Will Erdogan Choose to Fight?
Signals from Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan raise concerns that he will be hardening his stand.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, with his remarks and gestures against the Gezi Park resistance that became a major social explosion on May 31, is signaling that instead of easing up and reconciling, he has chosen to fight.
The clearest indicator was the speech he made to thousands of his supporters who had come to the airport to welcome him home in the early hours of June 7 after his tour of the Maghreb countries. Erdogan climbed to the top of a bus and addressed his jubilant but angry supporters:
“Police are doing their duty. These protests that have lost their democratic demonstration features, that have become vandalism and are fully against the law must end immediately. … What are they saying? ‘Withdraw the police.’ Then what? This is not a land of free-for-all, it is the state of the Republic of Turkey.”
Erdogan expressed his anger toward some, saying, “Those who call themselves journalists, artists, politicians have displayed the worse hatred, discrimination and provocations in a most irresponsible manner.”
