Category Archives: Turkey

Libya arms embargo being systematically violated by UN states

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Jordan, Turkey and UAE singled out for ‘routinely and blatantly’ supplying weapons

UN member states have systematically violated a Libyan arms embargo, according to a long-awaited UN report due to be published on Monday that will identify Jordan, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates as the main culprits.

The report is expected to say these three countries “routinely and sometimes blatantly supplied weapons with little effort to disguise the source”. It is also likely to link the UAE to a bombing of a detention centre that has been described as a war crime.

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How does Nato look at the age of 70? It’s complicated

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Squabbling, a spreading focus and Trump raise doubts about the effectiveness of the alliance

Seventy years after Nato was founded to protect western Europe from Joseph Stalin’s Soviet Union, the military alliance returned this week to its first home in London to discuss an increasingly sprawling set of goals while bickering leaders competed to see who could offer the most contentious soundbite.

Normally this is an arena that would be dominated by Donald Trump, although this time he was somewhat upstaged by Emmanuel Macron, whose pre-summit declaration that the organisation had become “brain dead” obliged Trump to describe his French counterpart’s comments as “very, very nasty”.

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Macron clashes with both Erdoğan and Trump at Nato summit

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French president is rebuked by Trump over Nato criticism after row with Turkey about Kurds

Nato disunity was on full display on the opening day of the alliance’s summit in London as the French president, Emmanuel Macron, accused Turkey of colluding with Islamic State proxies while Donald Trump described Macron’s criticisms of Nato’s “brain death” as insulting and “very, very nasty”.

The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, for his part threatened again to veto Nato’s defence plan for the Baltics unless Nato endorsed its own assessment that Syrian Kurdish fighters on Turkey’s borders were terrorists, a definition that Macron and the Pentagon rejected.

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Macron defends ‘brain-dead Nato’ remarks as summit approaches

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French president says comments ‘a necessary wake-up call’ and criticises Turkey

Emmanuel Macron has said his claim this month that Nato was “brain-dead” was a necessary wake-up call before a summit in London next week at which he will urge members of the alliance to take a greater interest in its southern flank, including the fight against terrorism in the Sahel.

The French president defended his comments in Paris alongside the Nato secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, who had previously warned Macron not to expect that a European defence formation could replace the Nato transatlantic structure.

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Revealed: how UK technology fuelled Turkey’s rise to global drone power

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UK-based manufacturer supplied crucial missile component to Turkish drone-maker during development stage

Turkey was able to circumvent a US export ban on killer drones with the help of a missile component first developed in the UK, allowing Ankara to become an emerging power in the lethal technology, which experts warn is dangerously proliferating.

The vital assistance from a factory in Brighton has helped Turkey on its way to become the second biggest user of armed drones in the world – one of a number of countries emulating methods first used by the US in its “war on terror”.

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‘Call me Robin Hood’: mystery patron pays debts of Istanbul’s poor

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Benefactor pays bills to ‘earn God’s blessing’ after suicides blamed on rising cost of living

Poor neighbourhoods of Istanbul have been visited by an anonymous benefactor paying off debts at grocery stores and leaving envelopes of cash on doorsteps, at a time when desperation at the spiralling cost of living has been blamed for recent suicides.

Residents of Tuzla, a largely working-class shipbuilding district on the Asian side of the city, were overjoyed last week to find their shopping bills in several grocery stores had been cleared by an unknown male benefactor.

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Turkey pressures Australia to accept Islamic State fighters as repatriation push begins

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US reportedly offering to rescue Australian families of Isis fighters trapped in Syria

Australia may be forced to accept three Islamic State fighters in Turkish custody as Ankara begins repatriating foreign fighters to their homelands.

Turkey has so far sent up to 10 fighters back to Britain, the US and Germany, saying it cannot continue to house them, even as the governments have rejected taking their fighters back and have cancelled passports.

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Trump contradicts aides and says troops in Syria ‘only for oil’

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  • President makes remarks as he hosts Recep Tayyip Erdoğan
  • Trump’s own officials say military is fighting Isis

Donald Trump has insisted that the US military presence in Syria is “only for the oil”, contradicting his own officials who have insisted that the remaining forces were there to fight Isis.

Related: Donald Trump says US military presence in Syria 'only for the oil' – live

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Outrage after Turkish journalist re-arrested a week after his release

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Detaining of Ahmet Altan, who denies alleged links to failed coup in 2016, called a ‘disgrace’

Turkish police have rearrested the journalist and novelist Ahmet Altan, just a week after his release from prison over alleged links to the failed 2016 coup.

Altan and another veteran journalist, Nazlı Ilıcak, were released on 4 November despite having been convicted of “helping a terrorist group”.

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DC braces for Erdoğan’s visit 18 months after bodyguards assaulted protesters

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His bodyguards ran riot in the city as they punched and pushed Kurdish protesters and attacked American security officers

Police in Washington DC, the US state department and the Secret Service are girding themselves for the return of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Wednesday, 18 months after the Turkish president’s bodyguards ran riot in the city, assaulting protesters and American security officers.

Newly declassified state department documents provide fresh details of the aggression shown by the Turkish security detail towards their US counterparts both before and after the 2017 attack near the Turkish embassy in north-west Washington. Six officers from the US Secret Service, two from the diplomatic service and one from the Washington police required medical treatment.

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American Isis suspect stuck on border ‘not our problem’, says Erdoğan

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Alleged militant deported as part of Turkey’s drive to expel foreign jihadists in its custody

An alleged American member of Islamic State, stranded for a second day on the border between Greece and Turkey after Turkey expelled him, is “not our problem”, the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has said.

The man, named by the Turkish news agency Demiroren as Muhammed Darwis B, is believed to be a US citizen of Jordanian descent. He was deported on Monday as part of Turkey’s controversial new policy to deport foreign jihadists in its custody.

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British founder of White Helmets found dead in Istanbul

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James Le Mesurier, who set up Syrian rescue group, reportedly found with injuries near home

The British founder of the organisation that trained the Syrian rescue group known as the White Helmets has died in Istanbul.

A spokesman for the White Helmets confirmed on Monday afternoon the death of James Le Mesurier and said further details were yet to be established.

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US will keep 500 or 600 troops in Syria to counter Isis, chief says

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  • Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff gives Veterans Day interview
  • Turkish president Erdoğan due at White House this week

About 500 or 600 US troops will remain in Syria to counter Islamic State, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said on Sunday.

Related: 'Secure the oil': Trump's Syria strategy leaves Pentagon perplexed

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Turkey threatens to send foreign Isis suspects home from next week

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Interior minister said repatriation of alleged terrorists would include those rendered stateless

Turkey will begin deporting foreign members of Islamic State in Turkish custody back to their home countries from next week, the country’s interior minister has said.

Ankara has repeatedly criticised European nations for refusing to take back any of the 1,200 foreign nationals currently held in Turkish prisons on suspicion of links to the terror organisation.

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Turkey urged to drop case against LGBT activists charged over Pride march

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Human rights organisations defend group of 19 due to stand trial for ‘demanding their rights to dignity and equality’

Human rights organisations have urged Turkey to drop charges against 19 LGBT activists who are due to stand trial on Tuesday.

Eighteen students and one faculty staff member have been charged with “participating in an unlawful assembly” and “resisting despite warning” after attending a Pride march in May at the campus of the Ankara-based Middle East Technical University.

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Sister of killed Isis leader captured, says Turkish official

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Unnamed senior figure hopes for ‘trove of intelligence’ from Rasmiya Awad after raid in Syrian border town

Turkey claims to have captured the sister of killed Isis leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and is interrogating her and her husband and daughter-in-law, who were also detained.

A senior Turkish official told Reuters that Rasmiya Awad, 65, was seized on Monday during a raid near the Turkish-controlled northern Syrian town of Azaz. When captured, she was also accompanied by five children.

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Car bomb explodes in Syrian town captured by Turkey from Kurds

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At least 13 people killed in explosion in northern border town of Tal Abyad

A car bomb exploded in a northern Syrian town along the border with Turkey on Saturday, killing 13 people. Turkey’s defence ministry said about 20 others were wounded when the bomb exploded in central Tal Abyad, which forces backed by Ankara captured from Kurdish-led fighters last month.

The ministry harshly condemned the attack, which it blamed on Syrian Kurdish fighters, and called on the international community to take a stance against this “cruel terror organisation”. There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

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Kurds call on US to block Turkish military drones from Syrian air space

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  • Unmanned weapons ‘targeting anything they wish to’
  • Kurds say Turks have killed 509 civilians and 412 troops

Syrian Kurds are asking the Pentagon to block US-controlled air space over north-eastern Syria to Turkish armed drones which they claim are causing significant civilian casualties.

Ilham Ahmed, the head of the Syrian Democratic Council (SDC), said the Kurds would hold the Pentagon responsible for Turkish war crimes if they did nothing to guarantee protection from the air.

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Syria: videos of Turkey-backed militias show ‘potential war crimes’

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Arab forces have allegedly been filmed torturing Kurdish fighters and mutilating bodies


Calls for war crimes investigations into the conduct of militias used by Turkey in Syria are mounting after a spate of new videos depicting Ankara-linked fighters torturing captives and mutilating dead bodies.

Footage of atrocities allegedly committed by Arab forces in northern Syria is circulating widely across Kurdish regions of the country, sparking fears of renewed fighting and a deepening ethnic divide in the region, even as a tenuous ceasefire begins to settle.

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Turkey accused of using threats and deception to deport Syrian refugees

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Amnesty claims people bussed out in handcuffs were beaten or signed ‘voluntary return’ forms in belief they would get blankets

Hundreds of Syrian refugees in Turkey have been compelled to return to their war-torn home country, some in handcuffs, after receiving threats of violence or being tricked into signing “voluntary return” agreements.

These are the claims contained in a hard-hitting report by Amnesty International, released on Friday, which claims to have documented at least 20 cases of forced illegal deportations by Turkish authorities.

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