Turkish PM to meet representatives of protest movement June 12

PanARMENIAN.Net - Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan will meet with a group representing the Taksim Gezi Park protesters Wednesday, June 12, Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç said when speaking after a Cabinet meeting headed by Erdoğan.

“The Prime Minister has given an appointment to some groups for Wednesday. They will be briefed on the facts of these incidents and our prime minister will listen to their thoughts,” Arınç told a group of reporters in Ankara after a six-hour-long Cabinet meeting, according to Hurriyet Daily News.

However, Arınç did not identify the groups that would be met.

Meanwhile, the Taksim Solidarity Platform, which organized the protests against the park’s demolition from the very first day and held a meeting with Arınç on June 5, announced via its Twitter account that it was not the group that would be meeting with Erdoğan.

Arınç said “illegal demonstrations” would no “longer be allowed” in Turkey. “If the issue is the environment, democracy and human rights, then we really want to talk to the addressees of these issues,” he said, adding that damage to business places caused by the ongoing protests would be covered.

Meanwhile, the Deputy PM also said the government had “more than one concrete piece of evidence” about "foreign actors" behind the Gezi Park protests.

“We are seriously investigating the domestic and foreign dimensions of the incidents. It looks as if these incidents are planned from one center and that there are internal efforts to make the incidents seem more than what they really are,” said Arınç.