Protesters in Turkey Vow to Continue Fight

By CEYLAN YEGINSU and TIM ARANGO

Taksim Square is mostly back to normal: the taxicabs line up in front of fancy hotels, whose doormen no longer clutch gas masks, and outdoor cafes are bustling again. But Gezi Park — the green corner of the square — remains occupied by defiant protesters who on Saturday pledged that they would continue with their demonstrations, disavowing a compromise between their self-declared leaders and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to end a political crisis that has caused severe damage to Turkey’s image and its economy. Protesters and Taksim Solidarity, an umbrella group of protest organizers, “continued to guard the park and the city for all the living beings in them, our trees, living spaces, private lives, liberties and future,” the group said a statement issued Saturday. The environmentalist resistance that “has met citizens’ anger that accumulated over 11 years of AKP government” would continue and spread over all portions of life, city and country, the statement said. Their decision puts the two sides on the path to confrontation, raising the specter of a police raid to flush out the protesters. Turkey’s president, Abdullah Gul, urged the protesters to end their action, saying in a Twitter posting Saturday, “everyone should now return home.” It was a message that was ignored. The defiance of the protesters came after organizers in the early morning hours Friday had walked out of Mr. Erdogan’s home in Ankara, Turkey’s capital, with a tentative deal to end the protests. But rank-and-file demonstrators did not go along. “Cowards! Liars! Sheep!” shouted some protesters as members from Taksim Solidarity tried to deliver details of their meeting with Mr. Erdogan. In their proposed compromise Mr. Erdogan had agreed to allow a legal challenge to the park’s demolition to proceed before any construction begins, and he pledged to hold a referendum in Istanbul even if a court rules in the government’s favor and allows the park to be replaced with a mall designed to look like an Ottoman-era army barracks. But from the moment the deal was reached, it was unclear how ordinary protesters in the park, who are mostly young, secular and middle class, would react. Many say they have no leader and do not trust the government to uphold its side of a deal. “The government thinks the solidarity group represents all of us, and the rest are extremists and terrorists, but that is just not true,” said Cuneyt Yusuf, 25, referring to several leftist groups the government says are terrorist organizations and that joined street protests. “We in the park are a majority, and we do not have a representative.” The defiant posture struck by the occupiers of Gezi Park underscored the amorphous nature of the protest movement, which is largely leaderless. Mr. Erdogan’s decision to directly engage the Taksim Solidarity organization, after days of defiant comments, was an attempt to focus the protests on their original cause: the preservation of the park. Originally, a few hundred protesters peacefully mobilized against the destruction of the park. But the police cracked down, spurring a broader protest movement that challenged Mr. Erdogan’s government, which many Turks view as becoming increasingly authoritarian. “We want a group of representatives from all corners of the park,” said Bilgi Coskun, who has slept in Gezi Park for 17 days. “Those that have put up a fight, choked on gas, slept here day and night, guarding our soil. The Taksim Solidarity is no representative of this park or movement.” The apparent unwillingness of many of the protesters to agree to the compromise also raised the specter of a further hardening of resolve on both sides, even as some leaders promoted a compromise. That raised more fears that ultimately the government would dispatch the police to empty the park, leading to more violence. Mr. Erdogan said again on Friday that protesters must leave. “Youngsters, look,” he said, “you have stayed there for as long as you could. We have received and evaluated your message. Now withdraw from Gezi Park and go home. If there are still some left from the illegal organizations, leave us alone with them.” Protesters say it is now hard to sleep because they expect to be woken by a police raid. “You get used to it,” Turgut Bulut, 29, said. “If they come, they come. We are not scared because it is them that will pay the price in the long run. They are going down.”