End of Turkish 'Spring'

Turkish President Abdullah Gül kicked off a process on Monday to avoid ignoring protesters and address their demands. He said, "Well-intentioned messages were received," which aimed at reducing the flames of anger of protesters.

The president and his staff understand that the message they received is growing public anger against Erdoğan's style to act intrusively into people's lives. But Erdoğan was still obsessed with 12 trees in Taksim's Gezi Park, the flashpoint of the protests. He kept reminding the public how well-intentioned he was when he decided to renovate Taksim Square and how he has made unprecedented efforts to maintain green spaces during his tenure as İstanbul's boss and the prime minister.

Erdoğan understood that several trees could not be the primary motive behind these large-scale protests, but he also didn't fathom what it was, either. His advisers kept telling him things that were unrelated to the protests and he thus largely blamed radical groups for taking the lead in the events.

Expressing this confusion, he said in Morocco on Monday that he is not aware of any messages. This was in contrast to dozens of conciliatory statements made by his ministers, including his own right hand man, Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç.

Intensive attempts to urge Erdoğan on Monday night to abandon his bellicose rhetoric finally bore fruit. Arınç and Gül discussed details of a statement to ease the tensions and the text was approved by the prime minister.

In an unusual style, Arınç recited the written statement, apologizing for the initial use of excessive force, but included Erdoğan's repeated claim that the radical groups are hijacking the protests.

Following the statement, protests largely slowed down in most parts of İstanbul and the violence decreased elsewhere.

This is the first time during Erdoğan's more-than-a-decade-long rule that he has yielded to the demands of public citizens who have flocked to the streets in this scale.

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