Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's party on Saturday ruled out early elections, as protests entered their ninth day. The protests were sparked by an eviction of a protest camp in Gezi Park on the edge of Istanbul's Taksim Square, where Erdogan had pushed through plans to build a shopping centre that would replace one of the city's last green spaces, according to a report of DPA. "There is no reason for early elections. The government, parliament and cabinet are working like clockwork," said Huseyin Celik, spokesman of the Justice and Development Party (AKP), after a meeting of the executive committee in Istanbul. Activists said Saturday that the police response had been noticeably more restrained overnight, but fresh clashes were reported in Istanbul's Sultangazi district.
