A fracas erupted in Turkey’s parliament on Monday between nationalist and pro-Kurdish lawmakers over the use of “Kurdistan”, long a taboo word in the country.

Lawmakers from the opposition Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) submitted a motion demanding that the word “Kurdistan” be removed from the parliamentary minutes when referring to Iraq’s autonomous northern Kurdistan region.

The move met an angry response from the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), with lawmaker Hasip Kaplan declaring: “Kurdistan, Kurds and the Kurdish language do exist,” AFP reported.

The war of words turned nasty when another BDP lawmaker attempted to punch a nationalist rival and MPs were drawn into the scuffle as they tried to separate the two.

Turkey has long refused to use the word “Kurdistan” and instead referred to the autonomous administration in northern Iraq as the Kurdish Regional Government, fearing that it could inspire its own Kurds in their struggle for a homeland.

However, the Turkish newspaper Sabah reported that a fight in the Turkish parliament between the MPs eruped during the discussions of the 2014 budget, because pro-Kurdish party MPs used the word of “Kurdistan.”

The MPs from the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) called Turkey’s south-eastern part “Turkish Kurdistan”. The MPs from Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) reacted negatively to this. As a result of the fight, the discussions of the budget were suspended, Sabah said.

Last month, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan used the word “Kurdistan” for the first time when Iraqi Kurdish leader Massud Barzani visited the Kurdish-dominated city of Diyarbakir.