Turkish PM scoffs at ‘TURKISH SPRING’

Turkey: Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday rejected talk of a “Turkish Spring”, facing down the worst protests in his decade-long rule as fresh clashes erupted between police and demonstrators in Ankara.

Erdogan defied protesters who accuse him of seeking to impose conservative Islamic reforms on secular Turkey, stressing that he was democratically elected.

“Was there a multi-party system in the Arab Spring countries?” he said in televised comments.

AFP photographers in Ankara later saw police fire tear gas and use water cannon to disperse stone-throwing demonstrators on the fourth day of violent protests that have swept scores of Turkish cities. Rights groups say hundreds have been wounded in clashes nationwide that have pitted stone-throwing protesters against riot police firing tear gas and water cannons since Friday.

Erdogan’s ally President Abdullah Gul on Monday urged calm and promised protesters that their voice had been heard.

“Democracy does not only mean elections,” he said, adding: “I am calling on all my citizens to abide by the rules and state their objections and views in a peaceful way, as they have already done.” Erdogan had earlier denounced demonstrators as “vandals”.

He also lashed out at the social messaging service Twitter, used by many of the protesters.

Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) is traditionally popular with conservative Islamic politicians and voters in Turkey, a secular state peopled mostly by Muslims.

It has won three successive parliamentary elections, gaining almost 50 percent of the vote in 2011. Analysts have cautioned against describing the protests as a “Turkish Spring”, saying that Erdogan, unlike some Arab leaders toppled in recent years, was democratically elected.

AFP