Category Archives: Recep Tayyip Erdogan

Survivors pulled from rubble 100 hours after quake as toll passes 23,000

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Hundreds of thousands more people have been left homeless in often sub-zero winter conditions

A second convoy of aid trucks has crossed into stricken north-western Syria from Turkey, as rescuers continued to pull survivors – including a newborn baby – from the rubble 100 hours after an earthquake that has killed more than 23,000 people.

Hundreds of thousands more people have been left homeless and short of food in often sub-zero winter conditions after 7.8- and 7.6-magnitude quakes struck within hours of each other on Monday. Dozens of countries have pledged help and sent emergency teams.

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Turkey and Syria earthquake death toll passes 15,000 as Erdoğan defends response

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Turkish president rejects growing criticism as rescuers continue to pull survivors from freezing rubble

Turkey’s president has rejected growing criticism of the authorities’ response to Monday’s huge earthquakes, as the death toll passed 15,000 across Turkey and Syria and rescuers continued to pull survivors from the freezing rubble.

Making his first visit to Turkey’s worst-affected region since the 7.8- and 7.5-magnitude quakes hit within hours of each other, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan acknowledged early problems with Turkey’s response but said it was now working well.

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Turkey and Syria earthquake death toll rises above 9,500 as Erdoğan plans visit

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Turkish president will travel to epicentre amid mounting criticism of authorities’ response

The official death toll from the devastating earthquake that struck Turkey and neighbouring Syria has risen to more than 9,500, with the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, announcing plans to travel to the epicentre.

Amid mounting criticism of the authorities’ response to Monday’s 7.8-magnitude quake and calls for the government to send more help to the disaster zone, Erdoğan was due to travel to town of Pazarcık and the worst-hit province of Hatay.

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Earthquake in Turkey and Syria kills thousands and devastates cities

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7.8-magnitude tremor hit early on Monday, with second major quake mid-morning hampering rescue efforts

More than 2,000 people were killed when an earthquake struck central Turkey and north-west Syria, in one of the most powerful quakes in the region in at least a century, while a second powerful tremor hours later threatened to overwhelm rescue efforts.

Thousands more were injured as the quake wiped out entire sections of major cities in a region filled with millions of people who have fled the civil war in Syria.

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Erdoğan says Turkey may accept Finland into Nato without Sweden

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Turkish president’s comments come amid tensions with Stockholm and threaten to derail the alliance’s hopes of expanding to 32 countries

Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said for the first time that Ankara could accept Finland into Nato without its Nordic neighbour Sweden.

Erdoğan’s comments during a televised meeting with younger voters came days after Ankara suspended Nato accession talks with the two countries.

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Turkey summons Swedish ambassador over Erdoğan effigy

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Swedish government distances itself from hanging of presidential dummy in Stockholm stunt by Kurdish group

Turkey has summoned the Swedish ambassador after a Kurdish group hung an effigy of the Turkish president in Stockholm, in a stunt that has inflamed tensions between the two countries over Sweden’s bid to join Nato.

Sweden’s foreign minister, Tobias Billström, said his government strongly distanced itself from “threats and hatred against political representatives”. Without naming any specific country, he added: “Portraying a popularly elected president as being executed outside City Hall is abhorrent.”

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Istanbul bombing: 46 detained as Turkey minister blames Kurdish separatists

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Six people died and 81 were injured when Istanbul’s popular pedestrian thoroughfare İstiklal Avenue was hit by a bomb attack

Turkey’s interior minister has accused Kurdish militants in northern Syria of responsibility for a bombing in a busy Istanbul shopping thoroughfare that killed six people, and said that a suspect had been arrested.

Six people died and 81 were injured when a bomb struck Istanbul’s popular pedestrian thoroughfare İstiklal Avenue, timed to strike when it was most crowded. Turkey’s justice minister, Bekir Bozdağ, said that “a woman sat on a bench there for 45 minutes”, and that the explosion occurred moments after she left.

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Grain deal U-turn offers lesson in calling Vladimir Putin’s bluff

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Russian leader has backed down in face of defiance, and move also shows Turkey’s growing influence

In the end, Vladimir Putin backed down. Faced with blocking ships carrying grain from Ukraine or tacitly admitting that his threats to do so had been a bluff, the Kremlin leader opted not to rekindle a global food crisis.

Russia’s exit from the deal that allowed exports of grain from Ukraine through the Black Sea was weeks in the making. Russia had threatened to do so after an explosion rocked the Crimea Bridge in October, and again after the drone attack on its Black Sea fleet last week.

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Finland and Sweden call on Hungary and Turkey to ratify Nato applications

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Erdoğan demands action against ‘terrorist’ Kurdish militants as Nordic pair maintain united front

The prime ministers of Finland and Sweden have urged Hungary and Turkey to approve their countries’ applications to join Nato, but Ankara insisted it would not lift its objections without further extraditions of suspects it considers terrorists.

The two Nordic nations applied to join the US-led defence alliance in May, jettisoning decades of military non-alignment in a historic policy shift triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

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UN urges investigation after 92 naked migrants ‘sent’ from Turkey into Greece

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UNHCR says circumstances of ‘shocking’ discovery unclear amid rising tension between two countries

The UN refugee agency is demanding an urgent investigation into the discovery of 92 naked people on Greece’s land border with Turkey, calling the incident shocking and saying it had been “deeply distressed” by images of the group.

The men, mainly from Afghanistan and Syria, were found close to the frontier after crossing the Evros River in rubber dinghies, according to Greek police. Children were among the group, a UNHCR spokesperson told the Guardian.

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Russia to stage ‘provocation’ at nuclear plant, warns Ukrainian military

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UN secretary general calls for urgent withdrawal of Russian forces and equipment from Zaporizhzhia

Ukraine’s military intelligence has warned that Russian forces may be preparing to stage a “provocation” at a nuclear power plant they control, as the UN secretary general, António Guterres, called for an urgent withdrawal of military forces and equipment from the site.

Guterres, on his second visit to Ukraine since the Russian invasion, joined the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, and the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, for meetings and then a press conference in the western city of Lviv.

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Putin and Erdoğan meet for secretive talks in Sochi

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Talks expected to focus on Ukraine and could include Kremlin efforts to circumvent western sanctions

Vladimir Putin has met Recep Tayyip Erdoğan for talks expected to focus on Russia’s war in Ukraine and that are being rumoured to include Kremlin efforts to circumvent western sanctions.

Putin welcomed the Turkish president to Sochi, a resort city on the Black Sea, by thanking him for his help in securing an international deal that resumed exports of grain from Ukraine that had been disrupted by the Kremlin war machine – as well as Russian foodstuffs and fertilisers – to world markets.

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Erdoğan asks Russia and Iran to back Turkey’s incursion into Syria

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Turkish president cites Kurdish forces in north-west Syria as justification for extending zone of control

The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has used trilateral talks with his Iranian and Russian counterparts in Tehran to make the case for a further Turkish incursion into north-western Syria.

Erdoğan cited Kurdish forces in Tel Rifaat and Manbij, two towns in north-west Syria where Russian and Iranian forces are present, as justification for Turkey extending its zone of control in the country. “What we expect from Iran and Russia is to support Turkey in its fight against terrorist organisations,” he told a press conference following the meeting.

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Putin endorsed by Iran for invasion of Ukraine but clashes with Turkey at summit

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Tehran meeting saw discord over Erdoğan’s plan to intervene in Syria but ‘progress’ on shipping Ukrainian grain

Vladimir Putin ended his first major summit outside Russia since the invasion of Ukraine with an endorsement from Iran for its response to Nato, a clash with Turkey over Syria and signs of progress over the lifting of the Russian blockade of Ukrainian grain.

The White House said the Tehran summit held between Putin, the Iranian president, Ebrahim Raisi, and the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, showed how isolated the Russian leader had become – which was not an observation shared by Moscow, who claimed it showed Russia remained respected in the Middle East.

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Question of what now for Syria remains as vexed as ever

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Analysis: while diplomatic efforts continue over Ukraine, Syria risks becoming entrenched as the conflict that was

Before Ukraine there was Syria, a war so vicious and consuming that it was once considered to be the most consequential conflict of the last 50 years.

With more than half a million killed when the counting stopped seven years ago, nearly two-thirds of the country’s prewar population displaced or in exile, and its economy and social fabric in ruins, Syria is a shattered husk, its spoils eagerly eyed by the three leaders who gathered in Tehran on Tuesday.

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Erdoğan gains from lifting Sweden and Finland Nato veto with US fighter jet promise

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Analysis: deal between Biden and Erdoğan is sealed in Madrid after Nordic countries vow to control support for Kurdish terrorism

The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, immediately started to reap the rewards for lifting the block on allowing Sweden and Finland to join Nato when the Biden administration said it backed the potential sale of F-16 fighter jets to Turkey.

Speaking at a briefing call on Wednesday, Celeste Wallander, the assistant secretary for defence for international security affairs at the Pentagon, told reporters that strong Turkish defence capabilities would reinforce Nato’s defences.

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Why has Erdoğan doubled down on threat to veto Nordic Nato bids?

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Analysis: By demanding extradition of alleged PKK members, Turkish president could have one eye on elections

After initial hesitation about the seriousness of Turkey’s objections, its president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has doubled down on his threat to veto Finland’s and Sweden’s applications for membership of Nato, saying there is no point in either country sending delegations to Ankara to persuade him otherwise.

On Wednesday, he also extended his demands from the two he outlined on Monday to 10, leading to claims that he is using blackmail.

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Khashoggi row goes unmentioned as Erdoğan seeks to boost Saudi trade ties

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Analysis: regional rivals reconcile in Jeddah while reason for three-year rift remains elephant in the room

With awkward embraces and fixed grins, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Mohammed bin Salman struck a pose of reconciliation. For the past three years, the presence of the Turkish leader and the Saudi crown prince in the same room would have been unthinkable, but in a drawing room of a Jeddah palace on Friday, both tried to signal a new beginning.

There was no sign of the acrimony that had set the regional rivals apart and – most definitely – no mention of the reason for the rift: the Saudi murder of Jamal Khashoggi.

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Turkey to send case against Khashoggi’s alleged killers to Saudi Arabia

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Suspension of trial reflects President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s desire to strengthen trade and political links with Middle East

A Turkish court has confirmed a request from prosecutors to transfer the case against the alleged assassins of Jamal Khashoggi to Saudi Arabia, shutting down a trial that had been a centrepiece of attempts to cast light on the plot and expose the hit squad’s ultimate leader.

The move ends any meaningful hope of securing justice and paves the way for a political reset between the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom’s de facto ruler whose security aides were on trial in Istanbul and who is widely believed to have ordered the murder.

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‘The world is waiting for good news’: Russia-Ukraine peace talks press on in Turkey

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Politicians from the warring countries descended on Istanbul’s Dolmabahçe Palace for another round of negotiations

Sipping on a tulip-shaped glass of Turkish black tea, Roman Abramovich sat on the sunlit terrace of Istanbul’s Shangri-La hotel on Tuesday afternoon and talked intently with the Ukrainian negotiating team.

Despite the seafood and burger restaurant’s extensive menu and large fridge advertising its stock of dry-aged meat, the Russian oligarch did not appear to eat during the entire meeting. Less than 24 hours had passed since he was reported to have suffered symptoms consistent with poisoning.

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