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DIKEN
Diken is an independent online Turkish news site, founded in 2014. Erdal Güven serves as the editor-in-chief, and the founder is Harun Simavi.
Photo of two young people in Kahramanmarash, Turkey, look for their belongings in the debrish of their homes destroyed by the earthquake.
Society
Altan Sancar

Listening For Voices, Losing Hope: A Turkish Earthquake Diary

After Turkey's devastating earthquakes, rescue workers continue to work in increasingly hopeless circumstances. Turkish news outlet Diken reports from the scene as survivors wait anxiously for news of loved ones. It's rarely good news.

ANTAKYA — Days after the devastating earthquakes in Turkey, and we are in the Antakya District in the province of Hatay in the south of the country, which borders both the Mediterranean and Syria. It’s one of the cities that was hit the hardest.

We have seen a lot of things and heard a lot of things, but there is a different story on Türkmenbaşı Street. There are people from three nationalities under the wreckage of the Maruf Cilli Apartment building: associate professor Betül Balıkçıoğlu; the mother, father, older brother and younger brothers and sisters of Syrian Husam Muaadm; and members of the Cilli Family.

There are a handful of people getting warm by a fire a small distance from the building. Their eyes take in the destruction.

The volunteer rescue crew have heard voices from the wreckage. There is tense expectation in the air mixed with hope. However, the work of the crew is thorough. Picture such a wreckage: the remains of three apartment buildings were merged into each other; people who are searched for in one building are being dug out of the next one; those who are searched on the higher floors are being found at the lower floors. The building is about to collapse.

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Photo of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan consoles families as rescue workers inspect the earthquake-hit areas in Turkey.
Geopolitics
Murat Sevinç

Erdogan Doesn't Have The Power To Delay Turkey's Election

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is facing a tough re-election battle in May made tougher by criticism linked to the devastating earthquake. Rumors are swirling that he might delay the election, even though it's simply not in his Constitutional powers.

-Analysis-

ISTANBUL — The last thing anyone wants to do at a time of grief like the earthquake in Turkey and Syria is to discuss the constitution. Yet in this case, we are left with no choice.

We do not yet know how many people lie under the wreckage. Before the quake, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who wants to extend his rule into a third decade, was facing a tough re-election battle in elections scheduled on May 14. Opinion polls published before the earthquake suggested he could lose because of the Turkish cost of living crisis.

Unnamed Turkey officials from Erdogan's party have said there are "serious difficulties" in holding the elections. The constitution of Turkey gives no such option for delaying elections unless we are at war and the Turkish parliament votes to do so. So it can't happen even in the event of a natural disaster — at least not without altering the constitution at least.

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photo of Erdogan at the earthquake site
Ideas
Dağhan Irak

Making It Political Already? Why Turkey's Earthquake Is Not Just A Natural Disaster

The government in Ankara doesn't want to question the cause of the high death toll in the earthquake that struck along the Turkey-Syria border. But one Turkish writer says it's time to assign responsibility right now.

-OpEd-

ISTANBUL — We have a saying in Turkey: “don’t make it political” and I am having a hard time finding the right words to describe how evil that mindset is. It's as if politics is isolated from society, somehow not connected to how we live and the consequences of choices taken.

Allow me to translate for you the “don’t make it political” saying's real meaning: “we don’t want to be held accountable, hands off.”

It means preventing the public from looking after their interests and preserving the superiority of a certain type of individual, group and social class.

In order to understand the extent of the worst disaster in more than 20 years, we need to look back at that disaster: the İzmit-Düzce earthquakes of 1999.

Because we have before us a regime that does not care about anything but its own interests; has no plan but to save itself in times of danger; does not believe such planning is even necessary (even as it may tinker with the concept in case there is something to gain from it); gets more mafioso as it grows more partisan — and more deadly as it gets more mafioso.

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Photo of Erdogan and Putin walking out of a door
Geopolitics
Aytug Özçolak

It's A Golden Era For Russia-Turkey Relations — Just Look At The Numbers

On the diplomatic and political level, no world leader speaks more regularly with Vladimir Putin than his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. But the growing closeness of Russia and Turkey can also be measured in the economic data. And the 2022 numbers are stunning.

-Analysis-

ISTANBUL — As Russia has become increasingly isolated since the invasion of Ukraine, the virtual pariah state has drawn notably closer to one of its remaining partners: Turkey.

Ankara has committed billions of dollars to buy the Russian S-400 surface-to-air missile system, and contracted to Russia to build Turkey's first nuclear power plant. The countries’ foreign policies are also becoming increasingly aligned.

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But the depth of this relationship goes much further. Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan speaks to Russian President Vladimir Putin more than any other leader: 16 times in 2022, and 11 times in 2021. Erdoğan has visited Russia 14 times since 2016, compared to his 10 visits to the U.S. in the same time period (half of which were in 2016 and 2017).

But no less important is the way the two countries are increasingly tied together by commerce.

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Photo of Muslims performing Friday prayer in the garden of Suleymaniye Mosque, Istanbul.
Society
Canan Coşkun

Tour Of Istanbul's Ancient Yedikule Gardens, At Risk With Urban Restoration

The six-hectare gardens in the center of Istanbul, which are more than 1,500 years old, have helped feed the city's residents over the centuries and are connected with its religious history. But current city management has a restoration project that could disrupt a unique urban ecosystem.

ISTANBUL — The historic urban gardens of Yedikule in Istanbul are at risk of destruction once again. After damage in 2013 caused by the neighborhood municipality of Fatih, the gardens are now facing further disruption and possible damage as the greater Istanbul municipality plans more "restoration" work.

The six-hectare gardens are more than 1,500 years old, dating back to the city's Byzantine era. They were first farmed by Greeks and Albanians, then people from the northern city of Kastamonu, near the Black Sea. Now, a wide variety of seasonal produce grows in the garden, including herbs, varieties of lettuce and other greens, red turnip, green onion, cabbage, cauliflower, tomato, pepper, corn, mulberry, fig and pomegranate.

Yedikule is unique among urban gardens around the world, says Cemal Kafadar, a historian and professor of Turkish Studies at Harvard University.

“There are (urban gardens) that are older than Istanbul gardens, such as those in Rome, but there is no other that has maintained continuity all this time with its techniques and specific craft," Kafadar says. "What makes Yedikule unique is that it still provides crops. You might have eaten (from these gardens) with or without knowing about it."

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