ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Turkey’s deputy prime minister offered an apology Tuesday for the government’s violent crackdown on an environmental protest, a calculated bid to ease days of anti-government rallies in the country’s major cities. The message was a bit mixed, however, as hundreds of riot police deployed with water cannons around the prime minister’s office in Ankara, the capital. Bulent Arinc, who is standing in for the prime minister while he is out of the country, said the crackdown was “wrong and unjust.” “In that first (protest) action, the excessive violence exerted on people who were acting out of environmental concerns was wrong and unjust,” Arinc said. “I apologize to those citizens.” (PHOTOS: Turmoil in Istanbul: Guy Martin at Turkey’s Gezi Park Protests) Yet the impact of his statement was unclear. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is visiting Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia, has undermined previous statements by his ministers and has dismissed the protesters as a fringe minority stirred up by the opposition. Tens of thousands of mostly secular-minded Turks have joined anti-government rallies since Friday, when police launched a pre-dawn raid against a peaceful sit-in protesting plans to uproot trees in Istanbul’s main Taksim Square. Since then, the demonstrations have spiraled into Turkey’s biggest anti-government disturbances in years. Late Tuesday night, thousands of people were demonstrating in the square. Many of the streets leading into it have been blocked by barricades that protesters have built of overturned dumpsters, metal railings and damaged vehicles to keep police away. At one point, near the German Consulate, police fired tear gas at several hundred protesters who were throwing bricks at the officers. A 22-year-old man died during an anti-government protest in a city near Turkey’s border with Syria, and officials gave conflicting reports on what caused his death. Police have been accused of using disproportionate force in trying to break up demonstrations. In a boisterous debate in Parliament, Interior Minister Muammer Guler defended police officers’ use of tear gas against demonstrators trying to reach government buildings. “Should we have allowed them![]()
