Adding fuel to fire: Turkish police use tear gas, water cannons to disperse demonstrators

Istanbul: Turkish police on Tuesday fired tear gas and water cannon against hundreds of protesters who took to streets to condemn the deadly suicide attack in a border town, an AFP photographer reported. A crowd of 800 demonstrators gathered at Kadikoy on the Asian side of Istanbul to denounce the attack in the Kurdish majority town of Suruc near the Syrian border. The bomb attack blamed on the Islamic State killed 32 people – mostly young activists. [caption id=“attachment_2355844” align=“alignleft” width=“380” class=" “] Turkish riot police use rubber bullets to disperse protesters as protestors fire fireworks at Kadikoy district in Istanbul on Tuesday. AFP[/caption] “Murderer state will be brought to account,” the protesters shouted. In an earlier demonstration in the district of Sisli on the European side of Istanbul, police detained dozens of protesters who chanted anti-government slogans. In the Kurdish majority town of Nusaybin on the border with Syria, police fired tear gas at protesters, injuring a 55-year-old woman, the private Dogan news agency reported. Turkey’s Kurds have been frustrated by the government’s failure to stop the jihadist group which has seized chunks of land in Iraq and Syria right up to the Turkish border. The pro-Kurdish HDP party has blamed the government for a security and intelligence vacuum in relation to Monday’s bombing – charges dismissed by Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu. “Turkey has always taken measures against Daesh and similar kind of organisations,” Davutoglu said Monday, using an Arabic acronym for IS group. AFP