Since soon after the conflict began in 2011, Turkey has always been fiercely opposed to Damascus. Now opposition elements of al-Qaeda across the border may be another reason to act.
Source: RADIKAL
Radikal (“Radical”) is an influential daily based in Istanbul and owned by Aydin Dogan. Founded in 1997, it stands out amongst other newspapers in Turkey for its arts and culture coverage, as well as its essays and op-ed pieces.
Seven years after the assassination of Turkish-Armenian editor Hrant Dink, silence remains on the crime of incitement to murder – just like last century’s Armenian Genocide.
Ceyda Sungur became the symbol of the Gezi Park protests that shook Turkey because of photograph of a police officer spraying her with gas. That officer now has an unlikely defender.
ISTANBUL — Racism and discrimination have become a constant in Turkey’s top soccer league. The latest reminder are tweets from Umit Cinarli’s, a leading referee from the Turkish Football Federation (TFF), on the second anniversary of the Uludere Massacre where Turkish fighter jet bombs killed 34 Kurdish smugglers: “Happy second anniversary of the Uludere incident. […]
Over the past two weeks, an alleged corruption scandal has engulfed Turkey. Follow the rapidly changed events in these hectic days as Prime Minister Erdogan fights for his political life.
WASHINGTON — Turkey’s Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has arrived for a two-day visit to Washington at a moment in U.S.-Turkish relations that can largely be gauged by decisions related to other countries. Davutoglu will meet top U.S. officials, including his American counterpart Secretary of State John Kerry, who will have high on the list of […]
Syria is an apocalypse: dozens of disparate armed groups clash, alliances change weekly, the death toll has reached 100,000, and some two million Syrians have fled the country. Meanwhile, all sides are trying to gain an edge before the second round of Geneva talks to be held next month. Indeed, a recent increase in the […]
ISTANBUL — The battle over gay rights in Turkey is now centered around a smartphone app. A Turkish court has banned the application Grindr, which gives gay men a way to meet and share information, on grounds of obscenity and misuse of personal information. The ban went into effect last month after the 14th Anatolia […]
ISTANBUL — The Republican era of Turkey began with the rejection of the Ottoman past by those destined to fill the ranks of the civilian and military cadres under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. This new establishment was keen on modernization and Westernization, with the ultimate goal of creating a modern nation-state from the […]
Ankara had bet on Islamist rebels taking down the Assad regime. Now they may have helped create a monster right across the border.
ISTANBUL — A series of reports shows a growing number of recruitment campaigns to sign up young Turkish people to fight in the Syrian war — on all sides. The youth, generally ranging in age from 18 to 30, are mostly from the Adiyaman province in southeastern Turkey, though others come from a number of […]
The conflict in Syria has reshuffled the deck for Kurds across the region, from Turkey to Iraq. A recent mass exodus from Syria is just one sympton of a deeper problem.
Two weeks ahead of the naming of the 2020 Olympics location, as officials in Istanbul, Madrid and Tokyo do last-minute bidding, protests rise in each city against the effects of hosting the Games.
The problem all along, this Turkish writer argues, has been the Egyptian Army. And its takedown of the Muslim Brotherhood will only breed extremist terrorists.
A recent investigation of unsolved political murders and forcibly evacuated villages in southeastern Turkey cites JITEM, a clandestine intel unit linked to the Turkish military.
ISTANBUL – On the eve of the traditional Kirkpinar oil wrestling competition, to be held in its 652nd year in the Edirne province in western Turkey, attention was turning to the “pehlivans,” as the wrestlers are called. The pehlivans hailing from Istanbul have arrived in Edirne for the July 5-7 competition, but the contingent from […]
ISTANBUL – If Turkey’s nationalist left tend to blame everything on imperialism, the country’s nationalist right has a tradition of pointing fingers at lobbies and vested interests trying to block Turkey’s progress. That same old tune can be heard today, as Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan himself has started blaming recent unrest in Turkey on […]
Op-ed ISTANBUL – If I were inclined, I could wax all day about the new National Intelligence Agency law. I could opine, for example, that “Even George Orwell could not dream of an intelligence agency that would keep the urine samples of its people.” But that’s for another day. I could also explain how the […]
ISTANBUL – For days now, people from every social circle are in the streets of cities across Turkey protesting the government’s plans to bulldoze Taksim Gezi Park. Among those I have observed are Kemalist nationalists, conservatives, anti-capitalist Muslims, Peace and Democracy party supporters, the Grey Wolves and other ultra-nationalists, homosexuals, transvestites, elderly people, and leftist […]
ISTANBUL – To understand the current stage of Turkey’s so-called “Kurdish problem,” rather than political analysis we are better off relying on the fundamentals of chemistry: The law of conservation of mass tells us that “nothing can be created out of nothing, and nothing can ever be completely destroyed.” Therefore, promoting the concept that “there […]
The Turkish Prime Minister complains about the “pots and pans” unearthed by archeologists in Istanbul delaying the construction of the tunnel project under the Bosphorus. A closer look.
ISTANBUL – Earlier this month, a Turkish court sentenced world-famous pianist Fazil Say to a ten-month suspended jail sentence for “insulting religious values.” Say, 43, had tweeted the following verse from 11th century poet Omar Khayyam: “You say that the rivers flow with wine, is Heaven a tavern? You say that you will give every […]
By allowing a Greek elementary school to be opened the for first time in 49 years on Gökçeada — formerly Imbros — Turkey has raised hope among a nearly vanished Greek community.
After jailed rebel leader Ocalan’s call for Kurds to lay down their arms, a closer inspection of his words show real signs of hope to end three decades of bloodshed.
New rules on school uniforms in Turkey will now allow young girls to wear headscarves while attending religious vocational schools. The move comes as a part of a new regulation that will no longer force children in state schools to wear secular school uniforms. Children will be able to wear their own choice of clothes, […]
ISTANBUL – Members of the Pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) have joined more than 700 Turkish citizens on the 60th day of a hunger strike aimed at drawing attention to the imprisonment of Kurds linked to an alleged terrorist organization. Some 65 prisoners linked to the Union of Kurdistan Communities (KCK), which Turkey, the […]
ISTANBUL – As children in Istanbul packed their bags this week to start a new school year, protests broke out against the controversial “4+4+4” education reform, recently implemented by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). Large crowds gathered outside the Istanbul imam hatip religious schools on Fatih Street to protest the new education system […]
US spy chief Patraeus makes low-profile visits to Ankara and Jerusalem, aiming to repair damage between two key U.S. allies.