Student throws shoe at IMF chief in Istanbul protest

Security guards dragged the student away after he threw a white sports shoe and rushed towards the stage. The shoe landed at the feet of Strauss-Kahn.

"Get out of the university, thief IMF," he shouted during Strauss-Kahn's speech at Istanbul's Bilgi University. A female student tried to unfurl a protest banner.

Strauss-Kahn shrugged off the incident.

"It is important for us to have an open debate. I was glad to meet students and hear their views. This is what the IMF needs to do, even if not everyone agrees with us, one thing I learned, Turkish students are polite. They waited until the end to complain," he said in a statement.

The incident echoed that of an Iraqi journalist who hurled his shoes, a grave insult in the Muslim world, at then U.S. President George W. Bush last December.

Turkey is hosting the IMF and World Bank annual meetings in Istanbul, which begin on Saturday with meeting of Group of Seven finance ministers.

Up to 30 students started chanting slogans against the IMF and Turkey's AK Party government, such as "collaborators AKP." Police detained some of the protesters at Bilgi University.

"He (Strauss-Kahn) is the representative of global capitalism. I tried to raise my views by protesting against him at a time education and health services here have been privatised," student Emre Avci, a member of the Turkish communist party, who was among the protesters, told Reuters.

There is significant opposition among Turkish students to the IMF, which has been involved in protracted talks with Ankara on a major loan agreement.

Security has been stepped up across Turkey's largest city.

(Writing by Daren Butler; Editing by Janet Lawrence)