Turkey's Deputy Prime Minister sought to mollify tens of thousands of anti-government demonstrators yesterday by apologising for a police crackdown on a peaceful protest that triggered five days of rioting.
The comments by Bulent Arinc, who took charge of Government after Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan visited North Africa on Monday, contrasted with Mr Erdogan's dismissal of the protesters as "looters".
"The excessive violence that was used in the first instance against those who were behaving with respect for the environment is wrong and unfair. I apologise to those citizens," Mr Arinc said. "But I don't think we owe an apology to those who have caused damage in the streets and tried to prevent people's freedom," he said.
There have been two deaths. A man, 20, died after being hit by a taxi in Istanbul, while another man, 22, died after being shot in Antakya.
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