Turkey has said it may bring in the army to help end nearly three weeks of nationwide anti-government protests.
The warning came as two major union federations went on strike on Monday over police violence against demonstrators.
The government raised the threat of putting soldiers on the streets after a weekend of violent clashes prompted by the eviction of campers occupying Istanbul's Gezi Park, the epicentre of the protest movement.
Police "will use all their powers" to end the unrest, Bulent Arinc, deputy prime minister, said in a televised interview."If this is not enough, we can even utilise the Turkish armed forces in cities."
The deployment of the military, the self-described guardian of the secular state, would mark an escalation of a crisis posing the biggest challenge yet to Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Islamic-rooted government.
But after losing their focal protest site, with Gezi Park and the adjoining Taksim Square still guarded by police on Monday, the demonstrations appeared to lose some of their intensity.
The more subdued mood was in stark contrast to the weekend, when riot police fired volleys of tear gas and jets of water in hours-long running battles with thousands of protesters.
Groups of hundreds of striking workers from the KESK and DISK union federations took to the streets in Istanbul, Ankara and the western city of Izmir calling for the police violence against protesters to end immediately and chanting "Erdogan, resign!".
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