Russian and Turkish leaders will try to hammer out yet another deal to stabilise Idlib
A summit between the leaders of Turkey and Russia on Thursday may be the last chance to work out a deal that avoids further calamity in north-west Syria.
Faced with increasing military losses in Idlib province and a potential wave of people fleeing the fighting, the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, is eager for a ceasefire – and Vladimir Putin is ready to bargain.
Continue reading...Four-year-old dies as crisis sparked by Turkey’s decision to open its borders continues
The first victim of the worsening crisis that has engulfed Greece following Turkey’s abrupt decision to open its borders to thousands of refugees desperate to reach Europe has been confirmed with the death of a child in waters off Lesbos.
Authorities said a four-year-old Syria boy died early on Monday when an inflatable dinghy carrying people from the Turkish coast capsized off the island. “Doctors rushed to save the child but it was too late,” a police source on Lesbos said.
Continue reading...Turkish leader claims 18,000 people have crossed into EU but some are met with teargas
Thousands of migrants may be in no man’s land between Turkey and Greece after Ankara opened its western borders, sparking chaotic scenes as Greek troops attempted to prevent refugees from entering Europe en masse.
Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, claimed 18,000 migrants had crossed the border, without immediately providing supporting evidence, but many appear to have been repelled by Greek border patrols firing teargas and stun grenades.
Continue reading...Acquittals are welcome but not necessarily a signal of change at heart of government
One defendant in the Gezi park trial grimly predicted the expected results of Tuesday’s hearing would be the “funeral of civil society in Turkey”. But a surprise verdict led to applause and tears of joy as nine of the activists charged with terrorism offences for their alleged roles in organising the 2013 protests walked free from the Istanbul courthouse.
The unexpected acquittals of nine of the 16 defendants – lawyers say not guilty verdicts for the seven others being tried in absentia are also expected if they return to the country – were a rare spot of good news in Turkey, where the judicial system has been hollowed out and weaponised against President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s opponents and critics.
Continue reading...Arrest warrants lifted for seven other defendants being tried over nationwide protests
A Turkish court has acquitted nine activists accused of terror charges over their alleged involvement in Istanbul’s Gezi park protests, a landmark ruling in a case that has given new hope to Turkey’s beleaguered civil society in a country where many fear the rule of law is being steadily eroded.
Applause erupted in the courtroom and some people cried in disbelief when the decision was announced at a courthouse near the Silivri maximum security prison campus, on the outskirts of Istanbul, on Tuesday.
Continue reading...Vast numbers of people are caught between regime bombings and closed Turkish border
Hundreds of thousands of civilians, many of them women and children, are stranded with little food or shelter in sub-zero temperatures in north-western Syria, forced from their homes by a Russian-backed military offensive that has often targeted hospitals and other civilian infrastructure.
The assault on Idlib, the last stronghold of the Syrian opposition, has created one of the greatest humanitarian crises of a long and brutal war. It has displaced more than 800,000 people since December, the United Nations said, 143,000 of them in the last three days alone.
Continue reading...Hundreds of thousands of civilians are fleeing a renewed assault by the Syrian regime, in desperate circumstances. Is anyone paying attention?
After the torture and massacre of civilians, after the targeted attacks upon rescuers, doctors and schools, after the barrel bombs and chemical weapons, it should be hard to believe that there could be a new wave of misery for Syria unleashed by Bashar al-Assad and his Russian and Iranian backers. Yet here it is. The assault on Idlib, the last rebel-held enclave, is the largest-scale humanitarian catastrophe of a war now in its ninth year. The United Nations has warned that 832,000 people, most of them children, have been displaced in less than three months; 100,000 people have fled in the past week. Many had already fled the Syrian regime’s murderous assaults before, in some cases three or four times; the province’s population has swelled from 1 million to 3 million since the war broke out. They face sub-zero temperatures, and many don’t even have tents in which to shelter. Doctors report children dying of exposure.
Conditions are likely to worsen. The frontlines are approaching Idlib city, probably sending further waves of families towards the closed Turkish border. Fighting has claimed the lives of both Turkish and Syrian troops, prompting the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, to move in reinforcements and threaten: “In the event of the tiniest harm to our soldiers … we will hit regime forces in Idlib and anywhere else.”
Continue reading...The north African country’s population have suffered years of turmoil, fuelled by the meddling of outside players. The civil war may yet escalate
Let’s all be good. This was, in essence, the conclusion of the conference in Berlin this month which aimed to at least begin the work of ending a war which has cost thousands of lives and displaced hundreds of thousands of people in Libya. Participants agreed that foreign meddling should cease and that everyone should abide by the UN arms embargo.
Despite the desperate need for peace, there was good reason to be cynical. The host, Angela Merkel, argued publicly with the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, over what had actually been agreed. Fighting soon raged again. The UN refugee agency announced on Thursday that it is suspending all operations at a facility in Tripoli and moving refugees from the site, fearing for their safety and that of its staff and partners amid worsening conflict. The UN says that several participants in the Berlin meeting have since shipped both arms and mercenaries to Libya, blatantly violating the embargo.
Continue reading...At least 29 people killed and more than 1,200 injured in 6.8-magnitude quake
A powerful 6.8-magnitude earthquake in eastern Turkey has killed at least 29 people, with the death toll expected to rise as rescuers search for survivors under the rubble in freezing winter conditions.
The quake late on Friday injured at least a further 1,200 people in the hardest-hit Elazig and Malatya provinces and was followed by more than 390 aftershocks, 14 of which had magnitudes above 4 which were felt as far away as Iran and Lebanon.
Continue reading...Erdoğan and Putin make call for ceasefire, as Italian PM hosts Libyan factions in Rome
An unprecedented drive involving Europe, Russia and Turkey has been launched to broker a Libyan ceasefire, and end the risk of the country collapsing into total all-out war.
However, it is unclear to which extent the joint Russian-Turkish call for a ceasefire by 12 January should be seen as complementary or in competition to an intensified Italian-led European push to end the fighting.
Continue reading...Move meant as deterrent to Libyan strongman Khalifa Haftar raises fears of escalation in violence
Turkey’s parliament has approved by a large majority a bill that allows troops to be deployed to Libya in support of the Tripoli-based government in the country’s worsening civil war.
The vote, taken during a special sitting, comes amid fears that the threat of Turkish intervention, in addition to that by other regional competitors, could intensify violence in Libya. MPs voted 325-184 in favour of the deployment.
Continue reading...Turkish leader’s visit comes as Ankara moves to strike deals with Mediterranean nations
The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has arrived in Tunisia on a surprise visit for talks with his Tunisian counterpart, his office has said.
The visit, the first by a head of state since the Tunisian presidential elections in the autumn, comes as Turkey has ramped up efforts to strike deals with nations on the Mediterranean, where Ankara has been at odds with Greece over resources off the coast of the divided island of Cyprus.
Continue reading...French president is rebuked by Trump over Nato criticism after row with Turkey about Kurds
Nato disunity was on full display on the opening day of the alliance’s summit in London as the French president, Emmanuel Macron, accused Turkey of colluding with Islamic State proxies while Donald Trump described Macron’s criticisms of Nato’s “brain death” as insulting and “very, very nasty”.
The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, for his part threatened again to veto Nato’s defence plan for the Baltics unless Nato endorsed its own assessment that Syrian Kurdish fighters on Turkey’s borders were terrorists, a definition that Macron and the Pentagon rejected.
Continue reading...Benefactor pays bills to ‘earn God’s blessing’ after suicides blamed on rising cost of living
Poor neighbourhoods of Istanbul have been visited by an anonymous benefactor paying off debts at grocery stores and leaving envelopes of cash on doorsteps, at a time when desperation at the spiralling cost of living has been blamed for recent suicides.
Residents of Tuzla, a largely working-class shipbuilding district on the Asian side of the city, were overjoyed last week to find their shopping bills in several grocery stores had been cleared by an unknown male benefactor.
Continue reading...Donald Trump has insisted that the US military presence in Syria is “only for the oil”, contradicting his own officials who have insisted that the remaining forces were there to fight Isis.
Related: Donald Trump says US military presence in Syria 'only for the oil' – live
Continue reading...Detaining of Ahmet Altan, who denies alleged links to failed coup in 2016, called a ‘disgrace’
Turkish police have rearrested the journalist and novelist Ahmet Altan, just a week after his release from prison over alleged links to the failed 2016 coup.
Altan and another veteran journalist, Nazlı Ilıcak, were released on 4 November despite having been convicted of “helping a terrorist group”.
Continue reading...His bodyguards ran riot in the city as they punched and pushed Kurdish protesters and attacked American security officers
Police in Washington DC, the US state department and the Secret Service are girding themselves for the return of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Wednesday, 18 months after the Turkish president’s bodyguards ran riot in the city, assaulting protesters and American security officers.
Newly declassified state department documents provide fresh details of the aggression shown by the Turkish security detail towards their US counterparts both before and after the 2017 attack near the Turkish embassy in north-west Washington. Six officers from the US Secret Service, two from the diplomatic service and one from the Washington police required medical treatment.
Continue reading...Alleged militant deported as part of Turkey’s drive to expel foreign jihadists in its custody
An alleged American member of Islamic State, stranded for a second day on the border between Greece and Turkey after Turkey expelled him, is “not our problem”, the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has said.
The man, named by the Turkish news agency Demiroren as Muhammed Darwis B, is believed to be a US citizen of Jordanian descent. He was deported on Monday as part of Turkey’s controversial new policy to deport foreign jihadists in its custody.
Continue reading...The US is reportedly planning to deploy tanks and other heavy military hardware to protect oil fields in eastern Syria, in a reversal of Donald Trump’s earlier order to withdraw all troops from the country.
The most likely destination for US armoured units is a Conoco gas plant near the city of Deir Ezzor, the site of a February 2018 clash between US special forces and Syrian regime-backed militias fighting with Russian mercenaries.
Continue reading...Erdoğan hails agreement with Putin in which Kurdish fighters will be moved from border area
The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, have agreed on the parameters of a proposed Turkish “safe zone” in Syria, a development that could bring an end to Ankara’s offensive against Kurdish forces over the border by severely curtailing their control of the area.
The two leaders were locked in marathon talks for more than six hours in the Russian Black Sea city of Sochi, emerging just two hours before a five-day ceasefire brokered by the US expired at 10pm local time.
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