Turkey PM begins emergency talks with protest leaders

ANKARA, Turkey – Turkish protest leaders went into emergency talks with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday, June 13, after demonstrators rejected his “last warning” to evacuate an Istanbul park at the center of mass anti-government demos.

Thousands of defiant protesters spent another night under the stars in Gezi Park after rebuffing Erdogan’s olive branch to clear out in return for a referendum on the park’s planned redevelopment.

“We will stay in Gezi Park with all our demands and sleeping bags,” Taksim Solidarity, the core group behind the campaign, said in a statement ahead of the meeting with Erdogan.

The fight to save the park’s 600 trees prompted a brutal police crackdown two weeks ago, snowballing into nationwide protests against Erdogan and his Islamic-rooted government, seen as increasingly authoritarian.

With tensions mounting, Taksim Solidarity representatives traveled to the capital Ankara for late-night talks with Erdogan, their first since the unrest began. Local television showed around a dozen members entering the premier’s residence.

Earlier, Erdogan took a combative stance against the park protesters who have put up the biggest challenge yet to the decade-long rule of his Justice and Development Party (AKP).

“I’m making my last warning: mothers, fathers please withdraw your kids from there,” he said in a live television broadcast. “Gezi Park does not belong to occupying forces. It belongs to everybody.”

Four people have died in the nationwide unrest so far and some 5,000 of the demonstrators, most of whom are young and middle-class, have been injured.

Erdogan on Wednesday, June 12, made his first concession yet by suggesting a popular vote on plans to build a replica of Ottoman-era military barracks in Gezi Park.

The proposal came out of talks with some protest leaders, a loose coalition representing a variety of interest groups, but to the dismay of many protesters the Taksim Solidarity representatives were left out of that meeting, hardening campers’ resolve to stay in the park.

“We did not suffer through the attacks… so that a referendum could take place,” the Taksim Solidarity group said.

In some of the biggest clashes in the conflict yet, riot police on Tuesday, June 11, stormed Taksim Square, which borders Gezi Park and had been the focal point of the protest movement.

Police fired tear gas and jets of water at tens of thousands of demonstrators, some of whom hurled back fireworks and Molotov cocktails.

Other cities across Turkey have seen similar battles.

The premier has faced condemnation from the United States and other Western allies over his handling of the crisis, which has undermined Turkey’s image as a model of Islamic democracy. – Rappler.com