Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan yesterday agreed to halt plans to redevelop an Istanbul park at the center of two weeks of mass anti-government unrest, in a move protesters welcomed as “positive.”
It marked the first easing of tensions in the standoff, which has presented the Islamist-rooted government with the biggest challenge of its decade-long rule and earned it criticism from the West.
Hours after giving a “last warning” to defiant demonstrators camping out in Gezi Park, Erdogan made the concession in his first talks with a key group of protesters to defuse tensions in the crisis.
“The positive outcome from tonight is the prime minister’s explanation that the project will not continue before the final court decision,” Tayfun Kahraman, a spokesman for the Taksim Solidary group, seen as the most representative of the protest movement, said in televised remarks.
A peaceful sit-in to save Gezi Park’s 600 trees from being razed prompted a brutal police response on May 31, spiraling into nationwide outpourings of anger against Erdogan and his ruling Justice and Development Party, seen as increasingly authoritarian.
The promise to abide by a court decision suspending the redevelopment of Gezi Park was hailed as a victory by the protesters, who had earlier balked at Erdogan’s offer to hold a referendum over plans to reconstruct Ottoman-era military barracks on the site in return for evacuating the park.
Speaking after the four-hour emergency meeting, Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Huseyin Celik said the government would respect the court’s decision on the project suspension and insisted a popular vote to seal the fate of the park would go ahead.
“Gezi Park protesters should stop their demonstration now,” he said.
The court process is expected to take several months.
In the meantime, a probe is under way to investigate the use of excessive police force in dealing with the protesters across the country, Celik added.
About 5,000 people have been injured and four have died in the unrest so far, which has seen police use tear gas, rubber ballets and water cannons on demonstrators, who have hurled back fireworks, rocks and Molotov cocktails.
Erdogan has responded with defiance to the mass demonstrations and on Thursday again ordered the protesters to leave Gezi Park, but determined campers held their ground, despite heavy rainfall and a strong police presence in the adjoining Taksim Square yesterday.
“Do we look like we are going anywhere?” asked Ali, a 32-year-old poet, as he held a rain cover aloft above a pianist playing for protesters in Taksim Square. “We do not trust the government, they will find a way to have their way.”
In contrast with the calm in Taksim Square, police fired gas and jets of water overnight at about 200 protesters in the capital, Ankara, witnesses said.
The US and other Western allies have criticized Erdogan’s handling of the crisis and the police crackdown has undermined Turkey’s international standing.
The European parliament on Thursday passed a resolution warning the government against taking “harsh measures against the peaceful protesters,” earning a rebuff from Erdogan, who responded: “Who do you think you are?”
NATO member Turkey has long sought to join the 27-member EU, but efforts have stalled in recent years, in particular over the country’s human rights record.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
The pitch is a classic: A young celebrity with no climbing experience spends a year in hard training and scales Mount Everest, succeeding against some — if not all — odds. French YouTuber Ines Benazzouz, known as Inoxtag, brought the story to life with a two-hour-plus documentary about his year preparing for the ultimate challenge. The film, titled Kaizen, proved a smash hit on its release last weekend. Young fans queued around the block to get into a preview screening in Paris, with Inoxtag’s management on Monday saying the film had smashed the box office record for a special cinema