Al Arabiya
As thousands of people still occupied Istanbul's central Taksim
Square on Saturday, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan
announced he would convene his party leadership.Erdogan is to meet with top officials from his Justice and Development Party, a day after called for protests to end immediately, The Associated Press reported.
Anti-government protests in Turkey entered their ninth day on Saturday.
The protests began as a sit-in at a park in Taksim Square to prevent a redevelopment project that would replace the park with replica Ottoman barracks and other buildings.
But a violent police backlash to clear the square of protesters on May 31 outraged many, prompting the protests to spread to dozens of cities across the country.
Since then, three people have died - two protesters and a policeman - and thousands have been wounded. One protester is on life support in a hospital in Ankara, according to AP.
Banners and signs all over the park depict Erdogan as Hitler and continue to call for his resignation.
“These protests that are bordering on illegality must come to an end as of now,” Erdogan said on Friday on his return from a four-day trip to North Africa.
As protesters woke up in Gezi park on Saturday, some got organized to remove all the rubbish whilst others handed out free food from makeshift stations, Reuters news agency reported.
Protesters clashed with riot police on the outskirts of Istanbul overnight, and witnesses say at least one person had been injured, AP reported.
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