Protests won’t affect Istanbul’s Olympic bid: team

PanARMENIAN.Net - The nationwide unrest that has swept Turkey with the focal point in Istanbul will not have any bearing on the city's attempt to host the 2020 Olympic Games, the bid team said on Wednesday, June 12, AFP reported.

The statement came after two International Olympic Committee (IOC) members told AFP under condition of anonymity they were no longer certain to vote for Istanbul, who are competing for the Games against Madrid and Tokyo.

Their doubts have grown since police cracked down heavily on May 31 on a campaign to save Gezi Park, near Istanbul's historic Taksim Square, from redevelopment.

The trouble spiralled into mass displays of anger against Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is seen as increasingly authoritarian, tarnishing Turkey's image abroad.

Opponents accuse Erdogan of curbing freedoms and of pushing conservative Islamic values on the mainly Muslim but constitutionally secular nation.

Erdogan who remains the country's most popular politician and has won three successive elections garnering nearly half the vote in 2011 said on Tuesday that four people, including a policeman, had died in the unrest.

Nearly 5,000 demonstrators, many of them young and middle-class, have been injured.

The two IOC members echoed the same concerns at the level of anger expressed over the redevelopment.