By EMRE PEKER, JOE PARKINSON and AYLA ALBAYRAK
People stand on a damaged vehicle in Istanbul on Monday.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan called for calm on Monday and blamed a weekend of antigovernment protests on "extremist forces," while demonstrators vowed to press on with their occupation of a central Istanbul park and Turkish markets plummeted.
Faced with the biggest opposition to his rule since coming to power a decade ago, Mr. Erdogan didn't back down on Monday, telling reporters in Istanbul before leaving for a trip to North Africa that the protesters were a marginal group seeking to terrorize the public. Earlier Monday, the Turkish Medical Association said one protester, hit by a taxi while seeking to block traffic on a highway, had died. Still, Mr. Erdogan said the government, which still retains the 50% support it got in the 2011 elections, wouldn't yield to minority demands.
"We will stand tall and not let those who are hand-in-hand with terrorism take over public institutions," said Mr. Erdogan.
But the prime minister's continued to draw rebukes, both domestically and abroad. The U.S., a North Atlantic Treaty Organization ally, reiterated its concern about the response to protests on Monday, with Secretary of State John Kerry calling for a full investigation into reports of excessive use of force by the police. And at home, senior officials differed over how to deal with the demonstrations as President Abdullah Gul said for the second time in three days that citizens had a right to protest peacefully.
Police detained about 2,000 protesters after violent clashes erupted in several Turkish cities over government plans to redevelop a park in Istanbul. Emre Peker looks at the real reasons for the demonstrations and the risks they pose to the country. Photo: AP
A collection of scenes gives a snapshot of the last 24 hours of Istanbul protests, which were going on for the sixth consecutive day on Sunday. Video by Ayla Albayrak via #WorldStream.
"Democracy doesn't only mean elections. If there are differing views, events, objections outside of elections, there is nothing more natural than those to be expressed in various ways. Naturally, peaceful demonstrations are a part of that," Mr. Gul said in televised comments.
The leader of the main opposition Republican People's Party, or CHP, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, met with the president in Ankara Monday evening to discuss the protests. Mr. Kilicdaroglu requested an audience with Mr. Gul after trading barbs with the prime minister over the weekend. Mr. Gul, who is a co-founder of the governing party led by the prime minister, is widely seen as a more moderate leader who better manages expectations and demands from different political factions.
Investors reacted negatively to the government's inability to quell protests that swelled after a series of police crackdowns on protesters that began Thursday. Turkey's benchmark Bourse Istanbul 100 index closed down 10.4%, its biggest daily drop in a decade. The index is down 15% since the demonstrations started, and off 1.6% in 2013. Meanwhile, the yield on two-year benchmark government bonds surged. The Turkish lira was down 0.68% against the dollar.
"Even though the Turkish markets are selling off today, investors are not necessarily waking up to a new reality," said Lars Christensen, chief analyst at Danske Bank . Politics in Turkey is becoming more polarized, he said in a note. "Sooner or later this will have negative consequences for political stability. However, in the case of Turkey, markets should certainly not be surprised by these risks."
Also on Monday, the Confederation of Public Workers' Unions known as KESK announced a nationwide strike for Tuesday in solidarity with the antigovernment protests, now popularly called Occupy Gezi after the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations. KESK said it moved ahead a previously planned walkout for Wednesday to demand better workplace and income security, calling on its 240,000 members to wear black and start the strike at noon Tuesday.
The explosion of unrest reflects a wellspring of frustration among a large and diverse section of Turkey's population. The prime minister's Justice and Development Party, or AKP, has delivered strong economic growth and political stability, but a growing number of Turks say it has also adopted increasingly authoritarian tactics and has attempted to more aggressively Islamize Turkey's secular state.
The protest started as a small effort to save Gezi Park in central Istanbul's Taksim Square from being turned into a mixed-use building modeled after an Ottoman barracks, but mushroomed into a countrywide protest as police repeatedly attacked peaceful protesters with tear gas and water cannons. Fueled by social-media images of the showdown, protests ricocheted around Turkey, and by the end of the weekend, hundreds of people had been injured and almost 2,000 detained in demonstrations that spread to roughly half of Turkey's 81 provinces, the government said.
Mr. Erdogan has won national elections three times and remains Turkey's most popular politician, without a clear rival in his party or the opposition. His popularity has emboldened him to take a tougher line on everything from alcohol consumption to the media.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan speaks to the media in Istanbul on Monday.
While recent opinion polls continue to show Mr. Erdogan retaining a strong lead over Turkey's opposition, some pollsters have said that Turkish society has become more polarized under the AKP government.
On Saturday and Sunday, some demonstrators turned violent, attacking police with stones and bottles, burning official vehicles and city buses and setting up barricades by ripping up sidewalks.
Yet following the police withdrawal Saturday evening from the park, the only green space in central Istanbul, relative calm returned to Taksim. Most of the demonstrators worked together with municipal workers to clean the park and other areas littered during the protests.
Mr. Erdogan on Monday continued to paint the demonstrators as radicals who were aligned with the CHP in a bid to remove the ruling AKP from power. There are radical groups among the protesters, but the majority of those demonstrating were middle-class Turks, alongside a broadening coalition including socialists, nationalists and conservatives.
Sitting at a barricade around Gezi Park on Monday, university students said they wouldn't budge until the government resigned. Some said they wanted an apology by Mr. Erdogan for the police intervention that has left more than 1,500 people hospitalized. The prime minister warned that he was telling AKP backers who want to mobilize against the protesters to stay home, implying that he alone was holding back clashes among different social factions.
"Previously, the government used to say it wouldn't enact policies despite the people, but now, that's exactly what they are doing," said Mustafa, 26, who declined to give his last name and said he voted for AKP in all three national elections since 2007.
"I don't want him to resign and don't think we can find anyone better than him right now. But the prime minister needs to change his tone. I find his strong language wrong, it's causing a lot of anger. What's causing all of the people to pour out to the street is plainly this despotic stance."
Write to Emre Peker at emre.peker@dowjones.com, Joe Parkinson at joe.parkinson@wsj.com and Ayla Albayrak at ayla.albayrak@dowjones.com
04 Jun, 2013
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