Thousands of protestors from leftist, pro-Palestinian and Kurdish parties in central Istanbul marched against the NATO summit being held in Ankara Tuesday, chanting, “Murderer, USA, get out of our country.”
“We are here to protest the hosting in Ankara — at a cost of millions of dollars — of NATO, an organization we regard as a massacre machine established to preserve global hegemony,” said Ali Gültekin, 21.
Günçağ Aydın, 42, a spokesperson for the leftist Red Party, said that leftist groups faced intense pressure from the government ahead of the summit.
“Hundreds of our friends have been detained, but we continue to speak out, saying that NATO is a coalition of what we regard as killers and imperialist powers,” Aydın insists.
The protest ended peacefully and without arrests. Earlier Tuesday, police broke up a small demonstration in Ankara, where protests were banned during the NATO summit, and arrested about 20 people.