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Thousands March in Istanbul in Solidarity with Kurds

Thousands of protestors marched to Istanbul’s Taksim Square, which has been the site of recent protests against the government, after security forces killed a Kurdish demonstrator in southeastern Turkey. The recent protests have been the most public challenge to Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan’s rule in Turkey. In this incident, officials said some 250 protestors attacked a construction site and that an 18-year-old was killed when police fired warning shots to disperse the crowd. Some 20 percent of Turkey’s population is Kurdish and the PKK Kurdish party has been demanding an independent state. Estimates are that some 40,000 people have been killed in the conflict since 1999.