Another U.S. visit for Erdogan ends in a punch-up

A brawl broke out at a rally for President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in New York Thursday, the second time in recent months that an appearance by the Turkish autocrat has sparked violence on U.S. soil.

Videos from the event show a protester repeatedly punched in the face as he was removed from a meeting hall.

Erdoğan was addressing supporters from the Turkish American National Steering Committee at the Marriott Marquis hotel in Times Square, when a protester stood on his chair and yelled in English: “You’re a terrorist. Get out of my country!”

One video shows a suited man approach the protester from behind and push him off his chair, before other men in suits surround him and jostle him out.

Another clip shows the protester – who wore a T-shirt of an American killed in a Turkish airstrike while fighting with Kurdish militia in Syria – being repeatedly punched and swung at by other men, some of them in suits, as he is hustled out of the hall.

Erdoğan’s security detail has previously been involved in clashes with protesters while in the U.S., but American officials said Turkish bodyguards were not behind Friday’s incident.

Read: Erdoğan’s security guards brawled with protesters during Turkish president’s U.S. visit

Citing local law enforcement, a State Department spokesperson said it appeared “at this time” Turkish security officials were not involved. The New York Times cited an unnamed police official who said the violence appeared to have been instigated by competing protesters, not the security detail.

The New York Police Department said about five protesters were “briefly detained,” but no arrests were made or injuries reported.

Erdoğan’s bodyguards have a track record of violence in the U.S. that extends back to 2011, when they were involved in a fight outside the United Nations headquarters in New York. One man was hospitalized.

In March 2016, as Erdoğan was giving a speech at D.C. think tank the Brookings Institution, his bodyguards clashed with demonstrators when they tried to enter the building.

Most spectacularly, his bodyguards were involved in a violent daylight brawl with pro-Kurdish protesters during the Turkish leader’s visit to the capital in May.

Read: Erdoğan is mad his guards face arrest for attacking protesters in D.C.

Footage of the sprawling altercation, which showed one suited man kicking a protester in the face, and another aiming a kick at a woman lying on the ground, swiftly went viral, as did another clip showing Erdogan watching the melee from the embassy driveway.

The incident, which saw nine people hospitalized, drew furious condemnation in the U.S., and prompted two U.S. senators to write to Erdogan expressing their grave concern.

A grand jury in Washington eventually indicted 15 Turkish security officials on assault charges in August over the violence.

In an interview with PBS Tuesday, Erdoğan said U.S. President Donald Trump had apologized to him for the charges filed against his bodyguards. But on Wednesday, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders refuted Erdoğan’s claim, saying the leaders had discussed the incident, but there had been “no apology.”

Trump praised Erdoğan when the pair met prior to the Turkish leader’s rally Thursday. “We have a great friendship as countries,” Trump told reporters. “I think we’re, right now, as close as we have ever been. And a lot of that has to do with the personal relationship.”