Ankara braces for major anti-terror rally

ANKARA

AA photo

Turkey’s capital braces for a major anti-terror rally on Sept. 17, a few days after a group of business associations, unions and professional chambers had announced to hold a mass rally to condemn of “terror.”

The rally, with the motto “No to terror, yes to brotherhood,” will start at 4:30 p.m. in Ankara’s historic Sıhhıye square, in which thousands of people are expected to participate with Turkish flags. 

While the area between the Sıhhıye Square and the old Parliament building in the Ulus district will be decorated with Turkish flags, the only common denominator of the demonstration is expected to be the national flag and the motto of the rally. 

Many civil society organizations, not only from Ankara but from across the country, are expected to march and unite against acts of terrorism in Turkey. 

Ankara Trade Chamber (ATO) head Salih Bezci said they would also distribute 20,000 Turkish flags to the people at the rally. 

The Ankara Police Department announced in a written statement that some of the main roads leading to the Sıhhıye square, namely Atatürk and Celal Bayar Boulevards, along Mithat Paşa and Necatibey Street, would be closed to traffic. 

Meanwhile, Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) co-chair Figen Yüksekdağ said as many Kurds as Turks had shed their blood on the national flag, in regards to Ankara’s march. 

“There is as much blood of Kurds as there is of Turks on that flag. There is blood of all the nations that make up today’s unity of Turkey; [blood from] the Circassian, Arab, Laz, Pomak and Georgian people [of origin],” said Yüksekdağ on Sept. 16 at a press conference in Ankara.