Turkey's parliament has approved stripping its members of immunity from prosecution, a move likely to see the pro-Kurdish opposition sidelined, ease President Tayyip Erdogan's path to stronger powers, and raise concern among Western allies.
Erdogan has accused the pro-Kurdish HDP, parliament's third-biggest party, of being the political wing of militants who have waged a three-decade insurgency in Turkey's largely Kurdish southeast, and wants to see them prosecuted.
The HDP denies such links and says its parliamentary presence could be all but wiped out if prosecutions go ahead.
"They will have to arrest us, take us by force. We will resort to all possible measures to challenge the decision, including taking it to the constitutional court," the party's co-leader Selahattin Demirtas told reporters outside parliament on Friday.
In the third and final vote of a secret ballot, 376 MPs in the 550-seat assembly backed the plan to lift MPs' immunity, a high enough level of support to change the constitution directly without needing to hold a referendum.
Erdogan on Friday stressed his support for the bill, which will become law once approved by him and published, paving the way for the launch of judicial proceedings.
"My nation does not want to see guilty lawmakers in this country's parliament. Above all it does not want to see those supported by the separatist terror group in parliament," he told a crowd in the Black Sea town of Rize, referring to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militant group.
Erdogan's opponents say the lifting of immunity is part of a strategy to push the HDP out of parliament, strengthen the ruling AK Party, and consolidate support in the assembly for the executive presidential system he has long desired.
The legislation has caused concern in Europe, which is trying to hold together a controversial deal with Turkey meant to stop illegal migration despite what many European politicians see as the country's deteriorating record on human rights.
Responding to the decision by the Turkish parliament, which is heavily dominated by the AKP, a German government spokesman said Berlin was concerned by the increasing polarisation of Turkey's domestic political debate.
Chancellor Angela Merkel would discuss the issue with Erdogan at a meeting in Istanbul on Monday, he said.
European Parliament President Martin Schulz said on Twitter the immunity move was a "blow to Turkish democracy" and that "the gulf with European norms and values is widening".
