Bahceli: MHP would support government in restoration of death penalty

Turkey's Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) will back the government if it decides to restore the death penalty, its leader Devlet Bahceli said amid calls for its reinstatement following a failed military coup attempt.

"If the (ruling) AK Party is ready on the issue of the death penalty, so are we," Reuters cited Bahceli as saying. 

Turkey scrapped the death penalty in 2004 as part of its push to join the European Union. On Monday President Tayyip Erdogan said the Turkish people wanted the death penalty for those involved in the coup attempt, in which more than 230 people died.