Posted on 06/28/2004 12:11:59 AM PDT by beaversmom
40,000 protest Bush in Turkey
ISTANBUL, Turkey (AP) -- Tens of thousands of Turks chanting anti-Bush slogans demonstrated against the president's visit to their country on Sunday and a NATO summit.
Bush is unpopular in Turkey, where the overwhelming majority of the public opposed the Iraq war.
As the president arrived in Turkey Saturday, supporters of Jordanian-born militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi said they kidnapped three Turkish workers in Iraq, Arab TV station al-Jazeera reported.
The group has threatened to behead the hostages, an al-Jazeera employee told The Associated Press.
The protest in the Kadikoy district, on the Asian side of Istanbul, attracted more than 40,000 people, mostly members of leftist groups, police said.
There were some 100 foreign protesters from Greece, Britain, The Netherlands, Portugal and Syria.
"We want to throw NATO out of Istanbul," said Dogan Aytac, a Turkish protester with a flag in his hat that read: "Get out Bush!"
A 20-year-old Greek protester, Odysseas Maaita, said, "We are here to express our solidarity with the Turkish people, with the people of the Middle East and all others that are under attack, to say that we are against NATO."
The summit is to be held on the European side of the city, across the Bosporus, about six miles from Kadikoy.
Turkey dramatically boosted security before Bush's arrival and in preparation for the NATO summit, which begins Monday.
F-16 warplanes patrolled the skies of Istanbul on Sunday. AWACS early warning planes dispatched by NATO will help monitor a no-fly zone over the city. More than 23,000 police will be on duty during the summit. Turkish commandos are patrolling the Bosporus in rubber boats with mounted machine guns.
Bush, who will attend the summit along with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, French President Jacques Chirac and others, met with Turkish leaders in Ankara on Sunday morning and flies to Istanbul in the early afternoon.
At the protest, demonstrators chanted "Istanbul will be a grave for NATO."
They carried banners, reading: "Down with American Imperialism," and "Go away Bush!"
Greenpeace activists carried signs against nuclear weapons. Others chanted in English: "Yankees Go Home!"
Thousands of policemen, deployed in back streets, watched the crowds from a distance as a police helicopter hovered above.
In Ankara on Saturday, Turkish police fired tear gas at scores of stone-throwing leftist demonstrators, just hours before Bush arrived in the country. Police said 13 officers were injured by rocks hurled during the rally, the Anatolia news agency reported Sunday.
On Sunday, police rounded up some 15 leftist demonstrators in downtown Ankara, saying the group was planning to stage a firebombing in the city.
Bush's arrival was preceded by a series of protests and bomb blasts, including one Thursday that injured three people outside the Ankara hotel where Bush is expected to stay. Another blast that same day on an Istanbul bus killed four people and injured 14.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
Remind me again why they should be in the EU?
What a bunch of LOSERS!!!! Iraq is now a Sovereign Nation and is FREE!!!!:-)
Stay safe !
40K bump?
What a bunch of pathetic turkeys. France, Germany, Canada...my sh*tlist is getting longer.
The Turks are idiots, who cares.
They screwed themselves bad in this whole war and will eventually figure that out, at least in the political and higher circles.
1. Turkey was offered huge summs of money to let US forces operate out of their country.
2. The Germans playing against the US offered support for EU membership if the Turks did not allow US troops in.
3. Turkey recended what it originally said it would do and the 4th ID was sent into the Gulf and a northern option was closed in the Iraq war.
4. Even though Germany (The SPD with Schroeder) is keeping their word and the tone against Turkish EU membership has been more upbeat and posative in the last months, Germany will not decide alone whether Turkey becomes a menber in the future. The French oppose it.
5. The SPD will loose political power in the future. Offering the Germans NOTHING other than a anti-war somewhat anti US platform the current administration has failed the people miserably in almost every way. The opposition party CDU/CSU will not view Turkish membership with favor, and rightfully so. It will be a political and economic nightmare to allow them in.
6. Turkey will have a difficult time conforming even to the most basic principals required to join the EU. The Germans with the current administration will gladley overlook a lot, but there is just so much over looking you can do. Turkey is BARELY a democracy with a military shadow government that has on occasion over ridden the elected government. Massive human rights violation, economic reform and other issues that are to date not resolved just add to the fact that Turkey is a Muslem and eastern nation which the French and some others really don't want as part of the club.
In the end. Turkey will have lost US cash and still won't get the EU membership it wants. By not being part of the answer in Iraq they have lost all rights/say in it. What the Turks want don't matter in Iraq and they have a vested interest in the Kurdish areas. The Turks have put themselves in a Loose-Loose situation. It was their call and they made a VERY bad one. Eventually they'll figure it out, even though the issue won't ever be brought up this way within their public.
Red6
...and 40,000 stunned today by their sudden irrelevance.
IRAQ A SOVEREIGN STATE
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1161482/posts
No one has a job?
LOL!
I'm sorry but this headline just sounds like a real bad English translation from Japanese.
Read the Koran, it is incompatible with the US Constitution.
True believer Muslims are NAZIs. They must be expelled and their mosques bulldozed.
IIRC they got their loans...yep $8.5 billion. Far cry from what the blackmailed for. Any news of debt forgiveness?
Yes,
They are an allie, but the sweet deal they had is gone and that which they gambled for and hoped to get will probably go bust in the long run.
To bad Turkey, no cash for you. No influence for you in Northern Iraq. No EU for you in the long run. :)
Red6
Islamonazis :)
We should stay open minded and be real nice now. Give them the needed support where possible to help facilitate Turkish memership. Germany wanted to sell the EU out for Turkey to work against the US in the Iraq war. Give Europe what it asked for! Support and help the Turks to become part of the EU where ever the US can. Germany and France NEED a high population muslim country with a shady government and bad economy within its ranks. They need this influence to help make sure that they can come to a better agreement/concenssus on issues in the future. Issues like religion in schools, headscarfs and so fourth.
I'm all for it! Turkey needs to be part of the EU As Soon As Possible.
Red6
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