Prime minister and president clash over Turkish protests
Turkish riot police launched round after round of tear gas against protesters on the fourth day of violent demonstrations as the president and prime minister took competing positions over the unrest.
Prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan rejected the protesters’ demands that he resign and dismissed the demonstrations as the work of Turkey’s opposition.
But President Abdullah Gul praised the mostly peaceful protesters as expressing their democratic rights.
The two men could face off next year in Turkey’s presidential election.
Turkey has been rocked by violent demonstrations since Friday when police launched a pre-dawn raid against a peaceful sit-in protesting at plans to uproot trees in Istanbul’s main Taksim Square. Since then, the demonstrations by mostly secular-minded Turks have spiralled into Turkey’s biggest anti-government disturbances in years.
Clashes continued late last night in both Istanbul and Ankara.
In Istanbul, the country’s largest city, acrid clouds of tear gas billowed up from the streets of the Besiktas area as protesters ran for cover. Riot police deployed water cannons to keep demonstrators back.
An uneasy calm settled on Taksim Square, which protesters were protecting with makeshift barricades using battered buses, cars and any other material they could find to prevent police from entering.
In Ankara, protesters chanted for Mr Erdogan to resign and Turkey’s main stock exchange dropped 10.5% as investors worried about the destabilising effect of the demonstrations.
The Turkish Doctors’ Association said one protester died after a vehicle slammed into a crowd in Istanbul but the governor’s office insisted the man’s death was accidental. The doctors’ group also said eight people hurt in Ankara were in a critical condition.
The protests are seen as a display of frustration with Mr Erdogan, whom critics say has become increasingly authoritarian. Many accuse him of forcing his conservative, religious Islamic outlook on the lives of secular Turks.
He rejects the accusations, insisting he respects all sections of Turkish society and has no desire to infringe on different lifestyles. He has also rejected accusations of being authoritarian, saying “I am not a master but a servant” of the people.
But he believes the protests have a deeply political purpose.
“The protests weren’t about the squares or the trees, some parties were not happy about results of the elections,” Mr Erdogan said last night while on a visit to Morocco.
“The situation is a lot calmer now and reason seems to be prevailing. I think things will return to normal. These demonstrations are not all over Turkey, just in some big cities.”
In Washington, the Obama administration voiced concern over the crackdown on protesters, urging authorities to exercise restraint and all sides to refrain from violence.
Mr Erdogan, in power since 2003 after winning three elections in landslides, will hit his term limit as prime minister and could run against Mr Gul next year. Mr Erdogan has also advocated a new system that would give the head of state increased powers, leading to criticism that he may be trying to monopolise power.
The two men were close allies and among a core group who founded Mr Erdogan’s Islamic-rooted Justice and Development party in 2001 but there have been signs of growing differences between them.
An opinion poll last year indicated that Turks would vote for Mr Gul in the elections.
Yesterday the leader of Turkey’s secular, main opposition party discussed the protests with Mr Gul.
“The prime minister should apologise to protesters… We hope that once he does that the incident will be over completely,” said Kemal Kilicdaroglu, who heads the Republican People’s Party.
Mr Gul will meet deputy prime minister Bulent Arinc, who is acting prime minister in Mr Erdogan’s absence, today.
Mr Erdogan’s adviser Yalcin Akdogan suggested the protests were an attempt to harm the prime minister’s image, saying: “(Mr Erdogan) is a leader who appears once every 100 years. He is a leader who has transformed Turkey. We won’t allow him to be harmed.”
Yesterday Mr Erdogan angrily rejected comparisons with the current protests and the Arab Spring uprisings that toppled governments in Tunisia, Libya and Egypt.
“We already have a spring in Turkey,” he said, alluding to the nation’s free elections. “But there are those who want to turn this spring into winter.”
Mr Gul said democracy was more than just going to the ballot box.
“Democracy does not mean elections alone. There can be nothing more natural for the expression of various views, various situations and objections through a variety of ways besides elections,” he said.
“The views that are well-intentioned have been read, seen and noted and the messages have been received.”
When asked in Morocco about Mr Gul’s comment, Mr Erdogan replied: “I don’t know what the president said, but for me democracy is all about the ballot box.”
The Dogan news agency said up to 500 people were detained in Ankara yesterday, and Turkey’s Fox television reported 300 others were detained in Izmir, Turkey’s third-largest city.
Social media was awash with reports and videos of police abuse. Turkey’s Human Rights Foundation claimed more than 1,000 protesters were subjected “to ill-treatment and torture” by police.
Authorities said police excesses would be investigated, but they appeared to continue unabated. Fox showed footage of police telling one group by a building to come out, reassuring them that nothing would happen, then shooting a gas canister at them.
Turkish television stations have been criticised for providing very limited coverage of the protests, with media moguls apparently wary of upsetting the government.
In neighbouring Iraq, prime minister Nouri Maliki said on his website that his government was worried about the security implications of the situation, saying Turkey was “an essential part of the stability of the region”.
