Free Republic

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy collected five previously imprisoned Azov battalion commanders in a recent trip to Turkey, prompting confusion from Russia, which accused Ankara of walking back an agreement to keep them until the war's end. In a Saturday video posted by Zelenskyy, commanding members of the battalion — a white nationalist paramilitary force within the Ukrainian National Guard — can be seen hugging the Ukrainian president before they board a plane. The commanders had been captured in the port city of Mariupol. "We are returning home from Turkey and bringing our heroes home," a post on Zelenskyy's Twitter read.

The Turkish President has fired a huge warning to his Russian counterpart who is already struggling in the wake of impressive Ukrainian counter-strikes on Moscow's invading army. ...The comments, made in an interview with PBS NewsHour on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, are likely to spark fury in Russia. When asked if Russia should be allowed to keep some of the territory it's taken from Ukraine since it invaded in February and if that should be "part of a solution to this — to this conflict", he replied through a translator: "No, and undoubtedly...

New Day co-hosts John Berman and Alisyn Camerota on Thursday took turns reading out loud a letter that President Trump recently sent to Turkish President Recep Erdogan. The letter contained blunt language in which Trump urged Erdogan not to be a "tough guy" or a "fool." Berman then turned to Jim Acosta, CNN's White House correspondent, and Trump antagonist extraordinaire, and sneeringly said: "We have this letter with this language that isn't exactly at Ph.D. level."Get the rest of the story and view the video here.

The Turkish lira has collapsed to an all-time low against the dollar, but the country's leader has brushed aside concerns, telling Turks "we have our God." The Turkish President Recep Erdogan then followed those comments up Friday by urging Turks to sell dollars and gold and buy lira. At around 8:00 a.m. ET Friday, the lira had fallen to $7.081, an almost 11 percent loss for the session. It has since pared some losses. As recently as April one dollar bought about four Turkish lira.

American activists opposed to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan want to know if he personally ordered the violent disruption of a protest Tuesday in the U.S. capital, and say President Donald Trump needs to stand up for them. Video released Thursday shows that Erdogan watched his supporters, including members of his security detail, charge toward protesters in the grassy Sheridan Circle, punching and kicking them before police restored order. Just before chaos erupted, an aide bent over Erdogan, who was seated in the back seat of a car in the driveway of the Turkish ambassador's home. The aide communicated with...

US president Donald Trump called his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday to congratulate him on winning the referendum boosting his powers, the White House said on Monday. The call was first reported by Turkish state media, one day after Erdogan won over 51 percent in Sunday's vote. "Trump called Erdogan tonight (Monday) and congratulated him on his success in the referendum," Turkish presidential sources said, quoted by the government run Anadolu news agency. The reaction from Mr Trump contrasts with EU leaders who have been reserved in their reaction to the narrow victory while monitors expressed concern over...

For eight decades, the iconic Hagia Sophia [Ἁγία Σοφία, “Holy Wisdom”] – museum in Istanbul [Constantinople] has stood as a symbol of Turkey’s commitment to a secular society. Now that tradition is under siege by growing calls to convert the historic structure back into a practicing mosque. The 1,500-year-old structure originally was built as an Orthodox Christian cathedral. It was turned into a mosque in the 15th century after the Ottoman Turks defeated the Greek emperor in Constantinople and renamed the city Istanbul. In the 1930s, the founder of modern Turkey, Kemal Ataturk, turned it into a museum in his...

Lindsay Lohan urged during a Facebook Live interview with the Daily Mail, that she wanted a sit-down meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin and other Hollywood celebrities to discuss the Syrian refugee crisis. "I want to try to get the word out to Donald Trump bring him over there, have him see all the positive things they are doing over there and all America can do to help as well." Lohan mentioned Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie and Rachel McAdams as possible other celebrities she would want involved with the meeting." Why did the world's leaders not...

ISTANBUL – Turkey's military announced on Friday night that the army had taken over “the entire management of the country to restore rule of law” as the country's prime minister admitted an “attempt” by a group within the military while falling short of calling the attempt a military coup. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, speaking by cell phone to CNN Turk from an unknown location, vowed that Turkey would "overcome this invasion" and called on Turks to "gather in squares and see what this minority can do with their tanks and artillery against the people." "Throughout history those who make...

Lebanese Armenians wave a giant flag during a rally outside the Turkish embassy in the capital Beirut on April 23, 2016, to commemorate the 101th anniversary of the mass killings of Armenians under the Ottoman Empire in 1915. It is 101 years since Turkey’s Ottoman government began arresting minority community leaders and setting in motion a campaign of systematic slaughter that had left 1.5 million Christian Armenians dead by the early 1920s. Lebanon’s Armenians marked on Sunday the 101 anniversary of when some 250 Armenian intellectuals were rounded up by Ottoman Turks as the first step of the genocide against...

Armenian-American leaders have urged Obama each year to make good on a pledge he made as a candidate in 2008, when he said the U.S. government had a responsibility to recognize the attacks as genocide and vowed to do so if elected. Obama's failure to fulfill that pledge in his final annual statement on the massacre infuriated advocates and lawmakers who accused the president of outsourcing America's moral voice to Turkey ... It's a Turkish government veto over U.S. policy on the Armenian genocide," Aram Hamparian, head of the Armenian National Committee of America, said in an interview. "It's like...

Turkish security services brought their strong-arm tactics to Washington on Thursday, roughing up protesters, journalists and even D.C. police before a speech by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The event descended into chaos and violence outside the Brookings Institute near D.C.'s Dupont Circle after the president's security personnel confronted a small group of people gathered to protest Erdogan's visit. ... Turkish security then clashed with the D.C. cops, who refused to remove protesters from the premises.

On Sunday, November 1, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Justice and Development Party (AKP) claimed that it had won a majority of seats in parliament. Voting registration and voter turnout numbers prove beyond any doubt that Erdogan cheated. ... AKP supporters were registered at multiple sites and so, in effect, voted two or more times. Turkey's High Election Council (Yuksek Secim Kurulu, YSK) handles all complaints. Once they issue a decision, by law it cannot be litigated. They are no longer independent, however, but under the thumb of Erdogan. Numbers do not lie. Erdogan stole this election, plain and simple.

Americans are becoming increasingly more suspicious struggling to find rhyme or reason for Obama’s latest Middle East policies. Rudy Giuliani seems to attribute Obama’s policies to be influenced through his affiliations with radical socialists like Frank Marshall Davis. But serious questions will prove that Obama’s policies are not different than a Muslim who supports the revival of the Muslim grand caliphate. Was Obama influenced only by a Marxist-Leninist agenda or did he also not grow up Muslim, having learned how to recite the Muslim call to prayer in the classical Arabic tongue as he clearly admits? Can anyone even deny...

Turkey has long enshrined the secular ideals of founding father Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, particularly in an education system that until recently banned Islamic headscarves in schools and made schoolchildren begin the day reciting an oath of allegiance to Ataturk's legacy. Now proponents of Turkey's secular traditions claim President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is taking a new path, building a more Islam-focused education system to realize his stated goal of raising "pious generations."

Recep Tayyip Erdogan says he isn't a sultan - rather he wishes to be like the Queen in a constitutional monarchy - but his actions suggest otherwise. He lives in the world's biggest residential palace that cost £384 million . ... Erdogan's White Palace .. boasts 1,000 rooms and has a total floor area of 3.1 million square feet. This makes it four times the size of Versailles, home of the lavish Louis XIV, the “Sun King” of France. ... the "quixotic architectural style seems to cross the Ottoman and Seljuk traditions with that of a modern Chinese railway station"....

Turkish leaders have said protecting Islamic sites in the Holy Land is a sacred mission for them, with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan bluntly warning any attack against the 8th-century al-Aqsa Mosque is no different than an attack on the Kaaba in the holy city of Mecca. “The Israeli administration has to stop this despicableness, this barbarity; what would it say if this kind of attack had been launched against synagogues? The Masjid al-Aqsa is not only a shrine for Palestinians, but is the shrine of all Muslims,” Erdogan was quoted as saying on Nov. 7 during an official visit to...

Do you see the words “Hamas” and “Hezbollah” in here?(Platform) Me neither. Of course, there’s a difference. The omission of God and Jerusalem from the Democratic party’s 2012 platform was quite intentionally meant as a demotion, very much in keeping with Obama administration policy. The jihadists, by contrast, are moving up in the world. As for God, there’s not room in this universe for two The Ones. In cases of conflict, the president has made it abundantly clear that his pieties control, and the pious better get with the program: Domestically, abortion-on-demand and wealth-redistribution to assure free contraceptives for thirty-something...

Turkey has closed its airspace to Israeli military flights following a deadly raid on a Gaza-bound aid ship, the Turkish prime minister and officials said Monday. Recep Tayyip Erdogan told reporters in Toronto that Turkey imposed the ban after the May 31 raid on a Turkish ship that was part of a six-vessel international aid flotilla, according to the state-run Anatolia news agency. The prime minister, who is in Canada to attend a summit of the Group of 20 major industrial and developing nations, did not elaborate. On Sunday, Israel's Yediot Ahronot newspaper reported that Turkey had not allowed a...

Turkey has been marketing its short-range air defense system to Arab League states. Turkey's military-owned Aselsan has been briefing Arab militaries on the company's Pedestal-Mounted Air Defense System (PMADS). The system, based on the U.S.-origin Stinger surface-to-air missile, was designed for very short-range air defense, particularly the protection of critical sites and military bases. "There is interest [in the system] within the region," an executive said. Aselsan displayed PMADS at Sofex-2010, which took place in Amman, Jordan on May 10-13. Executives said Jordan's military has been examining the feasibility of procuring the system, which could also fire French- and Russian-origin...