[MAIN.OMANOBSERVER.OM] Peaceful anti-government protests that shook Turkey in the summer were a sign of the country's democratic maturity but they took a wrong turn by becoming violent, President Abdullah Gul said yesterday.Gul urged Turks to show respect for other points of view and to work together to strengthen Turkey's democracy.
"Some groups attempted to exploit the peaceful protests by using violence and vandalism. The protests that started with good intentions took on the wrong characteristics in time that disrupted public order," Gul told parliament.
"We must, as a nation, learn the necessary lessons from these incidents and must display sensitivity to understand the feelings of our young people through detailed sociological studies," he said.
The summer protests presented one of the biggest challenges to Erdogan's rule since his AK Party first came to power a decade ago, spiralling out of a demonstration in late May against plans to redevelop an Istanbul park into a broader show of defiance.
Four protesters and a police officer died as demonstrators, some armed with rocks, fireworks and
Molotov cocktails, clashed with police firing tear gas, water cannon and pepper spray in outbreaks of violence around the country.
Erdogan, who remains Turkey's most popular politician despite the protests, branded the protesters as "riff-raff" and coup plotters bent on wrecking
the country's political and economic stability.
He mobilised hundreds of thousands of his supporters at rallies meant as a show of strength and said the public would give their answer to the protesters at the ballot box.
Sporadic protests continued in September, just six months before local elections, the start of a voting cycle which also includes a presidential election next August -- in which Erdogan is expected to run -- and parliamentary polls in 2015.