{"id":38273,"date":"2013-06-02T06:06:11","date_gmt":"2013-06-02T05:06:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/erdogan-hasnt-thought-through-what-his-main-priorities-are\/38273\/"},"modified":"2013-06-02T06:06:11","modified_gmt":"2013-06-02T05:06:11","slug":"erdogan-hasnt-thought-through-what-his-main-priorities-are","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/erdogan-hasnt-thought-through-what-his-main-priorities-are\/","title":{"rendered":"Erdogan \u2018hasn\u2019t thought through what his main priorities are\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n Published time: June 02, 2013 04:56 <\/span>
\n \n <\/div>\n

\n <\/a><\/p>\n

\n Protestors arrive in Taksim Square on June 1, 2013 after clashing with riot police during a protest against the demolition of Taksim Gezi Park in Istanbul (AFP Photo \/ Bulent Kilic) <\/p>\n

\n Download video<\/a> (25.19 MB)
Embed<\/a><\/p>\n
\n

Code<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

As people in Istanbul\u2019s Taksim Square rejoice at having pushed back riot police who only hours before tried brutally to contain them, everyone is wondering where the real split is between Turkey\u2019s government and its citizens.<\/p>\n

\n Mark Almond, a visiting professor in International Relations at
\n Bilkent University in Ankara, reveals to RT an unceremonious
\n government that underestimated the diversity of its people, as
\n well as its own politicians, and how the country\u2019s economics and
\n issues of foreign policy have set up the atmosphere for one the
\n biggest short-lasting revolutionary events in Turkish history.
\n <\/p>\n

\n RT<\/b>: Who do you blame for the violence – the protesters
\n or the police?<\/i>
\n <\/p>\n

\n Mark Almond<\/b>: Well, I think there has been massive police
\n action, and of course it has backfired. And this is a very
\n dramatic moment for Prime Minister Erdogan, who\u2019s had for the
\n first time to step back. He was extremely aggressive in his
\n initial statements that he wouldn\u2019t tolerate protest. And now the
\n man who was the first world leader to call for [Egyptian]
\n President Mubarak to resign is talking rather eerily like Mubarak
\n did shortly before his own fall. He is now saying he\u2019s going to
\n investigate the police, he\u2019s concerned for the people. He wants
\n to carry on the project, so he\u2019s managing to, in a sense, muddy
\n the water.
\n <\/p>\n

\n But I don\u2019t think it will calm the situation, because if he
\n insists on carrying on with the project, which is very unpopular
\n – and symbolic of what many people see as kind of a high-handed
\n approach where property developers and government together simply
\n push aside local opinion \u2014 he still is going to keep the protest
\n going. But at the same time he\u2019s shown weakness, and this is the
\n first time he\u2019s shown weakness.
\n <\/p>\n

\n RT<\/b>: Has the political opposition got any hand in
\n this?<\/i>
\n <\/p>\n

\n MA<\/b>: They\u2019re now beginning to take part in it. One of the
\n problems, I think, from the point of view of the government\u2019s
\n failure to really anticipate this problem, was that they thought
\n that was the main opposition party and the other small parties
\n were rendered irrelevant. That they\u2019d lost the elections, the
\n present government had a clear majority. And they were taken by
\n surprise by a rather complex movement of different groups of
\n people we see \u2014 classic, if you like, student protesters,
\n anarchists, the Twitter generation. But we\u2019ve also seen, which is
\n worrying for the prime minister, people from his own side of
\n politics. We\u2019ve seen Muslims praying in the square opposing this
\n policy, we\u2019ve seen a Kurdish MP actually injured, trying to stand
\n in the way of one of the bulldozers. So we now have a situation
\n that a very broad coalition has sprung up not just in Istanbul,
\n but in other cities. And some of it is actually from the side of
\n politics that in the past, and recently has been supporting the
\n government\u2026
\n <\/p>\n

\n \"Protestors<\/p>\n

\n And he\u2019s also got the problem inside his own party. The
\n president\u2019s public statements are much more emollient. And
\n there\u2019s believed to be a tension between the president, G\u00c3\u00bcl, who
\n doesn\u2019t want to stop being a president, and Erdogan, who hopes to
\n change the constitution so he will become president.
<\/b>\n<\/p>\n

\n RT<\/b>: What should the government do to protect other
\n members of the public as the protest continues?<\/i>\n <\/p>\n

MA<\/b>: Part of the problem is that the excessive,
\n massive use of teargas has disrupted ordinary life for many
\n people in this very densely-populated part of the city. It has
\n also disrupted tourism: this is a city that has huge numbers of
\n foreign tourists \u2014 many of them have been affected, many of them
\n sought medical help. It\u2019s a public relations disaster with huge
\n economic implications.
\n <\/p>\n

\n And the Turkish economy, which had been doing very well for the
\n first 10 years of Erdogan, is beginning to stall. The property
\n boom is turning into a bubble that\u2019s bursting. The war in Syria
\n is worrying people with violence on the border. But also, if you
\n then begin to have measures that are fighting off tourists,
\n including, of course, his measures about alcohol, his moral
\n reform measures, you begin to have a whole dangerous m\u00c3\u00a9lange of
\n issues all bubbling up together.
\n <\/p>\n

\n And I\u2019m not sure that the government really has thought through
\n what is its main priority, who are the people that it really
\n needs to keep on board, does it really need to offend all these
\n different groups, does, actually, the center of Istanbul, not
\n need at least one bit of green space. It\u2019s a huge city with a
\n very little space, and, of course, people say \u2018How can we have
\n democracy, if there\u2019s nowhere where you can demonstrate, if
\n everywhere is filled in only narrow streets?\u2019 I\u2019m afraid, like it
\n or not, you need Trafalgar Square, you need Taksim Square.
\n <\/p>\n

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on: RT<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Published time: June 02, 2013 04:56 Protestors arrive in Taksim Square on June 1, 2013 after clashing with riot police during a protest against the demolition of Taksim Gezi Park in Istanbul (AFP Photo \/ Bulent Kilic) Download video (25.19 MB)Embed Code As people in Istanbul\u2019s Taksim Square rejoice at having pushed back riot police […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-38273","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-breaking-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38273","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38273"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38273\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}