Thousands of people waving national flags took part in an anti-terrorism rally in Turkey's capital Ankara today, as the army presses a major offensive against Kurdish militants, who have killed dozens of security force members in weeks of attacks.
The rally was organised by a coalition of NGOs, trade unions and business groups, who warned that demonstrators displaying or voicing political emblems or slogans would be excluded.
It comes three days before a more politically charged anti-terrorism rally in Istanbul, to be addressed by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Erdogan's two-month-old offensive against the militant Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), with whom he had been in peace talks for three years, has divided Turkey.
His critics accuse him of using a suicide bombing in a town on the Syrian border in late July that was blamed on Islamic State jihadists to reignite a three-decade conflict with the PKK, ending a two-year ceasefire.
The PKK has hit back hard, killing scores of soldiers and police in a string of attacks in the mainly Kurdish southeast, triggering reprisal attacks by nationalist mobs on Kurdish parties and businesses in other regions.
The organisers of Thursday's rally, who included the Tusiad business federation, TESK trade union and the Turkish Bar Association, called for national unity.
"This rally is seeking to demonstrate unity and brotherhood of 78 million people under the Turkish flag," TESK chairman Bendevi Palandoken told AFP.
