Istanbul // More than 100,000 people attended an anti-terrorism rally in Istanbul on Sunday, aimed at denouncing violence by Kurdish rebels.
Many waving Turkish flags, the crowd thronged Yenikapi Square on the shores of the Marmara Sea for the demonstration, as speakers condemned terrorism and the violence which has rocked eastern Turkey since the collapse of a two-year ceasefire between the military and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK.
The PKK is considered a terror organisation by the Turkey, the US and the EU.
On Thursday, thousands took part in a similar rally in the capital Ankara to denounce the PKK, which has killed dozens of police and soldiers in a string of attacks in the mainly Kurdish southeast sincefighting resumed in July.
Many of the demonstrators wore red headbands that eulogised the slain security force members as “martyrs”.
“Martyrs never die, the homeland cannot be divided,” the headbands read.
Mr Erdogan’s two-month-old offensive against the outlawed PKK, which comes as the country prepares for a November 1 general election, has divided Turks.
His critics accuse him of using a suicide bombing in a southeastern Turkish town that was blamed on ISIL extremists as a pretext for reigniting a three-decade conflict with the PKK for electoral gain.
Mr Erdogan has tarred the PKK and ISIL with the same brush of extremism, but devoted much more firepower to air strikes on PKK’s bases along Turkey’s border with Iraq than to air raids against the Kurds’ extremist foes.
Many of the demonstrators expressed fervent support for Mr Erdogan’s Islamic-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP).
“We will support Erdogan to the end. We are behind him because he defends our flag and our nation,” Gunel Yildiz, a 43-year-old textile industry worker, who carried a giant Turkish flag, said.
The AKP is looking to the upcoming election to reverse the losses it sustained in the last election in June, which stripped it of its governing majority, forcing it it into coalition talks that ended in failure.
* Agence France-Presse
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