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Social media users said there was a large explosion in Huraytan, northern Syria. The Russian Embassy in London was not available for comment. The Turkish military has blasted a Russian jet out of the sky after it violated its airspace, according to unconfirmed reports. Social media users said there was a large explosion in Huraytan, northern Syria. The Russian Embassy in London was not available for comment. Last week Turkey said its jets had intercepted a Russian fighter in its airspace and the prime minister threatened to shoot down any plane that strayed in future. Two Turkish F-16s forced the...

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu on Tuesday returned the mandate to form a government to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Anadolu news agency reported. Erdogan received Davutoglu at 7.30 p.m. local (1630 GMT) at the Presidential Palace in capital Ankara, according to the news agency. Davutoglu, who is also the chairman of the Justice and Development (AK) Party, told Erdogan that despite his best efforts he could not find any possibility to form a coalition government. The president thanked the prime minister for his efforts, a statement from the Turkish presidency added. Erdogan is now expected to make a decision...

White House condemns suicide bombing in Turkey that killed at least 30 people and was blamed on ISIS. Video The White House on Monday condemned an apparent suicide bombing in Turkey that killed at least 30 people and was blamed on the Islamic State (ISIS) group, AFP reported. Spokesman Josh Earnest said the White House "strongly condemns the heinous terrorist attack that occurred in southern Turkey," which Ankara said appeared to be the work of ISIS. "We have started to see some extremist activity in other countries that does seem to be related to ISIL," Earnest said, using another acronym...

We know from leaked recordings in the past year that Turkey has been planning to use the tomb of Suleiman Shah as an excuse to invade Syria in hopes of sparking a war: TurkeyÂ’s plan to invade its neighboring country of Syria was uncovered when a secret recording leaked of the highest officials discussing a plan to launch a military aggression on Syria by using the armed terrorist group Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS). Â… ErdoÄŸanÂ’s government was planning a false flag attack to be executed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) against...

Hundreds of Turkish troops in armoured vehicles have entered into northern Syria and evacuated a historic Ottoman tomb and the soldiers guarding it. Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said the remains of Suleyman Shah would be moved elsewhere in Syria. He said troops had destroyed the tomb's complex, apparently to prevent it from being used by Islamic State (IS) militants. Turkey considers the shrine be to sovereign territory. Suleyman Shah was grandfather of the founder of the Ottoman empire, Osman the first. SNIP-- The operation began on Saturday at about 21:00 local time (19:00 GMT) and ended on Sunday morning. A...

Hundreds of Turkish troops backed by tanks took part in an overnight operation into neighboring Syria to evacuate dozens of besieged soldiers guarding an Ottoman tomb and remove the remains amid fears the shrine was threatened by Islamic State militants. The mission late Saturday, saving Turkish soldiers reportedly stuck for months at the tomb of the grandfather of the founder of the Ottoman Empire, was the first such major military incursion by Turkey since the Syrian conflict began in March 2011. Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said nearly 600 Turkish soldiers on some 100 tanks and armored personnel carriers crossed...

As a consequence of the Eurozone crisis, racism is on the rise, in the same way that the 1929 crisis inspired anti-Semitism. But this time the scapegoats are Muslims, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu told a Brussels audience on Thursday (15 January). […] One important message was that the EU, and the West in general, had missed the opportunity provided by the Arab revolutions. The West didn’t mobilize, as it did for Eastern Europe, after the end of the Cold War, Davutoğlu argued. More concretely, he blamed the West for not having supported the “moderate young generation” in Syria, the...

Qadhafi liked to surround himself with women (whereas Erdogan seems to prefer the opposite, ordering the fairer sex “know their place” and stay at home); and third, Erdogan’s multi-billion dollar embezzlement schemes make the madman of Libya seem, well, a bit modest and unambitious. ... Perhaps no leader was more hypocritical than Erdogan to send a representative, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, to show up in Paris and march in solidarity against the terrorist attack on Charlie Hebdo. Here’s why: 1.No sooner did Davutoglu return home, than Erdogan's Brownshirts raided newspapers planning to reprint the Charlie Hebdo issue and blocked websites...

It was less than 48 hours ago when TurkeyÂ’s prime minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, joined millions marching in Paris to pay tribute to the 17 people killed by ISIS-supporting extremists. Then, almost the moment he got back, things changed, and as the FT politely paraphrases what transpired, the "countryÂ’s president struck a much more confrontational tone." That's one way of putting it. Another is that the former PM and current president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, of NATO-member Turkey did the unthinkable: accused the west, and French citizens in particular, of staging the Charlie Hebdo murder in order to blame Muslims, even...

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu on Sunday hailed the unprecedented rally against terror in Paris as a strong message to the world, but added he would expect a similar reaction to attacks on Muslims and “Islamophobia”, according to AFP. Davutoglu joined dozens of other world leaders at the march in Paris to mourn the victims of the three days of terror by Islamists that began with the slaughter of 12 people at the offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. “It is a message to the whole world that everyone must confront the threat of terror,” Davutoglu was quoted as having...

A visit to Turkey by Hamas’ top leader and his participation in a convention of the ruling Islamist party is the latest sign that Turkey, a member of NATO, is becoming the key sponsor and ally of a U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organization. Khaled Meshaal met with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday, before making a guest appearance at a weekend regional congress of the Justice and Development Party (AKP). Welcomed onto the platform by Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, Meshaal received an enthusiastic reception. He endorsed Erdogan and Davutoglu by name, and expressed the hope that together Hamas and Turkey...

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...

Davutoglu and Fabius called the chemical attack a "crime against humanity", stressing the need for an urgent inspection on the attack by the UN officials, who are still in Damascus Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu held a phone conversation on Friday with the French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius regarding a recent claim of use of chemical weapons in Syria. Turkish diplomatic sources told the Anadolu Agency that the two top diplomats discussed mainly Wednesday's chemical weapons attack on the suburbs of the Syrian capital of Damascus that killed at least 1,300 civilians. Both stressed that the attack was a "crime...

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu hit back at Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's claims in an interview that Ankara made a pact with Israel against Damascus. "Such arguments like Turkey is in cooperation with Israel against Syria have no grounds," the Turkish foreign minister said, according to the Anatolia news agency. "Turkey never speaks to Israel or any other third party about its neighbors," he said. "This is not something that should be taken seriously." Assad slammed Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in an interview conducted this week with two Turkish media outlets, accusing Ankara of "contributing directly to the...

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu expressed satisfaction on Friday with Israel’s apology for the 2010 Mavi Marmara incident. Davutoglu, who just recently hinted there was a “secret deal” between Israel and Syria, said that all of Turkey's fundamental demands had been met with the apology. Earlier, Netanyahu spoke on the phone with his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and apologized for the deaths of nine Turks during Israel’s 2010 raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla. Channel 10 News reported on Friday the details of the agreement between Israel and Turkey. Netanyahu, in addition to the apology, has agreed to compensate the...

Exclusive: Joel Richardson notes Turkey official's flip-flop in support of neo-Ottomanism Turkish Foreign Minister Davutoglu calls for a new regional neo-Ottoman order For the past several years, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, the chief architect of Prime Minister Erdogan’s ruling Islamist Justice and Development Party, has repeatedly denied the Turkish government’s regional “neo-Ottoman” plans. In 2009, Davutoglu determinedly repudiated all claims that he was leading Turkey back to the Ottoman era. Against the mounting charges made by various political analysts and journalists, the FM protested, “When others use [this term], I have always warned that we do not count it...

Israeli official: By blocking Israel's involvement in NATO events, Turkey also keeping 6 other regional countries from taking part. Turkey’s opposition to Israeli participation in NATO events blocks the inclusion of six other regional countries, something irritating other NATO states and increasingly becoming a contentious issue inside the alliance, Israeli diplomatic officials said Monday. According to the officials, the issue was raised last week at a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Brussels. The officials denied Turkish media reports that Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu blocked Israel’s participation in the NATO summit in Chicago at the end of May, saying...

There is a joke going around business circles in the south-eastern Turkish city of Gaziantep these days. "We no longer have zero problems with our neighbours," it goes, "we now have zero neighbours without problems." It is an ironic reference to the new foreign policy championed by the governing Justice and Development Party (AKP), which was given the title "Zero Problems With Neighbours" by its architect, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu. This aimed to eliminate the historic tensions which had kept Turkey in a state of hostility with all its neighbours, and rebuild relations based on trade... Trade with the Middle...

Update (June 16th, 2010 10:20 am): A press assistant at the Wilson Center confirmed this morning that what I wrote below is correct. The ceremonial dinner, honoring Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, along with a Turkish business tycoon, is scheduled for Thursday evening, at the Four Seasons, in Istanbul. What follows is my post originally written Wednesday night:Turkey’s leaders have made a lot of news lately, and it’s been ugly: holding hands with Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, blessing the lead role of the terror-linked Turkish IHH foundation in last month’s Gaza terror flotilla, and voting last week against new sanctions on Iran in...