Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was due back in Turkey today after a trip abroad, with thousands of angry demonstrators calling for his resignation as protests entered a seventh day.
Deputy prime minister Huseyin Celik has urged party supporters not to flock to the airport to welcome him back so as not to inflame tensions.
"The prime minister does not need a show of power," he told a local television channel, yesterday.
When Erdogan flew out of Turkey Monday on a four-day visit to north Africa, he had dismissed the protests, saying they would have died down before he returned.
They were still going strong yesterday, though that day saw the first confrontations between ruling party supporters and protesters.
In the Black Sea port of Rize, a group of 25 youths who staged an anti-government protest was attacked by a crowd of several hundred people, CNN-Turk television reported today.
Police fired tear gas to disperse supporters of Erdogan's Justice and Freedom Party (AKP) who had surrounded a building where some of the youths had taken shelter.
Some of the anti-government protesters were later hospitalised, but there was no word on their condition.
Yesterday evening, police used tear gas and water cannon to disperse demonstrators in Ankara's central Kizilay Square.
The situation was quieter in Istanbul however, for the first time since the unrest began last Friday.
It was a heavy-handed response to a peaceful demonstration in Istanbul that sparked nationwide anti-government protests denouncing Erdogan, in power since 2002.
Most of the anger has been directed at Erdogan, who has dismissed the protesters as "extremists".
Turkey's Nobel Prize-winning novelist Orhan Pamuk blamed the government for the unrest in a scathing article published online by Hurriyet daily.
He denounced the authorities for having failed to consult the public over plans to redevelop the Istanbul park, the issue that sparked the initial protests on Friday.
"This insensitive policy is no doubt part of the ever more authoritarian and repressive attitude of the government," he wrote.
Internationally renowned pianist, Fazil Say, voiced support for the protests.
At a concert in the western port city of Izmir, he banged pots and pans before a concert Wednesday, a reference to nightly anti-government protests, local media reported
Delighted members of his audience responded in kind, chanting "Everywhere is Taksim, everywhere is resistance.
