BEIJING, June 3 (Xinhuanet) -- Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has accused participants in the recent protests of seeking to destabilize the country’s democracy.

Erdogan called the protesters "looters", who were defying his Justice and Development Party. He accused Turkey’s main opposition party, the Republican People’s Party, of stirring the fiercest unrest the country has seen in years.

The protests began at Istanbul’s Taksim Square. Demonstrators were opposing a government plan to cut down trees to make way for a new mosque and replica Ottoman-era barracks. But Erdogan says the protests have evolved into a matter of ideology and he will not compromise.

(Source: CNTV.cn)