park is where it all began. it was all about conserving the small little green space, the last green space many people will tell you exists in istanbul. we re hearing volleys of tear gas still going on. but it escalated into these widespread demonstrations against what those who oppose the government are saying. people demonstrating against the fact that they feel as if this conservative islamist government is trying to impose its own morals on what until knew has been a psych lar society. turkey for decades has been priding itself on really separating itself from politics and religion. people are dug in for the long haul. they ve been chanting it s not going to end.
crisis, which basically undercut the previous government. the kind of images that we re seeing are bound to scare off investors and turkey is a great country of great potential. this country has done very well. the kind of situation what we now have where the government is perceived to be at war with rioters right in the middle of istanbul cannot be good for the kind of investment future that turkey had in mind. where does prime minister erdogan go from here? these protests are, as was just said, horrible for the image of turkey. i think there are several factors at work here which he s got to worry about. one of them is the protests. he s going to try to stop them in the near term but underlying them are political divisions within the country. christiane was talking about it
earlier. he s been in power for a while and it s likely to continue to fragment as time goes by. if these do shake people s confidence in the economy, that s likely to drive more protests. in libya and tunisia, the arab spring had its birth in job and economic crises. in sosh turkey the spillover from the syria conflict is pushi pushing refugees into the region and right now you look at syria and say this crisis could go on for years and years. if it goes on for years and confidence in the south grows lower, if erdogan continues to get pressured for his support of the rebels in syria, you could see a gradual decline, growing pressure on him and events like the one we re seeing here more
protesters from illegitimate protesters and will that make a difference? we ve seen president obama and the white house not say much about prime minister erdogan. they ve pleaded for restraint, as is their want, but they haven t really talked about concerns they have of what the police are doing. as you know, the united states considers turkey a very important ally when it comes to syria, when it comes to iraq, when it comes to iran. talk about the difficult position president obama finds himself in. well, it does clearly present a dilemma for president obama and the other western european leaders. turkey is a very strong nato ally. it s been a reliable ally of the west for decades now. and particularly, personally, prime minister erdogan i remember at the beginning of president obama s administration, turkey was one of the first stops he made. the sort of chatter was that
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