US President George W. Bush today praised Turkey's stabilising role as a secular Muslim democracy in a turbulent region, but thousands of demonstrators marched in anger against his policies in Iraq.
Mr Bush, meeting Turkish leaders ahead of a NATO summit tomorrow and Tuesday, said the alliance's only Muslim member should be rewarded with a firm start date for talks to join the European Union, a bloc it has been courting for decades.
"I appreciate very much the example your country has set on how to be a Muslim country, at the same time a country which embraces democracy and rule of law and freedom," he told Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, whose government has roots in Islamic politics.
The two countries said they would stand firm in the face of threats by militants in Iraq to behead three Turkish hostages unless Turks stop working with US-led forces there.
Mr Bush, capping improved ties with Ankara after the two fell out over a refusal to let Washington invade Iraq from Turkish soil, was pressured by Erdogan to curb separatist Iraqi Kurds and to crack down on Kurds attacking Turkey from northern Iraq.
The warm greeting for Bush in meetings with Erdogan and President Ahmet Necdet Sezer contrasted sharply with the shouts of some 20,000 protesters in Turkey's business hub Istanbul.
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| Turkish police fired tear gas demonstrators hurled rocks and used sticks to try and break down a police barricade during a protest ahead of US President George W. Bush's arrival yesterday |
Turkish public opinion remains strongly against the US-led invasion of Iraq. Foreign groups joined trades unionists, leftist parties and Islamists on the Asian side of Istanbul, far from the summit venue across the Bosphorus strait, in the biggest of a series of protests across Turkey against Mr Bush.
"Get lost Bush, get lost NATO," the protesters chanted. "Murderer USA get out of the Middle East". Ranks of police backed by armoured cars and circling helicopters watched on, but no violence was reported.
In a last-minute change of plan underscoring security concerns, Mr Bush and his entourage were helicoptered into central Istanbul from the airport, flying low over the water before landing near the city's landmark Haghia Sophia basilica.
As Mr Bush arrived in Turkey from a summit in Ireland yesterday, supporters of Jordanian-born militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi said they kidnapped three Turkish workers in Iraq, Arab TV station al-Jazeera reported. The group has threatened to behead the hostage. The protest in the Kadikoy district, on the Asian side of Istanbul, attracted tens of thousands of people, mostly members of leftist groups.
The summit is to be held on the European side of the city, across the Bosporus Strait, some 10 kilometres (six miles) from Kadikoy.
Turkey has dramatically boosted security ahead of Mr Bush's arrival and the Nato summit.
F-16 warplanes patrolled the skies of Istanbul. AWACS early warning planes dispatched by Nato will help monitor a no-fly zone over the city. More than 23,000 police will be on duty during the summit. Turkish commandos are patrolling the Bosporus in rubber boats with mounted machine guns.
Mr Bush was meeting Turkish leaders in Ankara this morning and flies to Istanbul in the early afternoon. He will attend the Nato summit, starting tomorrow, along with British Prime Minister Tony Blair and French President Jacques Chirac.
At the protest, demonstrators chanted "Istanbul will be a grave for Nato". They also carried banners, reading: "Down with American Imperialism," and "Go away Bush!"
In Ankara yesterday, Turkish police fired tear gas at scores of stone-throwing leftist demonstrators, just hours before Mr Bush arrived in the country on a flight from Ireland. Police said 13 officers were injured by rocks hurled during the rally.
Today police rounded up some 15 leftist demonstrators in downtown Ankara, saying the group was planning to stage a firebombing in the city.
Mr Bush's arrival was preceded by a series of protests and bomb blasts, including one Thursday that injured three people outside the Ankara hotel where the US president is expected to stay. Another blast that same day on an Istanbul bus killed four people and injured 14. The bombings has been blamed on militant leftists.
Militant Kurdish, Islamic and leftist groups are active in the country, and security in Istanbul has been of special concern since November, when four suicide truck bombings blamed on al Qaida killed more than 60 people.