Riot police fired tear gas on hundreds of protesters on a main pedestrian street leading to Istanbul's main square, Taksim, following a stand-off with police.
Clashes also erupted in the capital Ankara, where police used water cannons against a group of stone-throwing protesters.
Dogan new agency video footage showed police, some in plain clothes, detaining several people in the two cities.
Large numbers of police blocked access to Taksim, and news reports earlier said authorities planned to deploy some 25,000 police officers and up to 50 anti-riot water cannon vehicles around the city to thwart the demonstrations.
Also Read
"I am calling on my people: don't fall for this trap. This is not an innocent environmental action," Erdogan said.
In late May and June last year, hundreds of thousands of Turks took to the streets denouncing Erdogan's increasingly autocratic leadership and demanding more democratic freedoms.
The protests were sparked by opposition to government plans to uproot trees at Taksim Square's Gezi Park and build a shopping centre.
Fanned by outrage over the often brutal reaction by police, the demonstrations soon spread to other cities and developed into Turkey's biggest protests in decades. Thousands were wounded and at least 12 people have died in anti-government protests in the past year.