Post date: Jun 03, 2013 10:16:24 PM
Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan arrives in Morocco as chaos rages back home with riots in Istanbul and Ankara going into the night.
SALE, MOROCCO (JUNE 3, 2013) (REUTERS) - Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan held talks with his Moroccan counterpart Abdelilah Benkirane in Rabat on Monday (June 3) as Turkey's most violent riots in decades raged on back home.
On his arrival, flanked by Benkirane, Erdogan blamed parties that had lost elections for the violence, which he predicted would be short-lived."The events (in Turkey) have nothing to do with cutting trees or refurbishing a park. Those who lost at the elections were behind them and used various ways. The demonstrations did not take place in every cities. The situation is calmer now and people started using their senses in Turkey. Before I go back to Turkey, the calm will reign," Erdogan said after a meeting which saw the signing of bilateral agreements.
Hundreds of police and protesters have been injured since Friday (May 31), when a demonstration to halt construction in a park in an Istanbul square grew into mass protests against a heavy-handed police crackdown and what opponents call Erdogan's authoritarian policies.
The demonstrations showed no sign of abating on Monday with protesters returning to Taksim Square. Barricades of rubble hindered traffic alongside the Bosphorus waterway and blocked entry into the area. Leftist groups hung out red and black flags and banners calling on Erdogan to resign and declaring: "Whatever happens, there is no going back."
Erdogan's trip, which will take him to Algeria and Tunisia, is aimed at strengthening bilateral trade.
Moroccan transport minister Abdelaziz Rabbah, who signed an agreement with his Turkish counterpart, said more needed to be done in the two countries' trading.
"Morocco is evaluating the free trade agreement with Turkey. We noticed that this agreement is largely in favour of Turkey and it is not balanced. This is why during my last visit to Turkey, we discussed our cooperation in the fields of transport and logistics and also about links by air and by sea. We want to have very good relationships but balanced ones. We want to encourage investments and also encourage people to travel and tourism, mainly towards Morocco," Rabbah said.
Erdogan is not scheduled to return to Turkey until Thursday (June 6).
The unrest delivered a blow to Turkish financial markets that have thrived under Erdogan. Shares fell more than 10 percent and the lira dropped to 16-month lows on Monday.
The United States called for restraint in a rebuke to its NATO ally.
Since taking office in 2002, Erdogan has curtailed the power of the army, which ousted four governments in the second half of the 20th century and which hanged and jailed many, including a prime minister.
Hundreds of officers, as well as journalists and intellectuals have been jailed over an alleged coup plot against Erdogan. The wind of change has swept also through the judiciary. Where Erdogan was jailed in the late 1990s for promoting Islamism by reciting a poem, a musician was recently jailed for blasphemy after mocking religion in a tweet.
Erdogan said the protesters had no support in the population as a whole and dismissed any comparison with the 'Arab Spring' that swept nearby Arab states, toppling rulers long ensconced in power with the help of repressive security services.
His own tenure in office, with its economic and political reforms, was itself the "Turkish Spring", he suggested.
He gave no indication he was preparing any concessions to protesters who accuse him of fostering a hidden Islamist agenda in a country with a secularist constitution.
Some object to new restrictions on alcohol sales and other steps seen as religiously motivated. Others complain of the costs of Erdogan's support of rebels in neighbouring Syria's civil war. Still others bear economic grievances, viewing the disputed development project in Taksim Square as emblematic of wild greed among those who have benefited from Turkey's boom.