The BBC expressed concerns on Monday about what it called a campaign launched by Turkish authorities to "intimidate its journalists" as government officials have lashed international media outlets for their coverage of the unrest that rocked the country.

  A Turkish flag flutters near the monument of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk at Taksim Square in Istanbul June 24, 2013.

"The BBC is very concerned by the continued campaign of the Turkish authorities to discredit the BBC and intimidate its journalists," Global News Director Peter Horrocks said in a statement.

"A large number of threatening messages have been sent to one of our reporters, who was named and attacked on social media by the Mayor of Ankara for her coverage of the current protests," he said.

Ankara Mayor Melih Gokcek started a campaign via Twitter on Sunday against BBC Turkish correspondent Selin Girit, accusing the journalist of acting as a spy for the UK.

The BBC said all of its journalists are committed to providing impartial and independent journalism and deemed "unacceptable" its journalists being directly targeted.

"There are established procedures for making comments and complaints about BBC output and we call on the Turkish authorities to use these proper channels," it said.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has repeatedly blamed international media for wrongly portraying several weeks of protests that were sparked by a local ecological campaign to save an Istanbul park and quickly snowballed into nationwide demonstrations against the government.

Erdogan has branded the turmoil which left four people dead and nearly 8,000 injured as a plot "hatched by traitors and their foreign accomplices."

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