Officials in Greece, Turkey and Bulgaria examine Brenton Tarrant’s travels before attack
Authorities in Europe are working to establish whether the man suspected of carrying out the most deadly terrorist attack in New Zealand’s history had any links to far-right groups on the continent.
Since Friday, officials in Turkey, Bulgaria and Greece have begun formal investigations into the alleged gunman’s extensive travel through Europe in the years before he moved to New Zealand.
Continue reading...The ‘inventor of 21st century populism’ moved Turkey away from EU to appeal to the base
It was a speech that would change the trajectory of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s life – and with it, Turkey’s future.
Istanbul’s first Islamist mayor had travelled to the poor, south-eastern town of Siirt in 1997 to speak at a rally. Dressed in his trademark working man’s jacket, Erdoğan recited an Islamic-nationalist poem, deploying a rhetorical style he had practised as a teenager, addressing imaginary audiences on the decks of abandoned ships on the Bosphorus.
Continue reading...Passengers describe ‘blood all over’ Istanbul-New York plane, and attendant broke leg
Severe turbulence tossed terrified passengers and crew around a Turkish Airlines plane cabin as it passed over the US on Saturday, with 30 people suffering bumps, bruises, cuts and a broken leg before the flight landed safely in New York, officials said.
Dozens of ambulances lined up in front of a terminal to quickly treat the injured coming off the flight that left Istanbul for the 10-hour trip.
Continue reading...Expected announcement by ExxonMobil of discovery off island’s south coast seen as potential game changer
Tensions between Cyprus and Turkey over energy could soon come to a head, with ExxonMobil apparently poised to announce a significant natural gas find off the divided island’s southern coast.
After more than three months of deep-water exploration in the eastern Mediterranean, the US firm is expected to unveil findings this week in what is being described as a seminal moment in the race to tap potentially profitable underwater resources.
Continue reading...Ilham Ahmed says Kurds want observers on the border to ensure Turkey does not attack
The leader of the Syrian Kurds has called for a small international observer force to be stationed on the Turkey-Syria border to protect Kurds from what she says is the threat of crimes against humanity committed by Turkish forces.
Ilham Ahmed is co-chair of the Syrian Democratic Council – the political arm of the US-backed and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which have been responsible for liberating much of north-eastern Syria from Islamic State.
Continue reading...The collapse of the Isis caliphate’s last stronghold in Syria is sending shockwaves across the region, changing the calculations of the major powers as they jockey for advantage. Triumphalism in Washington, Moscow and Damascus risks obscuring the human cost of a “victory” that may quickly prove transitory.
Of immediate concern is the fate of civilians, mainly women and children, displaced from formerly Isis-controlled areas where many were held against their will. The independent International Rescue Committee says up to 4,000 people are fleeing towards the al-Hawl refugee camp in north-east Syria.
Continue reading...Beijing releases footage of poet Abdurehim Heyit after Turkey said treatment of Uighurs was an ‘embarrassment’
China has hit back against claims by Turkey that a famous Uighur poet and musician has died while imprisoned in Xinjiang, where Beijing’s severe policies toward the Muslim minority group have prompted international outcry.
Turkey’s foreign ministry said on Saturday it had learned that poet and musician Abdurehim Heyit had died while serving an eight-year prison sentence. In a rare rebuke of China, the ministry said Beijing’s treatment of Uighurs was “a great embarrassment for humanity”.
Continue reading...Ankara calls for UN to act on ‘human tragedy’ of re-education of the Turkic-speaking minority in Xinjiang province
Turkey has condemned China’s treatment of its Muslim ethnic Uighur people as “a great embarrassment for humanity”, adding to rights groups’ recent criticism over mass detentions of the Turkic-speaking minority.
“The systematic assimilation policy of Chinese authorities towards Uighur Turks is a great embarrassment for humanity,” Turkish foreign ministry spokesman Hami Aksoy said in a statement.
Continue reading...US media quotes intelligence sources who intercepted a conversation between Mohammed bin Salman and an aide in 2017
Saudi Arabia’s crown prince told a senior aide he would go after Jamal Khashoggi “with a bullet” a year before the dissident journalist was killed inside the kingdom’s Istanbul consulate, according to a US media report.
US intelligence understood that Mohammed bin Salman, the country’s 33-year-old de facto ruler, was ready to kill the journalist, although he may not have literally meant he planned to shoot him, according to the New York Times ($).
Continue reading...Turkey is seen as the Kurds’ mortal enemy but it uses German tanks and British helicopters: this is an international outrage
Remember those plucky Kurdish forces who so heroically defended the Syrian city of Kobane from Isis? They risk being wiped out by Nato.
The autonomous Kurdish region of Rojava in Northeast Syria, which includes Kobane, faces invasion. A Nato army is amassing on the border, marshaling all the overwhelming firepower and high-tech equipment that only the most advanced military forces can deploy. The commander in chief of those forces says he wants to return Rojava to its “rightful owners” who, he believes, are Arabs, not Kurds.
Continue reading...Christoph Flügge warns over ‘shocking’ moves by Trump administration and Turkey
A senior judge has resigned from one of the UN’s international courts in The Hague citing “shocking” political interference from the White House and Turkey.
Christoph Flügge, a German judge, claimed the US had threatened judges after moves were made to examine the conduct of US soldiers in Afghanistan.
Continue reading...Burj al Babas was left unfinished last year after developers Sarot Property Group went bankrupt. The future of the 300 Disney castle style homes – which cost an estimated £151m to build – is now uncertain, and the dystopian sight has become a cautionary tale for other developers in Turkey’s debt-laden construction sector
Continue reading...Investigation comes as Saudi efforts to normalise relations with west move on to Davos
A UN expert on executions is to travel to Turkey next week to lead an “independent international inquiry” into the death of Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi Arabian journalist killed in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October.
Agnes Callamard, the special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, said she would evaluate the circumstances of the crime and “the nature and the extent of states’ and individuals’ responsibilities for the killing”. She will report on the findings from her five-day visit to the UN human rights council in June.
Continue reading...Turkish president tells Donald Trump he is ready to send troops into US-overseen areas
The threat of a growing security vacuum in Syria as a result of Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw US troops has been underlined by an attack on a joint US-Kurdish patrol, which reportedly killed five people and injured at least two American soldiers.
The attack on Monday, in which a suicide bomber drove a car into a checkpoint, emphasised the vulnerability of American troops since the US president declared he was withdrawing 2,000 soldiers from northern Syria on the grounds that Islamic State has been defeated.
Continue reading...Ankara hits back after Trump threatened to ‘economically devastate’ it over Syria
Turkey’s foreign minister has hit back at Donald Trump over his threat to economically devastate the country if it follows through on a planned operation against Kurdish forces in northern Syria, saying Ankara will not be intimidated by its Nato ally.
“We have said repeatedly we are not scared of and will not be intimidated by any threats,” said Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu in televised remarks from Ankara on Monday, before rebuking the US president for using Twitter for sensitive diplomatic matters.
Continue reading...Journalist was found guilty of ‘defamation and insult’ for writing about companies owned by former PM
A Turkish journalist has been sentenced to more than a year in jail for her work on the Paradise Papers investigation into offshore tax havens, because it revealed details of the business activities of the country’s former prime minister and his sons.
Pelin Ünker, a member of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) was found guilty in an Istanbul court of “defamation and insult” for writing about companies in Malta owned by Binali Yıldırım and his sons. Yıldırım was prime minister from 2016 to 2018, when the post was abolished, and is now the speaker of the country’s national assembly.
Continue reading...US security chief tempers withdrawal claims, jeopardising Turkey’s plans to target Kurdish groups
Turkey has asked Washington to hand over its bases in Syria as the Trump administration appeared to reverse plans to withdraw from the country’s north-east on Tuesday, jeopardising Ankara’s plans to launch a widespread military operation targeting Kurdish groups.
The fresh row between the two Nato allies broke out as the US national security adviser, John Bolton, visited Ankara to row back on a surprise announcement by Donald Trump in December that US forces would leave Syria imminently, abandoning Kurdish proxies who had led its ground war against the Islamic State terror group. Turkey views those same Kurdish groups as mortal foes.
Continue reading...Adviser indicates long stay for troops while president claims he never said withdrawal would be quick
US troops will not leave north-eastern Syria until Islamic State militants are defeated and US-allied Kurdish fighters protected, national security adviser John Bolton said on Sunday, signaling a pause to a withdrawal abruptly announced last month and initially expected to be completed within weeks. Achieving such conditions will likely take months or even years.
Related: Trump: US has killed al-Qaida militant tied to USS Cole bombing
Continue reading...Newly elected head receives decree of autocephaly in elaborate ceremony in Istanbul
The biggest rift in Christianity in centuries is expected to open up after a new Orthodox church in Ukraine gained formal independence from Moscow in a move set to heighten geopolitical tensions in the region.
The newly elected head of the Ukrainian Orthodox church travelled to Istanbul to receive the “tomos”, or decree of autocephaly (independence), from the Patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomew I, in an elaborate ceremony in St George’s Cathedral on the eve of the Orthodox Christmas.
Continue reading...Eleven suspects attend first court hearing following killing of journalist
A Saudi prosecutor has asked for the death penalty for five of 11 suspects held over the murder of Jamal Khashoggi at the country’s consulate in Istanbul on 2 October, the state news agency SPA reported on Thursday.
The call came during the first court hearing in the Khashoggi case, which has shredded the kingdom’s international reputation and strained its relations with Turkey, the US and many other western governments.
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