000 ballot boxes where we received zero votes there are 118,000 invalid ballots,” he said.

“Is it any coincidence that the most invalid ballots are where we got zero votes?” he asked, calling on the Supreme Election Council to make a statement.

The HDP won 11.7 per cent of the vote on June 24.