Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan signaled on Friday, Oct 10, that the security forces will step up measures in response to violent protests against the Islamic State (IS) onslaught on the Syrian Kurdish town of Kobani, saying that it is impossible for the police to stop the violent protesters with just riot shields.

Security forces “will do what is necessary against the protesters," he said, according to Today’s Zaman.

Speaking during a ceremony for the opening of the 2014-2015 academic year at the Black Sea Technical University (KATÜ) on Friday, Erdoğan: “Who are they who held protests and created bedlam in our cities? You don't have to be a professor or a distinguished professor to know this. Everything is obvious. The separatist terrorist organization [Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK)] is responsible for it. Who it was that put stones and weapons in the hands of children and killed our police officers is obvious. What will our police do in response to them [the protesters]? Will they hold riot shields against them? Sorry, let no one give us advice. It is no longer possible for our police and soldiers to stop them with riot shields. Both the police and soldiers will do what is necessary.”

Erdoğan also said that Turkey is not a state that will surrender to violent protests or plundering.

Thousands of demonstrators have taken to the streets to protest what many see as Ankara's reluctance to support Kobani, a Syrian Kurdish town on the border, which has been besieged for weeks by Islamic State militants.

More than 30 people died after demonstrations turned violent, and Turkish troops and tanks were deployed to restore order. Curfew was imposed in several provinces, measures unseen since the 1990s, when the region was rocked by fighting between the military and the PKK.