ANKARA—Turkish police detained more than 100 people on Sunday during nationwide anti-NATO demonstrations organized by the Communist Party of Turkey (TKP), as authorities imposed a blanket ban on protests in the capital ahead of the military alliance’s summit this week.
Demonstrators took to the streets in six cities—Ankara, Istanbul, Izmir, Adana, Samsun, and Çanakkale—chanting “NATO, get out of the country” and “No passage to NATO” as riot police used tear gas to disperse crowds in Ankara’s central Kızılay Square. Protesters there also voiced solidarity with Palestine, holding NATO and its leading members accountable for the ongoing genocide in Gaza. Several Palestinian flags were seen in the demonstrations.
“We have gathered today in many parts of Turkey to protest against NATO,” TKP Secretary General Kemal Okuyan said in Istanbul. “We said that we would not hand over Ankara to supporters of NATO, that we would not allow Ankara to remain silent. We have fulfilled that promise.”
In Ankara, where Turkish authorities have effectively turned into a fortress for the NATO Summit, TKP members, workers, and their allies held a massive march. Police intervened violently as protesters approached Kızılay, which resulted in multiple injuries. The TKP reported that seven of its members suffered severe head injuries, some sustained fractures to their arms and rib cages, and one underwent angiography due to a suspected heart attack.
Mass marches from Istanbul to Izmir
Thousands gathered in front of Istanbul’s Taksim Square and marched toward Dolmabahçe, retracing the route of the historic 1968 action when students, led by Deniz Gezmiş, threw soldiers of the U.S. 6th Fleet into the sea. The march was joined by delegates of the International Anti-NATO Summit meeting in Istanbul, who carried the World Peace Council’s banner, which read “Yes to Peace, No to NATO.”
Addressing the crowd in Istanbul, Okuyan drew a direct line from the struggles of the past to today. “Just as those who threw the soldiers of the 6th Fleet into the sea here decades ago restored the honor of this country,” he said, “revolutionaries all over Turkey are doing the same.”
In Izmir, protesters marched to the NATO base in Buca.
“NATO is the representative of the capitalist class, the bosses, the religious sects, the exploitative bandits who are dragging our country into darkness,” said Senem Doruk İnam of the TKP.
“It is their armed force. They have implemented all kinds of evil in our country through NATO. They pointed those weapons at our intellectuals, our youth, our working people. They committed murders, massacres, and coups.”
Demonstrations also took place in Samsun, where protesters chanted “Yankee go home,” and in Çanakkale and Adana, where marchers carried banners saying, “We are marching for our country and our honor.”
NATO’s militarism under fire
The protests come as the Ankara NATO summit is expected to discuss increasing member states’ defense spending to 5% of GDP by 2035—a longstanding demand from the Trump administration.
Demonstrators around Turkey carried banners reading “NATO wants war, workers want peace,” “Budget for the people, not for NATO,” and “No to NATO, no to war.”
“We will not abandon our work with NATO today or tomorrow,” Okuyan said. “We will follow up on this summit. We will follow up on the international decisions they made at this summit, and we will continue the struggle.
“We will continue until this country, our beloved country, becomes an independent, sovereign, exploitation-free, and socialist country. Until that day, we will continue the struggle. The bases must be seized, NATO must get out!”
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