Turkish police have used tear gas and water cannon to disperse a pro-Palestinian rally outside the country’s Incirlik air base, hours before the arrival of US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in the capital, Ankara.
Images on social media showed several hundred people waving Palestinian flags on Sunday, as they were chased by police forces outside the military base housing US forces.
According to local media, police had allowed the protesters to hold a peaceful rally in a designated area but they intervened when the crowd began to walk toward the base.
There were no immediate reports of injuries or arrests.
The protest was organized by the Turkish charity, Humanitarian Relief Foundation (IHH), which in 2010 led a flotilla to Gaza that sparked Israeli raids in which 10 civilians died.
Sunday’s rally coincided with a visit to Ankara by Blinken, who is due to meet Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan on Monday.
The US diplomat will be traveling to Turkey for the first time since the start of Israel’s onslaught on the besieged Gaza Strip.
However, it’s unlikely that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan personally met Blinken due to his trip to the country’s remote northeast.
In televised remarks on Sunday, Erdogan said that Ankara was “working behind the scenes” to stop the bloodshed and ensure the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza.
“Be assured that we are doing much more than meets the eye,” he said.
Also on Sunday, nearly 1,000 people also rallied outside the US embassy in Ankara.
Israel has been bombing Gaza since October 7, when the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas launched the surprise attack, dubbed Operation Al-Aqsa Storm, in the occupied territories in response to the Israeli regime’s intensified crimes against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.
The aggression has so far killed 9,770 Palestinians, including 4,800 children.
Tel Aviv has also blocked water, food, and electricity to Gaza, plunging the coastal strip into a humanitarian crisis.
Since the beginning of the Israeli war on Gaza, several rallies have been staged in Turkish cities, particularly in Istanbul, to protest Israel’s ongoing atrocities against the Palestinian people in Gaza.
On Saturday, Turkey’s foreign ministry announced that Ankara had recalled its ambassador from Tel Aviv for consultations due to the ongoing Israeli attacks in Gaza.
