Thousands stage Bush protest

About 20,000 demonstrators, some chanting “USA get out of the Middle East!” gathered today in a square in Istanbul to protest over the visit of US President George W Bush and an upcoming Nato summit.

Bush is unpopular in Turkey, where the overwhelming majority of the public is opposed the Iraq war.

As Bush arrived in Turkey on Saturday, supporters of Jordanian-born militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi said they kidnapped three Turkish workers in Iraq, Arab TV station al-Jazeera reported.

The group has threatened to behead the hostage, an al-Jazeera employee said.

The protest in the Kadikoy district, on the Asian side of Istanbul, attracted tens of thousands of people, mostly members of leftist groups.

The summit is to be held on the European side of the city, across the Bosporus Strait, some 10 kilometres from Kadikoy.

Turkey has dramatically boosted security ahead of Bush’s arrival and the Nato summit.

F-16 warplanes patrolled the skies of Istanbul on Sunday. AWACS early warning planes dispatched by Nato will help monitor a no-fly zone over the city.

More than 23,000 police will be on duty during the summit. Turkish commandos are patrolling the Bosporus in rubber boats with mounted machine guns.

Bush was meeting Turkish leaders in Ankara this morning and flies to Istanbul in the early afternoon.

Bush will attend the Nato summit, starting on Monday, along with British Prime Minister Tony Blair and French President Jacques Chirac.

At the protest, demonstrators chanted “Istanbul will be a grave for Nato”.

They also carried banners, reading: “Down with American Imperialism” and “Go away Bush!”

Thousands of policemen, deployed in back streets, watched the crowds from a distance as a police helicopter hovered above.

In Ankara on Saturday, Turkish police fired tear gas at scores of stone-throwing leftist demonstrators, just hours before Bush arrived in the country. Police said 13 officers were injured by rocks hurled during the rally, the Anatolia news agency reported.

Today police rounded up some 15 leftist demonstrators in downtown Ankara, saying the group was planning to stage a firebombing in the city.

Bush’s arrival was preceded by a series of protests and bomb blasts, including one on Thursday that injured three people outside the Ankara hotel where Bush is expected to stay. Another blast that same day on an Istanbul bus killed four people and injured 14.

The bombings has been blamed on militant leftists.

Militant Kurdish, Islamic and leftist groups are active in the country, and security in Istanbul has been of special concern since November, when four suicide truck bombings blamed on al-Qaida killed more than 60 people.