Southeastern incidents show Kurdish version of Gezi protests

Turkish ruling Justice and Development Party spokesman Huseyin Celik said that the incidents in the southeastern province of Diyarbakir are the Kurdish version of Gezi Park protests, local Today's Zaman reported on Saturday. The report said that incidents are an attempt to sabotage the settlement process which the government launched to solve the Kurdish issue. Around 200 protesters marched on Friday onto the construction site in the village of Kayacik in Diyarbakir's Lice district, where the outpost was being built to replace an existing one, with some throwing petrol bombs and setting fire to workers' tents, Diyarbakir Governor Cahit Kirac said, adding that one person was killed and nine others wounded in the clashes between security forces and protesters. The incidents appeared to be the most violent in the region since a ceasefire declaration by Abdullah Ocalan, the jailed leader of the outlawed Kurdish Workers Party (PKK), in March that led to a virtual standstill in the conflict between the PKK and the Turkish government. The protests began in Turkey's biggest city of Istanbul as an attempt to preserve Gezi Park on May 31 and quickly snowballed into widespread demonstrations against Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's leadership. Clashes between police and protesters across the country have killed at least five people, including a policeman, and injured some 5,000.