Turkey premier agrees to halt contentious park project

In their announcement just after 3 am in Ankara,organizers emphasized that the people who have occupied the park for weeks would decide its fate.

Tomorrow,we are going to discuss all of this with the people in Gezi Park and hear their say, said Sami Yilmazturk,a member of Taksim Solidarity. We are not in a position to impose anything on them,but weve reached our goal here.

For the first time, Yilmazturk added,the government responded to us positively.

As night fell Thursday and Istanbul girded for a decisive police raid on Gezi Park that officials had said was imminent,Erdogan shifted strategy once again by inviting the protest organizers to his home for talks. As protest leaders hurried to the airport,a measure of calm and a sense of reprieve descended over the park.

Once again,Erdogan,in handling a crisis that began with a relatively minor urban development issue but morphed into a broad uprising against his rule,had inserted himself in a matter that in other countries would have long been settled by a local planning board.