Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan condemned the "burn and destroy" tactics of some of those involved in days of violent protests on Thursday, and promised to press ahead with plans for an Istanbul park which triggered the unrest. Speaking on a visit to Tunisia, Erdogan said "terror groups" were manipulating what had started as an environmental campaign, and added that seven foreigners were among those arrested.
"If you say: 'I will hold a meeting and burn and destroy', we will not allow that," he told reporters after meeting his Tunisian counterpart. "We are against the majority dominating the minority and we cannot tolerate the opposite." By confining his comments to a group of protesters, Erdogan appeared softer in tone than before he left for North Africa at the start of the week, when he described the demonstrators in blanket terms as looters.
Erdogan returns to Turkey later on Thursday to face demands he apologise for a police crackdown on the six days of protests in which three people have been killed and more than 4,000 injured in a dozen cities, and to sack those who ordered it. What began as a campaign against the redevelopment of a leafy Istanbul park has grown into an unprecedented show of defiance against the perceived authoritarianism of Erdogan and his Islamist-rooted AK Party.
Police backed by armoured vehicles have clashed with the protesters night after night, while thousands have massed peacefully in recent days on Taksim Square, where the demonstrations first began. A policeman who fell from a bridge in the southern city of Adana while chasing protestors died of his injuries, Turkish television stations reported, the third death in the protests.
AK Party Deputy Chairman Huseyin Celik called on members not to welcome Erdogan home at Istanbul airport to avoid stirring trouble. "The prime minister does not need a show of strength," Celik said in a television interview. In Taksim Square, protesters remained defiant. "We have the momentum, with people like me going to work every day and coming back to attend the protests," said Cetin, a 29-year-old civil engineer who declined to give his surname because he works for a company close to the government.
"We should keep coming here to protest until we really feel we've achieved something," he said, one of thousands gathered on Taksim Square until late into the night. Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc, formally in charge while Erdogan is away, has struck a conciliatory tone, apologising for the initial police crackdown on peaceful campaigners in Taksim's Gezi Park and meeting a delegation of protesters in his office in Ankara. Around Ankara's Kugulu Park, a middle class area dotted with restaurants and bars, people chanted "dictator resign" and "everywhere is Taksim, everywhere is resistance" late on Wednesday as residents banged pots and pans in support.