ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Police stormed the offices of Turkey’s main opposition CHP party on Sunday, firing tear gas and rubber bullets at a crowd of party supporters and officials gathered outside the gates.

It was a violent end to a standoff that had been going on for several hours between members of the Republican Peoples’ Party, or CHP, and its new court-appointed leadership.

Footage taken by local media in the courtyard and inside the building shows huge clouds of tear gas with riot police storming through the premises, before journalists were removed by the police. Correspondents who had been in the building during the raid reported that doors and furniture were destroyed.

Tension had been rising since Thursday, when an appeals court nullified Ozgur Ozel’s November 2023 election as party chairperson, suspending him and members of the party’s executive board.

The ruling said he should be replaced by Kemal Kilicdaroglu, his predecessor, who led the party for 13 years but never won any national elections.

Meanwhile, Ozel, in his first and only election as party leader, delivered a decisive blow to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party in the 2024 municipal polls.

The........

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