The European Commission accused Turkish police on Tuesday of using excessive force against protesters during an outlawed May Day rally and called on authorities to investigate the events.
Turkish riot police fired water cannon and teargas in running clashes with crowds in central Istanbul on Thursday, detaining more than 500 people. Dozens of people were injured.
"We in the commission deplore this disproportionate use of force on the first of May," Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn said, adding the Commission expected an investigation.
Turkey's main opposition parties also called for an investigation and asked Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan to apologise for the police violence.
The EU sees democratic reforms, including human rights, as a key requirement in Turkey's ambitions to join the bloc.
Turkey's General Staff said on Saturday at least 150 outlawed PKK separatists were killed during the May 1-2 air strikes against PKK bases in northern Iraq. The statement added several high-ranking outlawed PKK separatists may have been among the dead.
Turkish military says 150 PKK separatists killed in N. Iraq
"According to initial estimates, this operation allowed us to neutralise more than 150 terrorists," declared a statement published on the Turkish army website.
The statement added several high-ranking outlawed PKK separatists may have been among the dead.
"The operation caused a big panic among terror organization's members," the statement read.
The military said in an earlier statement, it successfully hit 43 outlawed PKK targets in a three-hour air operation on Mount Qandil in northern Iraq which ended early Friday.
Turkish warplanes have targeted terrorist positions in northern Iraq since mid-December. In February, the army conducted a week-long ground offensive against PKK hideouts in the region, where more than 2,000 militants take refuge.
The Turkish government has a one-year parliamentary authorization, which expires in October, for cross-border raids against the PKK. The United States has backed Turkish military action against the outlawed PKK separatists by providing real-time intelligence on PKK movements in Iraq.
The PKK is listed as a terrorist group by Turkey and much of the international community, including the EU and the US.
Turkish riot police used clubs, tear gas and water cannons Thursday to break up crowds of workers trying to reach a main Istanbul square for a Labor Day rally banned by the government.
Thousands of police were on the streets after Turkish unions defied the government and said they would hold May Day celebrations in Istanbul's Taksim square, which had been scene of violent protests decades ago.
Police wearing gas masks first broke up a crowd which had gathered in front of a labor union office with the intention of walking to Taksim. Workers ran into the building and police blockaded it, preventing them from leaving.
Police, holding all streets leading to Taksim, also broke up groups of workers trying to enter the square through various entrances, firing tear gas and beating some demonstrators with clubs.
Some demonstrators were seen throwing rocks at police.
Turkey's parliament has approved the softening of a law criticized by the European Union for limiting free speech. Article 301 of the penal code has been used to prosecute Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk and other authors, academics and journalists. But critics of the reform say it does not go far enough.
Turkey's parliament approved a government-backed proposal to amend Article 301 of Turkey's penal code, under which thousands of people have been prosecuted and 745 convicted since 2003, including Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk.
The article criminalized the denigration of the Turkish identity, writer Elif Safak who was prosecuted under Article 301, says its was used to silence dissent.
"301 has been used as a weapon, it is an extremely powerful weapon to silence people," said Safak.
The government says the reform will make it harder for such prosecutions by making it an offense to insult the "Turkish nation", rather than the more vague "Turkishness". The penalty has been reduced from three to two years in jail.
EU Commissioner for Enlargement Olli Rehn said he expects Turkey to become a member of European Union (EU) within 10 or 15 years should it continue reforms decisively, the Anatolian Agency reported on Monday.
The EU has been planning to open two new chapters in Turkey's accession negotiations in June, Rehn told Germany's Die Welt daily, adding that Turkey still has a long way to go.
Rehn also said Turkey has been passing through a very critical period, which it had not experienced since the start of EU membership negotiations in 2005, implying the closure case against Turkey's ruling AKP. In the case all parties developed a culture of reconciliation and the necessary reforms were fulfilled, Turkey might become stronger after this critical period, Rehn added.
The EU has opened six chapters in Turkey's accession negotiations, which started in 2005. The EU also suspended negotiations in eight policy chapters because of Turkey's refusal to open its ports to Greek Cypriot vessels.
Thousands of Turks rallied in the Turkish capital Saturday, accusing the Islamic-rooted government of undermining the country's secular laws.
More than 10,000 people gathered in a square in Ankara carrying anti-government banners, red-and-white Turkish flags and pictures of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the revered leader who founded the secular republic in 1923.
"Turkey is secular and will remain secular," they chanted.
A power struggle is growing in Turkey between the secular establishment and supporters of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's party — which has origins in Turkey's Islamic movement but has advocated Western-style reforms as part of the country's bid to join the European Union.
Last month, Turkey's highest court agreed to hear a case to permanently close down Erdogan's party on charges that it is taking steps to impose Islamic law.
The chief prosecutor who brought the case also wants Erdogan and dozens of other party members barred from holding public office for five years.
The prosecutor's indictment against the party lists as evidence the ruling party's efforts to lift a ban on wearing Islamic head scarves in universities, to lift obstacles facing religious school graduates who want to take university entrance exams, to roll back restrictions on courses in the Quran and to curb the consumption of alcohol with tighter regulation of bars and restaurants.
Erdogan rejects claims that his party has an Islamist agenda.
European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso Thursday urged Turkey to speed up reforms needed to meet European Union membership criteria. Barroso, who is on a three-day visit to Turkey, said the country's membership in the EU would offer what he called a "powerful alternative" to militant Islam.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was in a buoyant mood after meeting with Barroso:
He says he is confident the European Commission will support Turkey's drive for EU membership, and pledges his government is committed to introducing the required reforms.
Barroso acknowledged the latest reform proposals the Turkish government introduced last week as positive, but he said more needed to be done, especially in the area of press freedoms.
He told the Turkish parliament all applicant countries must meet the EU's membership requirements, but membership is not automatic.
He says the conditions are the same for all applicant countries and there are no guarantees they will be accepted.
That comment has interpreted by the Turkish media as a warning the EU might not accept Turkey's application.
Turkish anti-terror police today detained 45 people on suspicion of belonging to the Al-Qaeda extremist network and planning attacks, Anatolia news agency reported.
The suspects, rounded up in simultaneous operations in eight districts of Istanbul, were being questioned by police, the report said.
A court was to decide later whether they should be charged and jailed pending trial or released.
In January, police raided 18 locations in southeast Turkey on intelligence that a local Al-Qaeda cell was planning car bomb attacks. Four alleged militants and a policeman were then killed in a gunfight, and 17 suspects arrested.
A Turkish cell of the extremist network was blamed for truck bombs that targeted two synagogues in Istanbul on November 15, 2003, and the British consulate and a British bank five days later. The attacks killed 63 people, injured hundreds and caused huge material damage.
Last year, seven men were jailed for life over the bombings, one of them a Syrian national who masterminded and financed the attacks.
Turkey's constitutional court has decided unanimously that it can hear a case aimed at closing down the country's governing AK Party.
The chief prosecutor earlier filed a petition calling for the party to be closed for "anti-secular activities". He also wants dozens of its members, including the prime minister and president, to be banned from politics. The case revives a battle between Turkey's secularist establishment and the AK Party of devout Muslims. The case against the AKP runs to 162 pages: a long list of what the chief prosecutor says is proof the government has an Islamic agenda.
The main focus of his petition is the government's bid to relax the rules on the Islamic headscarf. The AKP recently changed the constitution, so girls could cover their heads in universities.
Staunch secularists fear that is a first step to an Islamic state - by a party whose leaders once espoused political Islam. The AKP argues the case against it is an attack on democracy.
It won 47% of the vote at the last elections, and most opinion polls show strong support for lifting the ban on the headscarf. The constitutional court will now examine the charges, launching a legal battle that will last for many months.
Our correspondent says that is sure to paralyse the political agenda in Turkey - to freeze a whole series of reforms - and most likely, spark an exodus of foreign investment. The EU has expressed its concern at the case, saying it could jeopardise Turkey's ambitions of membership.
Seven of Turkey’s leading non-governmental organizations issued a statement on Wednesday calling for a scaling back of political tensions, warning that the nation is at risk of being polarized. The NGOs, who represent almost 50 million people, called everybody "to take a step back from their recent positions".
Turkey's top NGOs call everybody to take a step back
"We are experiencing a historic day," the joint statement read out by The Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges (TOBB) President Rifat Hisarciklioglu said. Hiscarciklioglu also said everybody should "take a step back from their recent positions" in order reduce the tension.
Political tension has been high since a leftist and anti-AKP columnist, a party leader and a former rector were taken into custody on Friday with suspected links to an illegal gang which was accused of paving the way to a military coup following Turkey's chief prosecutor filed a lawsuit against the governing AKP demanding its closure on March 14. Observers say recent developments embark a new episode in the secularists' and Islamist groups' struggle for power.
Turkish Confederation of Public Laborers' Unions (Kamu-Sen), Turkish Confederation of Labor (Turk-Is), Turkish Confederation of Tradesmen & Craftsmen (TESK), Moral Rights Workers Union (Hak-Is), Turkish Confederation of Employers' Unions (TISK) and Turkish Agricultural Chambers' Union (TZOB) were among the other NGOs joined the statement.
Turkish security sources say at least 60 people were injured Saturday in clashes between riot police and Kurdish demonstrators in southeast Turkey. Police say at least 160 people were detained in the violence, which erupted in two cities after celebrations marking the Kurdish New Year, Nowroz, turned into protests supporting the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK.
In the city of Van, large groups of protesters hurled stones at police, who struck back with batons and volleys of tear gas to disperse a crowd of about three thousand people.
Clashes also took place in the city of Hakkari.
Officials report 38 demonstrators and 15 policemen were hurt during the clashes. Four people, including one police officer, were seriously wounded.
The PKK has been fighting for Kurdish autonomy in Turkey's mainly Kurdish southeast for nearly 25 years, and violence during that time has killed more than 30 thousand people. Turkey, the United States and other nations have designated the PKK a terrorist group.
Kurdish activists sometimes use the Nowroz festival - a traditional new-year celebration that marks the arrival of spring - to highlight demands for autonomy and other rights.
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