EU/TURKEY : TURKEY: POLICE AND PROTESTERS IGNORE EU'S CALL FOR CALM.

Critical remarks and appeals for restraint by the EU and a number of European politicians have not stopped violent clashes in Turkey from going into their second week. Following Istanbul, the protests spread to Turkey's capital Ankara and the seaside town of Izmir. The demonstrators target the government of Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, which is perceived as increasingly authoritarian. High Representative Catherine Ashton issued a statement, on 2 June, expressing "deep concern at the violence that occurred in Istanbul and some other cities in Turkey". Ashton regretted the "disproportionate use of force by members of the Turkish police" and called for restraint on all sides. "Dialogue should be opened to find a peaceful solution to this issue."

Erdogan tried to play down the scope of the protests. "Be calm, relax, all this will be overcome," the prime minister told a news conference, on 3 June, before leaving for a visit to Morocco with a 300-strong business delegation. More than 2,000 persons have been detained by the police since 30 May, most of them for a short period, according to the minister of interior. Tens of thousands of protesters, coming mostly from the educated young middle class, joined the demonstrations in the centre of Istanbul initially in protest against an urban renewal project. Erdogan reaffirmed that he will go on with the plan.

"Constructing a shopping mall in a park that has historical significance for large parts of the population is a provocation," the leader of the Socialists and Democrats group in the European Parliament, Hannes Swoboda (Austria), wrote on his...