Category Archives: Turkey

Erdoğan urges Palestinian unity after meeting Hamas chief

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Turkish president says recent events between Iran and Israel should not allow Israel to ‘gain ground’ in Gaza

Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan urged Palestinians to unite amid Israel’s war in Gaza following hours-long talks with Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh in Istanbul on Saturday, his office said.

Erdoğan has failed to establish a foothold as a mediator in the Gaza conflict that has roiled the region, with the Hamas-run Palestinian territory bracing for a new Israeli offensive and a reported Israeli attack on Iran.

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Greece becomes first European country to ban bottom trawling in marine parks

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The law will come into force in national parks within two years and in all of the country’s marine protected areas by 2030

Greece has become the first country in Europe to announce a ban on bottom trawling in all of its national marine parks and protected areas.

The country said will spend €780m (£666m) to protect its “diverse and unique marine ecosystems”.

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Last of 174 people rescued from stranded cable cars in Turkey

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Passengers had been trapped in mid-air overnight after a pod hit a pole and burst open, killing one person and injuring others

The last 43 of 174 people stranded in cable cars high above a mountain in southern Turkey have been brought to safety, nearly 23 hours after one pod hit a pole and burst open, killing one person and injuring 10 when they plummeted to the rocks below.

The interior minister, Ali Yerlikaya, announced the successful completion of the rescue operation on X, formerly Twitter, on Saturday afternoon.

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One killed and 184 stranded midair after cable car collapses in Turkey

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Helicopters called in to rescue people after accident outside Turkish resort city of Antalya

One person has been killed, seven injured and nearly 200 stranded in midair when a pylon supporting cable cars collapsed outside the Turkish resort city of Antalya.

Helicopters equipped with night vision were called in to rescue 184 people still stranded in the cable car system’s cabins, Antalya mayor Muhittin Bocek said in a statement late on Friday.

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Turkey seizes its third largest haul of cocaine, says interior minister

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Groups monitoring organised crime warn that Turkey is becoming entry point for drugs reaching Europe

Turkish police have seized the third largest haul of cocaine in the country’s history, the interior minister, Ali Yerlikaya, has announced, as groups monitoring organised crime warned that Turkey was becoming an entry point for drugs reaching Europe.

In an operation across three provinces, 608kg of mostly liquid cocaine was confiscated, Yerlikaya posted on X on Thursday. Nearly 830kg of precursor chemicals used to process the drug were also seized.

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Instagram ads in UK promoting ‘butt lifts’ in Turkey as part of holidays in potential breach of rules

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Watchdog warns cosmetic surgery providers abroad as analysis reveals thousands of Facebook adverts

A post on Instagram shows the back of a woman in tight blue leggings, her lower body taking up most of the frame. The words “Temptingly sexy curves ahead … Ready to turn heads and break hearts?” are written in the caption. It is from a company offering Britons the chance to get a Brazilian butt lift while enjoying a luxury holiday abroad.

The advert is one of thousands on social media promoting cosmetic surgery tourism by companies in Turkey to UK residents, including gastric band operations, hair transplants and Brazilian butt lifts (BBL) – a process that involves fat taken from elsewhere on the body being injected into the buttocks – in a trend that has triggered safety concerns among doctors in Britain.

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Macron to say France and allies could have stopped Rwanda genocide in 1994

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French president marks 30th anniversary with video, airing Sunday, saying international community lacked will to stop the slaughter

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, has said France and its western and African allies “could have stopped” Rwanda’s 1994 genocide but did not have the will to halt the slaughter of an estimated 800,000 people, mostly ethnic Tutsis.

In a video message to be published on Sunday to mark the 30th anniversary of the genocide, Macron will emphasise that “when the phase of total extermination against the Tutsis began, the international community had the means to know and act”, the presidency said on Thursday.

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Endangered Greek dialect is ‘living bridge’ to ancient world, researchers say

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Romeyka descended from ancient Greek but may die out as it has no written form and is spoken by only a few thousand people

An endangered form of Greek that is spoken by only a few thousand people in remote mountain villages of northern Turkey has been described as a “living bridge” to the ancient world, after researchers identified characteristics that have more in common with the language of Homer than with modern Greek.

The precise number of speakers of Romeyka is hard to quantify. It has no written form, but has survived orally in the mountain villages around Trabzon, near the Black Sea coast.

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Opposition wins across Turkey owe much to younger, fresher candidates

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A new cohort of leaders inflicted an unprecedented wave of defeats on President Erdoğan who seemed to have little to offer the electorate

A fresh-faced challenger hailed a new dawn for Turkish democracy, as President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan comforted a defeated crowd outside his party’s headquarters, telling them: “Unfortunately we couldn’t get the result we wanted … everything happens for a reason.”

Supporters of Istanbul’s mayor celebrated long into the night after Ekrem İmamoğlu secured a second term in office, as Turkey’s main opposition party swept to victory in local elections.

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Turkey’s opposition party sweeps to local elections victory in snub to Erdoğan

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Ekrem Imamoğlu secures unexpected second term as Istanbul’s mayor, propelling the CHP to the centre of national politics

Turkey’s main opposition party dealt an unexpected blow to Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s rule on Sunday with a sweeping victory in Turkey’s local elections, maintaining control of major cities including the capital, Ankara, and Istanbul, where Ekrem Imamoğlu secured a second term as mayor.

“My dear Istanbulites, you opened the door to a new future today,” Imamoğlu told overjoyed supporters of his opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) while declaring victory. “Starting from tomorrow, Turkey will be a different Turkey. You opened the door to the rise of democracy, equality and freedom … You ignited hope at the ballot box.”

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Politicians from 12 countries unite to press for arms ban on Israel

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Letter aims to bring public anger over 30,000 deaths of Palestinians in Gaza into heart of parliaments

More than 200 MPs from 12 countries have committed themselves to trying to persuade their governments to impose a ban on arms sales to Israel, arguing they will not be complicit in “Israel’s grave violation of international law” in its assault on Gaza.

The letter, organised by Progressive International, a network of socialist MPs and activists focused on international justice, is seen as the best practical measure possible to bring public anger over the 30,000 deaths of Palestinians in Gaza into the heart of parliaments, where calls for an immediate unconditional ceasefire have so far fallen on deaf ears or been rejected by national governments.

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Seven women in Turkey ‘savagely killed’ by current or ex-spouses in single day

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Rise of femicide follows country’s 2021 withdrawal from Council of Europe convention on preventing violence against women

Seven women were killed by their partners or ex-partners across Turkey on Tuesday, according to the television station Habertürk.

“In total, seven women were savagely killed in İzmir, Bursa, Sakarya, Erzurum, Denizli and Istanbul,” Habertürk reported, listing the country’s major cities.

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Sweden will complete its ‘long farewell to neutrality’ with Nato accession

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For Swedes it means a dramatic change of national identity, while the alliance gets greater control of the Baltic Sea

Just a few short months ago, Sweden’s Nato membership seemed a very long way from being a done deal. Having submitted its application to join in May 2022 after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, it seemed at times as though Stockholm might be left hanging interminably. While Finland, which had applied to join the alliance at the same time as its neighbour, became a member at record speed last April, Sweden got stuck in a diplomatic quagmire.

Last summer a series of Qur’an burnings in Sweden inflamed ties with Turkey, making a “yes” from Ankara look unlikely and at times inconceivable. And as recently as September, Viktor Orbán’s government was embroiled in a public war of words with Sweden over criticism of Hungary’s democracy and teaching in Swedish schools. Late last month, after Turkey’s parliament had given Sweden the green light, the Hungarian prime minister was still pushing for negotiations in a public letter to his Swedish counterpart, Ulf Kristersson.

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Missing Turkish miners ‘swallowed by cyanide-laced landslide’

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Hundreds of rescue workers searching for nine missing men in east of the country

Hundreds of Turkish rescue workers were searching through a cyanide-laced field for nine mine workers who were swallowed by a landslide that rolled over their open pit on Tuesday.

Images from the scene showed the landslide sweeping across a valley and crashing into a road where some of the workers were travelling by vehicle.

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Italian court jails people smuggler over shipwreck that killed at least 94 migrants

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Gun Ufuk, 29, sentenced to 20 years in prison over deadly sinking that occurred metres from shore

An Italian court has sentenced a people smuggler to 20 years in prison for involvement in a shipwreck last year that killed at least 94 migrants.

The court in the southern city of Crotone found Gun Ufuk, a 29-year-old Turkish national, guilty of crimes including causing a shipwreck and aiding illegal immigration. It also ordered him to pay a €3m fine and pay damages to civil plaintiffs.

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‘No one can bring back what we lost’: fears rise among poor in Turkish city ravaged by earthquakes

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Less well-off residents in the southern city of Antakya feel left out of the city’s rebuilding efforts

• Read more: A year in the aftermath of Turkey’s earthquake – a photo essay

Rows of bright white marble gravestones dot a hillside on the outskirts of Antakya, some bearing the words “martyr of the earthquake”. The final resting place for the city’s dead will soon be overshadowed by tower blocks for those who survived. Bright yellow cranes jut into the skyline on the next hillside, slowly birthing a cluster of concrete skeletons, new government housing for some of the hundreds of thousands who lost their homes when deadly earthquakes struck southern Turkey and northern Syria last February.

“No one can bring back what was lost, as we lost everything,” said İsa Akbaba, who lost seven members of his extended family along with his home.

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Still in ruins: the 2023 Turkish earthquake – then and now

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A 7.8-magnitude quake hit southern Turkey and northern Syria on 6 February 2023, killing more than 40,000 people and erasing entire cities. Then and now photographs show the scale of devastation and the enormity of the reconstruction

Over 65 nightmarish seconds of the pre-dawn hours of 6 February 2023, the ground swallowed swathes of entire cities across south-east Turkey resulting in more than 50,000 deaths.

Bridges collapsed, roads and airport tarmacs cracked and millions of lives across 11 Turkish provinces were upturned by the time the rest of the country woke up, stunned.

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Procter & Gamble staff held hostage in Turkish factory freed in police raid

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Gunman, who was detained unharmed, was protesting about war in Gaza and had trapped seven workers for nearly nine hours

Turkish police have released seven workers taken hostage by a pro-Palestinian gunman at a plant near Istanbul owned by US consumer goods company Procter & Gamble in protest at the war in Gaza.

Local officials said police staged a raid nearly nine hours into the standoff when the lone gunman took a bathroom break.

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People smugglers recruiting skippers from central Asia on Turkey to Italy route

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Boat drivers from former Soviet republics often have very little experience and no idea what they are doing is illegal, say NGOs

People smugglers are increasingly recruiting people from former Soviet republics in central Asia to pilot boats carrying migrants from Turkey to Italy, say NGOs and lawyers.

The migrants are taken by sea from Turkey to Italy, often using sailing boats, as an alternative to the longer overland route through the Balkans where border guards in Croatia and Slovenia have engaged in illegal pushbacks of asylum seekers at the EU border.

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US approves $23bn sale of F-16 war planes to Turkey

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The sale follows Turkey’s decision to ratify Sweden’s NATO membership

The Biden administration has announced its approved a $US23 billion deal to sell F-16 warplanes to Turkey, after Ankara ratified Sweden’s Nato membership, the state department said.

The state department will now notify Congress of the agreement, as well as of a separate $8.6bn sale of 40 F-35s to Greece.

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