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Tuesday June 29, 2004-- Jamadi-ul-Awwal 10, 1425 A.H.
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Anti-Nato demonstrators clash with police in Istanbul

ISTANBUL: Parts of central Istanbul turned into a battlefield Monday as left-wing demonstrators, protesting the NATO summit here, hurled petrol bombs and stones at police and security forces responded with water cannon, tear gas, plastic bullets and truncheons.

Twenty-six police officers sustained minor injuries, mainly from stones, during the violence in the district on the European side of the Bosphorus strait which bisects Istanbul, police chief Celalettin Cerrah said.

He added that 13 demonstrators were taken into custody, but said more could be detained. It was not clear how many protestors were injured.

The clashes erupted when some 2,000 people attempted to break through a road block in the Okmeydani district, about 1.5 kilometres away from the so-called "NATO valley", a complex of conference halls and hotels enclosed with concrete barriers where the 26-member alliance’s meeting began on Monday.

About 1,500 police officers, in full riot gear with plastic shields and backed by paramilitary troops, fired tear gas and plastic bullets at the demonstrators, sympathizers of minor Turkish left-wing groups.

An AFP correspondent saw demonstrators, wearing helmets and armed with slings, throwing petrol bombs, stones and sticks at the police.

Police charged the demonstrators using armoured vehicles and hosing them down with water jets, as a helicopter overflew the district. Truncheon-wielding officers were seen kicking and hitting demonstrators and taking several of them away.


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