Turkish press changes tune

Condolences from the Turkish community in Leeds

The Turkish press, which on Thursday was blaming British hooligans for the violence in which two Leeds United fans died, had by Friday begun to bemoan the damage done to Turkey's reputation.

Commentators said the behaviour of the British fans was no excuse for what had happened, and that it was vital to prevent such things from happening again.

"The extreme acts of these drunken hooligans ... and their ugly behaviour towards the Turkish flag should not be seen as an excuse," wrote Mehmet Yilmaz in the liberal paper Radikal - referring to reports that British fans insulted the Turkish flag.

Rather, Mr Yilmaz said, it was important to tackle the causes of violence in Turkey generally.

Hospitality

Our main concern is our own behaviour, our conduct towards people visiting us

Hurriyet

"We need to find out the social causes that stir the hysteria of violence which is spreading in our society," he wrote.

He also criticised the police for failing to take adequate precautions to forestall trouble.

A commentator for the mass-circulation daily, Hurriyet, said that although the behaviour of the British fans had been regrettable, the main issue for Turkey was that the incident had given Turkish hospitality a bad name.

"Our main concern is our own behaviour, our conduct towards people visiting us ... Tolerance for guests is a basic concept of our culture," Oktay Eksi wrote.

Shame

"Pulling knives" was not the right way to go about giving a good impression of Turkey to outsiders, he added.

Police: Inadequate precautions

However, he questioned how a nation such as England, which put such a premium on the idea of "the gentleman", could also produce "this special type of troublemaker".

Another mass circulation daily, Sabah, called on the government to take the lead in acknowledging Turkey's responsibility for the killings, so as to "wipe away the stain" on the country's reputation.

"We need leaders like Margaret Thatcher, who appeared on television after English hooligans stained sports fields with blood and said bravely, 'I am ashamed to be prime minister of such a country'," it said.

The sports daily, Fanatik, said it was good that the clashes between fans had not spread to the match itself.

"It is also fortunate that the referee was not prejudiced by the incident," the commentator Dogan Babacan wrote.

BBC Monitoring (http://www.monitor.bbc.co.uk), based in Caversham in southern England, selects and translates information from radio, television, press, news agencies and the Internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages.