Category Archives: Turkey

US could agree to sell Turkey F-16 jets so it will allow Sweden to join Nato

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Erdoğan throws another obstacle in way of agreement by insisting Turkish EU membership be back on table

Joe Biden will try to nail down a four-country deal that would lead to Turkey allowing Sweden into Nato in return for the sale of US F-16 jets to Ankara, on the condition they are not used to threaten Greece.

But Recep Tayyip Erdoğan threw a surprise obstacle in the way of Biden’s plan by announcing he wanted Turkey’s stalled application to join the EU to be included in the package. Speaking at the airport before departing for the Nato summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, the Turkish president said: “First, let’s pave the way for Turkey in the European Union, and then we will pave the way for Sweden just as we did for Finland.”

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Moscow denounces return of Mariupol commanders sent to Turkey in prisoner swap

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President Zelenskiy flies men back to Ukraine as Russia says Turkey has violated terms

Volodymyr Zelenskiy has returned from a visit to Turkey, bringing home five former commanders of Ukraine’s garrison in Mariupol despite a prisoner exchange last year under which the men were meant to remain in Turkey.

Russia immediately denounced the release of the men. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Turkey had violated the prisoner exchange terms and had failed to inform Moscow.

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Biden ratchets up efforts to secure Sweden’s Nato membership ahead of key summit

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Work to persuade Turkey to drop its objections continues, as president meets with Sweden’s prime minister at White House

US President Joe Biden has told prime minister Ulf Kristersson of Sweden that he is “looking forward” to the country’s stalled Nato membership bid winning final approval, amid doubts that Turkey will withdraw its opposition in time for a major summit next week.

Speaking in the Oval Office on Wednesday, Biden said he wanted to reiterate that he “fully, fully supports Sweden’s membership in Nato” and was “anxiously looking forward” to the bid being ratified.

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Italian special forces storm Turkish cargo ship after attempted hijack

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Stowaways allegedly tried to take sailors hostage after being discovered on Galatea Seaways bound for France

Italian special forces have stormed a cargo ship sailing from Turkey to France after about 15 people armed with knives attempted to hijack the vessel.

The asylum seekers, 13 men and two women, mainly from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq, had allegedly sneaked undetected on to the roll-on, roll-off cargo ship, named Galatea Seaways, in the hope of reaching Europe.

AFP and Ansa contributed to this report

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Weather tracker: Canada wildfires rage in what could be worst season to date

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Plumes of smoke move southwards across US east coast. Elsewhere, Japan hit by remnants of Typhoon Mawar

Wildfires in Quebec, Canada, continue to rage, following a spring that was drier and warmer than normal, creating perfect conditions for wildfires to develop. As of 7 June, at least 150 fires remained active across the province, with more than 400 across the country according to the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre. Officials warned this could be the country’s worst wildfire season to date, with at least 9.4m acres of land destroyed so far.

Plumes of smoke from the fires have been moving southwards across the US east coast, delaying thousands of flights. The US National Weather Service also issued air quality alerts for many states, with air quality index levels above 400 – a level of 300 is considered “hazardous” – in some states. A fairly static weather pattern this weekend will mean further plumes of smoke moving towards eastern parts of the US.

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Hope for Syrian cancer patients as cross-border treatment resumes in Turkey

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North-west Syria regains access to radiotherapy for first time since Earthquake devastated the region but backlog means many remain in limbo

Cross-border treatment for cancer patients from north-west Syria resumed this week after February’s earthquake had left people without access to radiotherapy.

But medical organisations in the area are warning that the backlog means many cancer patients remain in limbo and some could die as a result.

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Turkey to send commandos to Kosovo in response to Nato peacekeeping call

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EU has called on leaders in Kosovo and Serbia to immediately reduce tensions and halt ‘divisive rhetoric’

Turkey has announced it will be sending commandos to Kosovo on Sunday in response to a Nato request to join the peacekeeping operation after unrest in the north of the country.

In a statement on Saturday, the Turkish defence ministry called for restraint and constructive dialogue to resolve a crisis it said could harm regional security and stability.

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West caught between fear and hope as Erdoğan extends 20-year rule in Turkey

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Re-elected president could take Nato country further towards Russia, or may instead be more open to alternatives

Western capitals remained silent through Turkey’s presidential campaign – privately hoping Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s erratic 20-year rule would come to a surprise close – but now he has been handed a decisive mandate to serve a third term, the west is caught between fear and hope.

It fears he will exploit the result to take this Nato founder member further from the liberal secular west, but hopes against hope that, not being eligible to run again and thus freed from the need to pander to a nationalist electorate for the rest of his political life, he may at least be open to persuasion and base his foreign policy on something other than self-preservation.

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Turkish forces kill Islamic State chief in Syria raid, says Erdoğan

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Turkish president says Abu Hussein al-Qurashi killed after pursuit while northern Syria residents report clashes and large explosion

Turkish intelligence forces have killed Islamic State’s leader, Abu Hussein al-Qurashi, in Syria, Turkey’s president announced.

“This individual was neutralised as part of an operation by the Turkish national intelligence organisation in Syria yesterday,” Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said in an interview with the broadcaster TRT Türk on Sunday.

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2023 Goldman environmental prize winners include Texas Gulf coast defender

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Diane Wilson took on Formosa Plastics and won a $50m settlement to help clean up decades worth of toxic plastic waste

Grassroots activists who took on British mining giants and a serial plastics polluter – and won – are among this year’s recipients of the world’s most prestigious environmental prize.

The environmental campaigns led by the six 2023 Goldman prize winners highlight the hurdles faced by some local activists, who are often on the frontlines confronting the toxic mix of corporate greed and systemic corruption that is fuelling the climate emergency, biodiversity collapse and increasingly forced displacement.

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Finland to join Nato on Tuesday as Russia sounds border warning

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Moscow threatens to bolster border defences if western military alliance deploys troops inside Finland

Russia has said it will bolster its defences near its 1,300km border with Finland after the Nato secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, announced that the Nordic country would formally join the transatlantic defence alliance on Tuesday.

The accession marks the end of an accelerated process that began last May, when Finland and neighbouring Sweden abandoned decades of military nonalignment to seek security as Nato members after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

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Finland’s way into Nato clears as hold-out Turkey votes in favour

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Parliament in Ankara passes bill allowing membership after second-to-last objector, Hungary, voted in favour

Turkey’s parliament has approved a bill to allow Finland to join Nato, clearing the way for Helsinki to join the western defence alliance as war rages in Ukraine.

The Turkish parliament was the last among the 30 members of the alliance to ratify Finland’s membership, after Hungary’s legislature approved a similar bill this week.

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Turkey has made its mind up about our Nato membership, says Finland

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Swedish prime minister also said he hopes Sweden’s accession will be ratified by Ankara after May elections

Finland’s president, Sauli Niinistö, has said he expects his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, to tell him whether Turkey is endorsing the Nordic country’s Nato membership application when the two meet in Ankara later this week.

“It was known that once President Erdoğan has made his decision concerning ratification of Finland’s membership of Nato, he would wish to meet and fulfil his promise directly from president to president,” Niinistö told Reuters on Wednesday.

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Life amid the rubble: UK specialists on their Turkey earthquake rescue effort

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After the first quake hit, 77 Britons were deployed to join teams from around the world. Here, some recount their experiences

British search-and-rescue specialists deployed to Turkey after its earthquake on 6 February have recalled the scenes of devastation that they encountered, as the country and its southern neighbour Syria were hit by two more tremors this week.

“If we were still out there [this week], we would have been in those buildings,” said Wayne Ward, a firefighter for Lancashire’s rescue service, and one of 77 British specialists deployed to Turkey in the days that followed the first quake.

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War in Ukraine defining new world order, says thinktank

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Poll reveals west more united but gulf growing with countries such as India that do not subscribe to post-cold war view

Almost a year after Russia’s war against Ukraine started, it has united the west, according to a 15-country survey – but exposed a widening gulf with the rest of the world that is defining the contours of a future global order.

The study, by the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) thinktank, surveyed opinions in nine EU member states, including France, Germany and Poland, and in Britain and the US, as well as China, Russia, India and Turkey.

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Death toll from latest earthquakes in Turkey reaches eight

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Casualties relatively low since few remain in region devastated by twin earthquakes two weeks ago

The toll from two earthquakes that hit Turkey and Syria on Monday – two weeks after powerful quakes killed more than 47,000 people – has risen to eight, with up to 300 recovering from injuries and up to a dozen buildings toppling on both sides of the border.

The widespread anxiety and panic sparked by the latest tremors has rattled a region that is still coming to terms with the devastation caused earlier this month.

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Turkey hit by two more powerful earthquakes two weeks after disaster

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Three killed and 213 injured, government says, after quakes of 6.4 and 5.8 magnitude shake southern province of Hatay

A 6.4-magnitude earthquake and a second measuring 5.8 have hit Turkey’s southern province of Hatay, terrifying those left in a region devastated by twin earthquakes two weeks ago.

Turkey’s interior minister, Süleyman Soylu, said that at least three people were killed and 213 wounded by the latest quakes, after a large government hospital in the city of İskenderun in the north of Hatay province declared it was evacuating patients.

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Thousands dead, millions displaced: the earthquake fallout in Turkey and Syria

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Death toll of 47,000 expected to rise and WHO says 26 million people need assistance across both countries

The figures are unfathomable: 47,000 people dead, thousands of others missing, millions homeless. In minutes, two massive earthquakes that rocked Turkey and Syria turned entire cities into mounds of rubble. Two weeks later, the scale of the devastation is still being unearthed. The true impact will not be fully understood for decades.

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Shell and Vitol accused of prolonging Ukraine war with sanctions ‘loophole’

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Exclusive: Ukrainian economic adviser urges energy firms to heed deadline to halt trade of ‘Russian-origin oil products’

The oil company Shell and energy trader Vitol have been accused of prolonging the war in Ukraine by exploiting a “loophole” in the EU sanctions regime to bring products derived from Russian oil into Europe through Turkey.

Oleg Ustenko, the economic adviser to the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has urged the energy companies to commit to a deadline to halt the trade of a “Russian-origin oil products” to reduce Vladimir Putin’s war coffers, the Guardian can reveal.

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