Turkish Protesters Driven Out With Force
ARWA DAMON, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Earlier in the day we spoke to some of them. They did not seem as if that was really going to happen. It's very difficult to imagine that given everything that has transpired today how those negotiations are actually going to take place. Because the more violent these demonstrations become, the more polarized both sides end up being. And you can really tell that the demonstrators here are dug in for the long haul. There are tents all over the place, people organizing themselves. There's a medical section in the back there. You can see it's been roped off. And then on the other side of me here is one of the main roads that leads up to Taksim Square itself. That's one of the areas where the standoff is happening between the riot police, and earlier in the night we were seeing demonstrators there throwing rocks at them at them as well. But people here do believe that the situation is going to get worse before it even begins to get better.</s>TAPPER: Well, I hope they're wrong. Arwa Damon, thank you so much. Stay safe. We will continue to monitor events on the ground through Nick Paton Walsh and then Arwa when she gets her camera recharged. We're looking at live pictures of police firing tear gas into the crowd of protesters. They say not peaceful protesters. They say that violent protesters have hijacked what was a peaceful protest. Here to talk more about these protest, David Rothkopf, the CEO and editor-at-large of "Foreign Policy" magazine. And also Bulent Aliriza. He established the Turkey Project for the Center for Strategic and International Studies. They both join me here in the studio live. We're going to continue to watch the pictures of what's going on. Bulent, I want to start with you. One of the things that's so interesting about these protests is they've been horrible for a Turkish economy that has really had a lot to crow about in the last decade, even if protesters take issue with how Prime Minister Erdogan has governed. He has been -- his reign has been good for the economy of Turkey. The per capita gross national income and the GDP have tripled over the past decade. But since these protests began, the Turkish lira has dropped to an 18- month low, and the Istanbul stock market dropped 11 percent. How much of the repression we're seeing from the police here is because leaders are worried about the Turkish economy, do you think?</s>BULENT ALIRIZA, DIRECTOR, TURKEY PROJECT AT CSIS: Actually, the stock market feel more than that.</s>TAPPER: More than 11 percent, ok.</s>ALIRIZA: It fell down from a high of 93,000 to 75,00, which I think is close to almost 18, 19 percent. This government came into power in 2002 after massive financial crisis, which basically undercut the previous government. And he came in with a very investment-friendly attitude. And it's been averaging a growth of over five percent. But the kind of images that we're seeing are bound to scare off investors, and Turkey is a great country of great potential. This country has done very well. But the kind of situation what we now have where the government is perceived to be at war with rioters right in the middle of Istanbul cannot be good for the kind of investment future that Turkey had in mind.</s>TAPPER: And David, where does Prime Minister Erdogan go from here? These protests are, as was just said, horrible for the image of Turkey.</s>DAVID ROTHKOPF, CEO & EDITOR-AT-LARGE, FOREIGN POLICY MAGAZINE: Well, I think there are several factors at work here which he's got to worry about. One of them is the protests. He's going to try to stop them in the near term, but underlying them are political divisions within the country. Christiane was talking about it earlier. He's been in power for a while, and it's likely to continue to fragment a bit just as time goes by. Secondly, if these do shake people's confidence in the economy and the economy gets worse, that's likely to drive more protests. Remember in Tahrir Square in Libya as well and Tunisia, the Arab Spring had its birth in economic crises and job crises. One place in Turkey you see the job crises and the economic crises the worst is in southern Turkey, where the spillover from the Syria conflict is pushing refugees into the region, is making the place less safe. There's shelling going on in the region. And that's going to get worse. And right now, you look at Syria and you think this crisis could go on for years and years. If it goes on for years and confidence in the south grows lower, if Erdogan continues to get pressured for his support of the rebels in Syria, you could see a gradual decline, growing pressure on him and events like the one we're seeing here more frequent going forward.</s>TAPPER: We're going to take a quick break. We're going to keep you both here to continue to weigh in and explain what exactly we're watching in Istanbul when we come back from our breaking news coverage of violent protests and clashes with police in Istanbul, Turkey.