CUT IT OUT

Turkey’s Prime Minister Won’t Cave to Protesters

Demands demonstrations end now.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is back from a trip to North Africa and not happy to find protests still raging throughout his country a week after they started. “These protests that are bordering on illegality must come to an end as of now,” Erdogan announced from a bus outside the airport upon his return. “Some people say, ‘The prime minister is only prime minister to 50 percent.’ We have always said that we are the servants of 76 million.” While in Tunisia Thursday, Erdogan apologized for police use of tear gas against protesters but insisted “there is no country in the world that does not use tear gas” and reaffirmed plans to raze Istanbul’s Gezi Park—the issue that sparked the protests in the first place.