US officials criticize Turkey after attack on DC protesters
WASHINGTON: US officials strongly criticized the Turkish government after video appeared to show its president’s security forces pushing past police and violently breaking up a protest outside their diplomatic residence in Washington.
Attacking the small group of protesters with their fists and feet, men in dark suits and others were recorded repeatedly kicking one woman as she lay curled on a sidewalk. Another wrenches a woman’s neck and throws her to the ground. A man with a bullhorn is repeatedly kicked in the face. In all, nine people were hurt.
The clash happened at the Turkish ambassador’s residence on Tuesday as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan arrived after a White House meeting with US President Donald Trump. Video shows people pushing past police to confront a small group of protesters across the street in Sheridan Circle.
On Wednesday, Turkey’s official Anadolu news agency labeled the protesters Kurdish “supporters of terror.” It said they chanted anti- Erdogan slogans, and that Erdogan’s team moved in to disperse them because “police did not heed to Turkish demands to intervene.”
In a statement, the Turkish Embassy blamed the violence on the demonstrators, saying they were “aggressively provoking Turkish-American citizens who had peacefully assembled to greet the President. The TurkishAmericans responded in selfdefense and one of them was seriously injured.”
A Voice of America video showed police officers struggling to protect the protesters and ordering the men in suits to retreat. Instead, several of the men dodged the officers and ran into the park to continue the attacks.
“Violence is never an appropriate response to free speech, and we support the rights of people everywhere to free expression and peaceful protest,” State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said in a statement. “We are communicating our concern to the Turkish government in the strongest possible terms.”
Politicians weighed in as well. D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser called it a “violent attack on a peaceful demonstration,” and said it “is an affront to DC values and our rights as Americans.”
“This is the United States of America. We do not do this here,” Sen. John McCain commented while retweeting the video. “There is no excuse for this kind of thuggish behavior.”