Clashes continue across Turkey

Riot police cordoned off streets, set up roadblocks and fired tear gas and water cannon to stop anti-government protesters reaching Istanbul’s central Taksim Square yesterday, as Turkey’s prime minister addressed hundreds of thousands of supporters a few miles away.

The contrasting scenes pointed to an increasing polarisation in Turkish society - one which critics say Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has fuelled with the fiery rhetoric he has maintained since they began more than two weeks ago.