Worldcrunch
PESHAWAR MOSQUE ATTACKEDAt least 22 worshipers were killed and 60 injured after gunmen attacked a Shia mosque in Peshawar, Pakistan, during Friday prayers. Three gunmen reportedly opened fire on worshipers after three explosions were heard inside the building. The BBC quotes officials as saying that one militant blew himself up, one was arrested and another […]
The increasingly authoritative stances of Presidents Vladimir Putin and Recep Erdogan are only isolating them inside their own countries and on the global stage.
ISTANBUL — Instead of discussing the Paris massacres and the ties between Islam and terrorism, Turkey has instead been focused on “Islamophobia.” Someone not following the news could mistakenly believe, based on the debate here, that there had been a violent attack against Muslims in France instead of a jihadist terrorist attack against journalists, Jews […]
The rising battle between the forces of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and exiled imam Fethullah Gulen is a high-stakes power struggle. But some in Turkey want no part of it.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan sees enemies everywhere: Assad, Kurds, but not the murderous Islamist radical group just across the border in Syria.
Complaints about Ankara’s inaction have come from the West and Kurds. But Turkey’s regional ambitions may very well push it into Syria to crush ISIS. The risk could be huge.
On the Turkish border, at a refugee camp where Kurds from the Syrian town of Kobani are taking refuge, the displaced wonder why Turkey and the West aren’t arming them against ISIS.
While Erdogan rises to the presidency, his ally and foreign minister Davutoglu is set to be the new Turkish prime minister. His intellectual gifts are matched only by his political failures.
The news, quantified.
ANKARA — Turkish foreign policy is having a serious identity crisis. The Turkey that had largely achieved an equilibrium in its relations with the West and the East, a shining star in the international arena between 2003 and 2010, unfortunately no longer exists. The high morale and sense of moral superiority of being a country […]
Sure to be the leading candidate in August’s first-ever direct election of Turkey’s president, the current prime minister is touring Europe to woo Turks living abroad. Not all are convinced.
The main opposition parties have chosen Edmeleddin Ihsanoglu to run against Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the Aug. 10 presidential election. A summer campaign is about to heat up.
Much has changed, but some has not, in the complicated relationship between Israel and Turkey.
-OpEd- BERLIN — There’s a cold civil war in Turkey. An event like the mining catastrophe and its 301 victims could have united the deeply split country, emotionally. But not even the grief of so many Turks could bring supporters and opponents of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan together. Turkey is split into at least […]
More than 300 dead in last week’s mining disaster in Soma, rage from the people, and utter insensitivity from an Erdogan government interested only in its own fate.
Turkey’s current prime minister has big plans, both for himself and the very way his country is governed.
The current President of the Republic mulls whether to stand against his old ally Prime Minister Erdogan in upcoming direct presidential elections. Turkey’s political future is at stake.
Turkey’s Prime Minister warns his enemies, Condi Rice warns her friends, Rob Ford rides again, and other notable quotes in the news.
ROME — A prominent Turkish journalist said she has been fired as payback for her Italian husband’s recent interview in La Repubblica with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s arch nemesis, Fethullah Gülen. In an interview published Thursday in La Repubblica, where her Italian husband Marco Ansaldo is a veteran correspondent, Yasemin Taskin confirmed that she […]
ISTANBUL — The current state of Turkey offers little cause for comfort. • The claims of corruption and theft multiply with each passing day. • Those same claims are about to be swept under the rug. • The judiciary is effectively finished. • Limitation of basic freedoms is on the rise. • Authoritarianism is alive […]
-OpEd- ISTANBUL — The saying goes that if the word “but” is featured in a sentence, nothing that comes before it should be taken seriously. Whether this is always true, I don’t really know, but what happened after Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan targeted Twitter at a political rally in Bursa reminds me of this […]
-Opinion- ISTANBUL — On one hand, there is an investigation of an imaginary terrorist organization and the claim of a wiretapping list that includes some 7,000 people. On the other, there is the recording of a telephone conversation that has been spreading on YouTube, allegedly between Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his son. The […]
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.
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.
The unfolding scandal of alleged bribery by people close to the ruling AKP party looked set to reach Bilal Erdogan, but the investigating magistrate was removed from the case.
A widening corruption probe has been consuming Turkey in recent days. Figures close to the leading Justice and Development Party (AKP), including sons of cabinet members, are facing serious allegations of bribery and money laundering. The government is denying all accusations and claims the charges are part of a conspiracy with roots both foreign and […]
Tuesday, November 25, 2014 FERGUSON BURNS AFTER GRAND JURY DECISIONViolent rioting and looting erupted in Ferguson, Missouri, after a grand jury decided last night not to indict police officer Darren Wilson, who shot black teenager Michael Brown Aug. 9. St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar described the night’s events as “probably much worse than […]
-Op-Ed- ISTANBUL — Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the following to parliamentary representatives at his party’s gathering last week at Kizilcahamam: “A university student girl is staying at the same house with a male student. There is no supervision for that. This is against our conservative democratic nature. Some kind of supervision must […]
REUTERS, AFP, BBC Worldcrunch ANKARA — Militants from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) announced in a statement Monday that they are halting their withdrawal from Turkey, citing the Turkish government’s failure to keep its part of the peace deal, Reuters reports. The militants said their decision did not affect the ceasefire it announced in March. […]
–Analysis– Over this past weekend one of my Economist-devouring, Washington Post-reading, New York Times-gobbling buddies who does not work in the field of foreign affairs asked me, “Hey, what’s up with Erdogan and the Turks?” I’ve been asked this question so many times this summer by so many people that I’ve lost count. It’s been […]
Monday, August 11, 2014 IRAQ SINKS DEEPER INTO CRISISThe United States is providing weapons to Kurdish Peshmerga fighters in Iraq as they battle Islamic State (IS) terrorists who are slaughtering civilian minorities, the AP reports. The Obama administration had previously said it would only sell arms to the Iraqi government, but that policy has changed. […]
Friday, July 18, 2014 RUSSIA, UKRAINE TRADE BLAME OVER MH17 DISASTER Moscow and Kiev are accusing each other of being responsible for the crash of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 yesterday in eastern Ukraine, with 298 people on board, most of them Dutch. All sides agree on the fact that the aircraft was hit by a […]
–OpEd– There are many similarities between the protests around Gezi Park in Turkey and those of the Free Pass Movement in Brazil. In both cases, initial demonstrations were small with specific objectives: to save the park and to obtain free public transport, respectively. And discontent in both countries reached a critical mass amid widespread perception […]
ISTANBUL – An electronic version of a Strauss waltz suddenly starts to play. In the small fountain in the center of the mall, some trickles of water start to sprinkle up, with blue and green spotlights illuminating the scene. All in rhythm. Everybody freezes at the moment the spectacle begins: a group of men seated […]
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 […]
Protests against the construction plans to pave over Istanbul’s Gezi park have exploded into a national standoff. If the project goes to a popular referendum, what will really be at stake?
BERLIN – At the end of Oranienstrasse in the Berlin borough of Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg, Gürkan runs a tailor shop. The 41-year-old conservative Muslim, of Turkish origins, is all for Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan“s taking a hard-line stance against demonstrators in Turkey, who began their protests over development plans in central Istanbul’s Gezi park. “He has […]
ISTANBUL – Dozens, maybe hundreds of articles saying more or less the same thing have been published by the Turkish media: “The Prime Minister doesn’t understand the street…” This sentence (and the sentiment) continues as such: If he ever could properly understand it, he would also realize that he is in the wrong and will […]
Though not its original intention, the demonstrations in Turkey are widening the cracks between Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and President Abdullah Gül.