The ongoing Gezi protests have reached a different dimension over the course of two weeks and the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) is trying to fully analyze the movement, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said today at his party’s parliamentary group meeting.
Erdoğan said the events sparked by the pending demolition of the park had moved on to a very different aspect and were on the AKP’s radar as the government was trying to figure out whether or not the group’s demands were clear.
The AKP has tried to understand the remaining sections of the country even when the ballots “showed clear victory,” Erdoğan said.
The events that then turned into a “spiral of violence,” however, cannot be seen as a fight for democratic rights, the prime minister added, saying all protests that had witnessed clashes nationwide had been “hiding behind the Gezi movements.”
The prime minister repeated the plans to transfer the trees, rather than cut them down, and accused certain circles of misconstruing the plans to win support for their protests, describing the violent turns as “a mask to cover illegal acts.”
Erdoğan said the protesters, hiding behind the Gezi plans, had majorly damaged Dolmabahçe Street, where his Istanbul office is located. “They would uproot the trees if they could.”
The prime minister also responded to criticism over his tough stance. “What were we supposed to do? Kneel in front of these people and ask them remove the banners? How would those illegal rags be removed from public buildings?”
He thanked the Istanbul governor and the police chief for this morning’s intervention.
Erdoğan also addressed the young people of Turkey, “both in Gezi Park and others.”
“Freedom and intervention in lifestyles are excuses used by the protesters,” Erdoğan said. “The hotels in Taksim are now 80 percent empty, the shopkeepers in Taksim are suffering – except the beer sellers. This is intervening with others’ freedom.”
He also said the government was working to decrease the age limit for running in elections to 18.
“Dear youth, we overtook Turkey in dire circumstances and made major changes in difficult conditions. The freedom and democracy standards the young people have today could not be dreamed of 10 years ago,” the prime minister said.
