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The intervention of police at Taksim Square on Tuesday (June 11) is nothing less than "Old Turkey" — highly intolerant, equipped with hard-liner patterns and unwilling to engage in negotiation-based solutions — being put on full display before the domestic and international public. If this kind of hard line continues, it will bring out the worst in social groups and strata not supportive of the AKP, and only chase away the hopes of a national reconciliation.
The public messages that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan delivered in a spree of speeches over the protest wave that Gezi Park triggered indicate how he has updated his policies.
