Turkish parliament speaker Cicek speaks to EP president

Turkish Parliament Speaker Cemil Cicek has spoken on the phone with the President of the European Parliament Martin Schulz about EP's recent resolution concerning Taksim protests. Cicek restated EP's decision on Taksim protests was not fair and thus not accepted by Turkey. The European Parliament adopted Thursday a resolution expressing its "deep concern" at what it called "the disproportionate and excessive use of force by Turkish police to break up peaceful and legitimate protests." The resolution urged the Turkish authorities to respect the rights of all citizens to freedom of expression and peaceful protest deploring the "harsh reactions" from the Turkish government and Erdogan, while praising what it called the "moderate response" of President Abdullah Gul. Following EP's resolution, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan refused to recognize the EP resolution while many other senior Turkish officials also criticized and ignored the resolution.