Turkish police clear square of protesters

ISTANBUL, Turkey - In a tear-gas-filled conclusion to two weeks of antigovernment protests in Turkey, riot police on Saturday cleared a central Istanbul square and park that had formed the heart of a broad challenge to the 10-year rule of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The storming of Taksim Square and adjoining Gezi Park risked further inflaming opposition to Erdogan, with protesters who had complained that he had authoritarian tendencies saying Saturday that the leader had destroyed all chances for negotiation. Before the occupation was cleared, protesters had been discussing Saturday whether to stand down after Erdogan had offered concessions. On a warm night, crowds were unusually large in Gezi Park.

Within an hour of a warning from Erdogan that central Istanbul would be cleared by Sunday whether or not protesters left voluntarily, security forces using loudspeakers told people in Taksim and Gezi Park to leave. Hundreds of black-clad riot police wearing gas masks started to rush the park, using tear gas and water cannons to chase protesters from the area. Remaining was a mess of soggy tents, banners, and debris that sanitation workers quickly moved to clear. The park had turned into a symbol of defiance against Erdogan, who wants to build a replica of an Ottoman-era barracks on the site.

Opposition leaders said Saturday that Erdogan had destroyed his chances for a dialogue. Erdogan had invited a delegation of protesters into his Ankara home Friday and made concessions substantial enough that some organizers appeared to be considering standing down Saturday and leaving only a symbolic tent behind. But as thousands of protesters on Saturday crowded the streets that feed into Taksim Square, the crossroads of Istanbul, they were defiant even after having lost the physical emblem of their movement.

"More people will gather on the streets now," Eyup Muhcu, one of the protest leaders who met Friday with Erdogan, said by telephone. "We had reached a great chance for dialogue. Now after this violence, he will never find a party to talk to."

The assault on protesters came hours after Erdogan gave a fiery speech in Ankara to tens of thousands of cheering supporters. "I am putting it very clearly: Taksim Square is vacated or else. If not, this country's security forces know how to vacate," Erdogan said.

On Istiklal Street - or Freedom Street - a grand pedestrian boulevard that leads into the square, crowds of protesters confronted a line of police three deep before they, too, were pushed back. One man ran toward the police with a red banner of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey. He was beaten back with a sharp blast of water from a truck-mounted water cannon. His banner was quickly blown off its pole.

Inside the park, security forces were using excavators and bulldozers to clear away an encampment where just hours earlier protesters had been listening to a concert of folk music from Turkey's revolutionary era. Dozens of sanitation workers put debris into a front-end bucket loader.

"The park belongs to all Istanbul's people," Huseyin Celik, a spokesman for Erdogan's Justice and Development Party, said on Haber Turk TV after Taksim Square and Gezi Park were cleared. "There's a limit to patience."

Earlier in the day, those in Gezi Park appeared to be taking steps toward compromise. Organized political groups and unions had decided Saturday to unite their demands under a single umbrella group, called Taksim Solidarity, and to try to open the park to ordinary Istanbul residents, as well. They cleared away many of the barricades of debris that they had placed at park entrances to protect themselves from police.