Category Archives: Turkey

Saudi aide accused of directing Khashoggi murder edges back to power

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Saud al-Qahtani, aide to Mohammed bin Salman, hailed as patriot on pro-government social media

Three years after the assassination of Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi royal court adviser accused of directing the murder is being quietly reintroduced by pro-government influencers as a patriotic figure who has served his country well.

Social media accounts that back the Saudi leadership have in recent months been posting tributes to Saud al-Qahtani, a chief aide to crown prince and Saudi Arabia’s effective leader, Mohammed bin Salman, in a move that is seen as marking his gradual return to the seat of Saudi power. Qahtani vanished from public view in the aftermath of the gruesome killing in Istanbul that shocked the world and almost derailed his boss’s path to the throne.

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Erdoğan and Putin hold face-to-face talks over Syria ceasefire

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Turkey’s president wants to shore up the truce because it has been ruptured repeatedly in the last 18 months

Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Russian president Vladimir Putin have held face-to-face talks for the first time since the pandemic in which they discussed the future of the last pocket of Syria outside regime control.

The leaders met in Russia’s Black Sea resort town of Sochi for Wednesday’s summit, Erdoğan sought to shore up a March 2020 ceasefire deal which ended a bruising assault by Bashar al-Assad and his Russian allies on Turkish-backed fighters in north-west Syria. The fighting last year brought Ankara and Moscow close to direct confrontation and threatened Turkey – which is already home to around four million Syrians – with a new wave of refugees.

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Afghanistan’s neighbours offered millions in aid to harbour refugees

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Bordering states such as Pakistan urged to temporarily take in Afghans bound for Europe and the US

Countries neighbouring Afghanistan have been offered millions in aid if they are prepared to temporarily harbour tens of thousands of refugees, prior to security checks clearing them for transit to Europe and the US, but Pakistan and other bordering states have warned they will not take more refugees permanently.

Iran could see a large influx of refugees – mainly Hazara Shias – reaching the country overland. Refugee specialists inside Iran have suggested as many as 7,000 people were crossing the border illegally a day, with no serious control over the entire 980km (608-mile) border, and very little international aid.

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International talks aim for consensus on Taliban government

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Western G7 powers are meeting Turkey, Qatar and Nato in Doha to discuss how Kabul airport could be reopened

Talks are due in Doha and New York to try to reach an international consensus on the conditions for recognising the Taliban government in Afghanistan. There are signs of tensions between superpowers after Russia called on the US to release Afghan central bank reserves that Washington blocked after the Taliban’s takeover of Kabul earlier this month.

“If our western colleagues are actually worried about the fate of the Afghan people, then we must not create additional problems for them by freezing gold and foreign exchange reserves,” said the Kremlin’s envoy to Afghanistan, Zamir Kabulov.

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Cyprus: row erupts as passports of Turkish Cypriot officials rescinded

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Head of Turkish-controlled north, Ersin Tatar, calls move by Greek Cypriot government ‘racist’ and ‘anachronistic’

A war of words has erupted on Cyprus as the divided island’s two ethnic communities exchange barbs over the decision by the Greek Cypriot government to rescind the passports of senior Turkish Cypriot officials.

Ersin Tatar, who heads the Turkish-controlled north and is among those affected, described the policy as “an assault” on attempts to find a solution to the country’s partition. Previously he had called the move “racist” and “anachronistic”.

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Greece will not be ‘gateway’ to Europe for Afghans fleeing Taliban, say officials

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Athens calls for a united response, as refugees already in Lesbos hope their asylum claims will now be reconsidered

Greek officials have said that Greece will not become a “gateway” to Europe for Afghan asylum seekers and have called for a united response to predictions of an increase in refugee arrivals to the country.

Greece’s prime minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, has spoken to Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, about the developing situation in Afghanistan this week. Greek migration minister Notis Mitarachi last week said: “We cannot have millions of people leaving Afghanistan and coming to the European Union … and certainly not through Greece.” The country has just completed a 25-mile (40km) wall along its land border with Turkey and installed an automated surveillance system with cameras, radars and drones.

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Flooding death toll passes 57 in Turkey’s Black Sea region

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People thought to be trapped in collapsed buildings in Bozkurt as rescuers search for survivors

Families of those missing after Turkey’s worst floods in years anxiously watched rescue teams search buildings on Saturday, fearing the death toll from the raging torrents could rise further.

At least 57 people have died from the floods in the northern Black Sea region, the second natural disaster to strike the country this month.

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Turkey flooding death toll reaches 38 as Erdoğan tours disaster zone

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Rescuers sift through rubble for victims and survivors as country reels from floods and wildfires

The death toll from Turkey’s flash floods has risen to 38 as emergency crews searched for more victims and survivors in the devastated Black Sea region just as the country was gaining control over hundreds of wildfires.

The health minister, Fahrettin Koca, announced on Twitter late on Friday that 32 people died in Kastamonu province, along the Black Sea, and six in the neighbouring area of Sinop. The toll was also reported by the government’s disaster agency AFAD.

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Turkey flood deaths rise as fresh fires erupt on Greek island of Evia

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Twenty-seven killed in Turkish flash flooding, with southern Europe bracing for more extreme weather

The death toll from flash floods in Turkey has reached 27 and fresh wildfires erupted on the ravaged Greek island of Evia, as southern Europe braces for more extreme weather events caused by human-made climate change.

Record Mediterranean heatwaves fuelled blazes that have devastated parts of Italy, Turkey and Algeria, with Spain and Portugal on high alert, while Turkey’s Black Sea region has been hit by some of the worst floods in living memory.

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Drone footage shows devastation following floods in Turkey – video

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Heavy rains have triggered severe floods and mudslides in northern Turkey, killing at least one person and leaving others missing or injured. Turkey has been grappling with drought and a rapid succession of natural disasters that scientists believe are becoming more frequent and violent because of the climate crisis. The floods hit the Black Sea coastal provinces of Bartin, Kastamonu, Sinop and Samsun

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Turkey floods kill 17 as country battles fresh disaster

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Heavy rains and mudslides in northern regions come after devastating wildfires ravaged the south of the country

Heavy rains have triggered severe floods and mudslides in northern Turkey, killing at least 17 people and forcing thousands to leave their homes and shelter in student dormitories.

Rescue efforts continued on Thursday after torrential rain hit the Black Sea coastal provinces of Bartin, Kastamonu, Sinop and Samsun.

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Drone footage shows devastating aftermath of wildfires – video

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Devastating wildfires have ravaged large areas in southern Europe as the region endures its most extreme heatwave in three decades. Several people have died in Greece, Turkey and Italy, with many more injured. Huge fires also have been burning across Peru as well as northern Russia, with smoke from forest fires in Siberia reaching the north pole

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Thousands flee Greek island as wildfires raze forest and homes

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Firefighters tackle blazes on two fronts on Evia as heatwave-driven devastation across southern Europe continues

Thousands of people have fled wildfires that are destroying vast swathes of pine forest and razing homes on Greece’s second-largest island, Evia, as devastating summer blazes rage from southern Europe to Siberia.

“We have ahead of us another difficult evening, another difficult night,” Greece’s deputy civil protection minister, Nikos Hardalias, said on Sunday, adding that nearly a week after the blazes started, strong winds were driving two major fire fronts in the north and south of the island.

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Eight dead as wildfires continue to rage across southern Europe

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Deaths occur in Turkey with Italy and Greece also badly hit and thousands evacuated

Eight people have died and thousands have been evacuated from their homes as extreme wildfires continue to rage in parts of southern Europe.

Related: The photo that has come to define Turkey’s wildfires

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The photo that has come to define Turkey’s wildfires

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Image of boy watching firefighting plane in smoke-filled skies has been shared widely on Turkish social media

A little boy ready for a swim stops on the edge of the clear water, his gaze distracted by a firefighting plane flying low through a rust-red sky. For many, the photo – apparently taken by a Russian holidaymaker in Antalya last week – has come to symbolise the destruction wreaked by the ferocious wildfires that have consumed Turkey’s Mediterranean coastline over the past eight days.

More than 180 fires have killed eight people, devastated vast swathes of pine forest and agricultural land. On Wednesday fire crept closer to a thermal power plant as international firefighting teams used helicopters and water cannon and dug trenches to slow the spread of the flames.

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Fleeing the Taliban: Afghans met with rising anti-refugee hostility in Turkey

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As violence causes a fresh wave of desperate journeys, populist politicians claim their country has become a ‘dumping ground’

  • Photography by Emre Caylak for the Guardian

It was a journey that had taken weeks, and there were times when the 65-year-old Afghan widow, who walks with the aid of a stick, had to be carried by her son.

Their trek, across 15 canyons she says, left Durdana with badly scarred feet. “I have not had a day of peace in over 40 years. I had to come to Turkey, there was no choice.”

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Turkey appeals for help to fight wildfires as heatwave continues

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Wildfires break out across much of southern Europe, with temperature reaching 45C in Greece

Turkey has launched an international appeal for help in taming fires raging across the country that have killed eight people in recent days, as what has been described as one of the worst heatwaves in decades intensifies in south-east Europe.

Following criticism of the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, after it emerged that Turkey has no firefighting planes, authorities in Istanbul were promised water-dropping planes from the European Union. The country is battling deadly wildfires along its coastline for a sixth day.

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