October 9, 2003	Thursday	Sha’aban 12, 1424

ISTANBUL, Oct 8: Thousands of demonstrators took to the streets across Turkey on Wednesday to denounce the government’s controversial decision to send troops to Iraq, with police detaining some 60 Kurdish activists.

In Istanbul, protestors chained themselves to the wire fencing of an American high school and shouted “We will not allow our soldiers to be killed” and “We will not be soldiers for the US.”

Anti-riot police detained six among the 100-strong group, Anatolia news agency reported.

About 500 people attended a separate demonstration on Taksim central square and a third rally was held outside the offices of the governing Justice and Development Party (AKP) of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

In the capital Ankara, dozens of members of trade unions, political parties and civic groups gathered in front of the parliament, where legislators on Tuesday voted for a government motion to dispatch troops to neighboring Iraq.

“Turkey should take its hands off Iraq,” the group chanted.

“Turkey has been dragged by the 8.5-billion-dollar carrot,” opposition MP Haluk Koc, who joined the demonstrators, said in reference to the 8.5 billion dollars (7.2 billion euros) that Washington agreed to loan Ankara last month in return for its “cooperation” in Iraq.

“Don’t send our sons to the Iraqi hell. Don’t make them shields for American soldiers,” protestors chanted in the northern city of Trabzon, the news agency reported.

In the southern towns of Mersin and Ceyhan, police used truncheons to break up Kurdish demonstrations against the deployment of troops after protestors began chanting slogans in favor of jailed Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan.—AFP