Category Archives: Turkey

Syrian Kurdish leader calls for international force to protect Kurds

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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.

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The collapse of Isis will inflame the regional power struggle

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From Russia to Turkey and Iraq, the rout of the caliphate brings new political considerations and shifting alliances

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.

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China releases video of Uighur poet said to have died in custody

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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”.

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China’s treatment of Uighurs is ’embarrassment for humanity’, says Turkey

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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.

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Saudi crown prince wanted to go after Jamal Khashoggi ‘with a bullet’ – report

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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 ($).

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America’s Kurdish allies risk being wiped out – by Nato | David Graeber

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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.

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UN court judge quits The Hague citing political interference

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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.

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300 Disney-style castles lie empty in £151m Turkish ghost town – drone video

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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

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UN executions expert to visit Turkey to lead Khashoggi inquiry

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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.

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US-Kurdish patrol attacked in Syria as Erdoğan offers to step in

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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.

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Turkey will not be intimidated by Trump, says foreign minister

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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.

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Journalist Pelin Ünker sentenced to jail in Turkey over Paradise Papers investigation

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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.

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Erdoğan chides Bolton and calls on US to hand over Syria bases

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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.

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Bolton: US troops will not leave Syria till Isis beaten and Kurds protected

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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

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Ukraine: new Orthodox church gains independence from Moscow

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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.

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Saudi prosecutors seek death penalty for Khashoggi suspects

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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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Turkey’s gift of a mosque sparks fears of ‘neo-Ottomanism’ in Kosovo

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Pristina badly needs a new mosque – but Turkish attempts to court the young Balkan state with investment and advocacy is making some uneasy

It is six years since Islamic leaders and government officials laid the cornerstone of Pristina’s new central mosque – a slab of stone now hidden beneath weeds in a parking lot.

Pulling back the weeds reveals it is covered with bright red graffiti – death threats to Kosovo’s chief mufti, along with the words: “No Turkish mosque or there will be blood.”

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Pompeo meets with Turkish leaders on missing Saudi writer

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Turkey's Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, left, talks with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo at the Esenboga Airport in Ankara, Turkey, Wednesday, Oct. 17, 2018. Pro-government newspaper Yeni Safak on Wednesday said it had obtained audio recordings of the alleged killing of Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi inside the Saudi Arabia's consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2. Turkey's Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, left, talks with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo at the Esenboga Airport in Ankara, Turkey, Wednesday, Oct. 17, 2018.

Pompeo meets Turkish leaders as account of ‘Saudi writer’s murder’ published

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A Turkish newspaper has published an account of the alleged murder of Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, as America's top diplomat arrived for talks over the Washington Post columnist's disappearance. The report by Yeni Safak adds to increasing pressure on Saudi Arabia to explain what happened to Mr Khashoggi, who vanished on October 2 while visiting the consulate to pick up paperwork he needed to get married.