Occupy Gezi - bråk mellan demonstranter och polis i Istanbul

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyib Erdogan said that the demonstrations in Turkey in which thousands of Turkish people took to the streets in protest against his government are motivated by an internal and external conspiracy.

In a press conference held on Tuesday in Istanbul, Erdogan said that the protests are organized by radical groups, adding that there is internal and external conspiracy behind these demonstrations.

ANKARA (Reuters) - If you are looking for one sure way to split public opinion in Turkey, just bring up the word alcohol.

That is what Turkey's often divisive prime minister did late on Friday when he pronounced that the national drink was not beer, nor the aniseed spirit raki - choice tipple of Turkey's founding father - but the non-alcoholic yoghurt drink ayran.

Given the setting of his speech - a symposium on global alcohol policy in Istanbul - Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's comments appeared far from controversial, but so sensitive is the topic that the mere mention of it by the pious leader, known for his dislike of alcohol, has Turkey's secularists up in arms.

During the single-party rule of the Turkish Republic's early years by what is now the country's main - and staunchly secularist - opposition party, state promotion of alcohol amounted to propaganda, Erdogan said.

"Beer was unfortunately presented as a national drink. However, our national drink is ayran," he said, referring to the staple lunchtime refreshment of yoghurt, water and salt, usually swilled down with a meaty kebab.

"There is no way you can defend as a lifestyle the consumption of alcohol which has no benefit to society, but on the contrary inflicts harm," Erdogan continued.

“For days, there has been propaganda inside the country and abroad saying, ‘Alcohol is banned in Turkey.’ Before everything else, whoever says, writes and reports this, whoever spreads this inside the country and abroad is a liar, to say the least. We haven’t banned anything,” Erdoğan said in a speech delivered at a meeting of his ruling Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) parliamentary group May 28.

“Nobody should turn alcohol into an identity issue. The regulation adopted [by the Parliament] is not an intervention into anybody’s identity, ideology and lifestyle. Those who perceive this as such are mistaken. Those who say this have ulterior motives,” Erdoğan said.

“If you are going to drink [alcohol], then drink your alcohol in your house,” he said, noting that the criteria for the consumption of alcohol in the public sphere were set. “If you will drink, drink. We are not against this. But we are not allowing this in certain places and at certain hours – and within 100 meters of mosques and schools,” he said.