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TURKISH PRIME MINISTER Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday agreed to meet with protest leaders whose mass anti-government demonstrations have rocked the country, in his first major concession since the deadly unrest began nearly two weeks ago.
The surprise olive branch came as thousands again took to the streets of Istanbul and the capital Ankara, defying Erdogan’s threat that they would “pay a price” for the unrelenting unrest, the biggest challenge yet to his Islamic-rooted government’s decade-long rule.
“Our prime minister has given an appointment to some of the groups leading these protests,” said deputy premier Bulent Arinc, adding that the talks would take place Wednesday.
“They will be briefed on the facts and our prime minister will listen to their thoughts,” he told reporters in Ankara after a six-hour cabinet meeting on the crisis.
Despite the conciliatory gesture, he warned: “Illegal demonstrations will not be allowed anymore in Turkey.”
Police crackdown
The unrest first erupted after police cracked down heavily on a campaign to save Istanbul’s Gezi Park from demolition on May 31.
The trouble spiralled into nationwide displays of anger against Erdogan and his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), seen as increasingly authoritarian.
Nearly 5,000 demonstrators, scores of whom are young and middle-class, have been injured and three people have died, tarnishing Turkey’s image as a model of Islamic democracy.
After a weekend of record crowds of tens of thousands in Istanbul’s Taksim Square, the epicentre of the unrest, protesters packed the music-filled, flag-festooned area and nearby Gezi Park for an 11th night late on Monday.
“We will come here every day after work until he goes,” said marketing manager Can, 30, who only wanted to give one name.
“They keep trying to change the way we can live our lives… Everything is becoming more religious, not more democratic,” he said, criticising Erdogan for calling opponents of his proposed ban on late-night alcohol sales “drunks”.
Bracing for more trouble
In the capital Ankara, riot police were out in the streets, apparently bracing for more trouble after two consecutive nights of firing tear gas and jets of water to disperse demonstrators.
Turkey’s combative leader has so far responded with defiance to the protesters. On Sunday, he inflamed tensions by staging his own rallies, firing up AKP supporter with combative rhetoric.
“Those who do not respect this nation’s party in power will pay a price,” he told thousands of cheering party faithful in Ankara, as just a few kilometres (miles) away riot police doused thousands with tear gas and water.
Opponents accuse Erdogan of repressing critics — including journalists, minority Kurds and the military — and of pushing conservative Islamic values on the mainly Muslim but staunchly secular nation.
But the 59-year-old is also considered the most influential leader since Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the father of modern Turkey, and remains the country’s favourite politician.
His AKP has won three elections in a row and took nearly half the vote in the 2011 elections, having presided over strong economic growth.
‘A lesson at the ballot box’
Secure in his popularity, the premier urged loyalists on Sunday to respond to the demonstrators by voting for the AKP in local polls next year.
“I want you to teach them a first lesson through democratic means at the ballot box,” he said.
Turkey will see both local and presidential elections in 2014. The AKP plans to launch its first campaign rallies in Ankara and Istanbul next weekend, expected to bring tens of thousands into the streets.
A general election is scheduled for 2015, and officials have ruled out any suggestion of calling early polls in view of the crisis.
The national doctors’ union says the unrest has left two protesters and a policeman dead so far while almost 4,800 people have been injured.
Erdogan said Sunday that over 600 police officers have been hurt.
The leader has faced international condemnation for his handling of the crisis in Turkey, a country of 76 million at the crossroads of East and West and a key strategic partner in the region for the United States and other Western allies.
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DNA matching is nothing new to the Irish dating scene. Something we’re trying to move away from you might even say.
@Winston Smith: LOL
@Winston Smith:
True.
The gene pool in my parent’s homeplace was shallow enough to paddle in.
Everybody seemed to be a cousin of some sort to everybody else there!
@Michael Kavanagh: “Kevin Bacon” six degrees of separation!!
@Colette Kearns:
Believe me – when it come to acquaintance (especially knowing the bad news) their colective Bacon Number there is a big fat one!
It sounds like another marvelously inventive way for companies to get access to your DNA profile. Be very wary of parting with this information!
@Sean: if a big pharma company bought millions of people’s DNA and then used that to research and find a cure for say, cancer, would you find that unethical? I wouldn’t
@niamh ryan: you believe their goal is always to cure everything…. interesting..!!!
@niamh ryan:with or without permission?
@Bluey: in an ideal world with permission. Specifically for medical research purposes. But I suppose once you hand it over you lose control of it
@Ian Scott: and you think their goal is……
@niamh ryan: to be fair their goal is to generate as much money as possible for as long as possible. Whoever thinks pharma companies are looking to make the world a better place is naive.
@niamh ryan: big pharma finding a cure for something they make millions off…lol…
@David Daly: they are a business of course they are out to make money. They invest billions in research and have a right to charge for their products. Certain types of cancer are no longer an automatic death sentence, people living full lives with HIV, huge breakthroughs in parkinsonism ect. They are making the world a better place for profit. It would be naive to think that anybody would do it for free
@niamh ryan: The Pharma company would would need to know who got cancer and what type of cancer they got in the DNA sample population for it to be useful. You have presented something of a false but meaningless argument here. What is more likely is that the data would be bought by a life insurance company which could then have very real implications for your children or grandchildren. They could be refused a mortgage (based on being refused life cover) because of an increased risk of certain inherited diseases in your DNA. Why not?
The millennials are to busy flicking between pages on their phones as to flicking between the sheets
@dick dastardly: ah sure you’re still pining over Penelope Pitstop.
@Keelan O’neill: now there’s a cartoon character u cud hang ur wet duffle coat on……….(or words to that effect)
They need DNA testing as the amount of people in towns who have the same biological father is crazy now… That was a joke once but no longer…
@TamuMassif2019: are you speaking from experience??
@TamuMassif2019:
You the Daddy?
Some enchanted evening , you may see a stranger,
You may see a stranger, across a crowded room,
And somehow you know, you know even then,
That somehow you’ll see her , again and again…..
Much more romantic way to meet.
@Aine O Connor:
Yup.
Then you go and spoil it all
By saying something stupid like
I’ll swab you.
Genetic profile for romance, hardly. However what a genetic profile App will do is flash warning lights as regards inherited problems, like for instance both parties being CF carriers. That doesn’t need to kill the romance, but it does give the option of going I.V., and screening the embryos before implantation, thus leaving the problem behind. Likewise various of the genes that pre dispose to cancers of one sort or another.
Tinder or what ever app. If you want to meet a serial killer, I’d say it’s a pretty good way.
This country is so inbred it’s new DNA we need!
have your say