Free Republic

U.S. President Joe Biden has frayed relations between Ankara and Washington “beyond repair” with his recent statement using the word “genocide” to describe the 1915 Armenian genocide by Turkey, Turkey’s state-run Anadolu Agency argued Tuesday. The Ottoman Empire enacted what is widely considered the first genocide of the modern world against Armenian, Assyrian Christian, and Greek populations in what is now Turkey. The Turkish government adamantly denies this occurred, claiming all those killed died in a war featuring violence on both sides, a claim not corroborated by historical

Our “ally” in Turkey continues to blaze a trail toward a future for his country that looks less and less democratic by the day. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s PK party didn’t fare all that well in the country’s recent round of parliamentary elections. They didn’t lose power, but there was definitely a shift in the electorate and opposition parties fared better than in previous years. One place where Erdogan’s candidates did especially poorly was in the major city of Istanbul. Erdogan’s party’s candidate for mayor was defeated there by Ekrem Imamoglu of the CHP party. That apparently didn’t sit well...

Turkey has been a mess for years under the increasingly despotic and incompetent leadership of Turkish President Erdogan. The economy has been declining and suffering major problems with inflation and a decline in the value of the local currency, the lira, and Erdogan has launched increasingly vicious crackdowns on the opposition while breaking ties with former allies like the United States. The Turkish people have finally gotten sick of this, and Erdogan’s party suffered a major electoral defeat last week in several major Turkish cities. Erdogan responded to his defeats about as well as you’d expect, and throwing around hysterical...

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - The Istanbul election board has rejected a bid by Turkey’s ruling AK Party to annul the local election in the city’s Buyukcekmece district, an AKP official told Reuters on Friday, after the opposition narrowly won the vote in the city.

A day after local elections, a mayor-elect from the opposition Felicity Party (SP) was physically assaulted by the former mayor of Diyarbakır’s Çüngüş district, a ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) politician, the T24 news website reported. SP mayor-elect Ali Suat Akmeşe was injured along with another party member and a policeman. They were airlifted to a hospital in Diyarbakır. According to a local SP official, the injured party member is in critical condition. “The AKP chairman [Recep Tayyip Erdoğan], ministers and [AKP ally] Devlet Bahçeli terrorized the society with their political messages and sowed the seeds of anger,” he...

ISTANBUL — President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s party said Tuesday that it had submitted challenges to election results that showed its candidates had been defeated in Istanbul and Ankara, Turkey’s largest cities, in local elections two days earlier that dealt a rare setback to Erdogan at the ballot box. The Justice and Development Party, or AKP, has repeatedly prevailed in elections since 2002 and was the leading vote-getter on Sunday. But its losses in major cities — including Istanbul, Turkey’s financial capital — were a significant symbolic defeat for Erdogan and threatened to weaken his powerful party machine, analysts said.

Turkey's top electoral body on Monday annulled the results of the March 31 vote in Istanbul, which opposition candidate Ekrem Imamoglu narrowly won, and scheduled a re-run for June 23. The loss of Istanbul — and the capital of Ankara — in Turkey's local elections were sharp blows to Erdogan and his conservative, Islamic-based Justice and Development Party, or AKP... The controversial decision has increased concerns over democracy and the rule of law in Turkey

The editor of the Washington Post said that Erdogan who failed in the local elections has now refused to make concessions on Russian missiles or Syrian Kurds. Trump's administration will have no choice but to treat him as a rival. The editor wonders how Erdogan will react to the people's rebuke to him,The editor of the Washington Post talks about the results of local elections in Turkey, which he sees as a referendum on Erdogan's increasing authoritarian leadership.The editor notes that Erdogan used all his cheap tools that would have led the country to explosion in an attempt to rally...

ISTANBUL — President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s party on Sunday was facing defeat in local elections in the Turkish capital, Ankara, and possibly even Istanbul, its largest city, a result that shook the nation as Mr. Erdogan suffered the first major electoral setback of his decade and a half in power.The municipal balloting around the country came nine months after national elections that extended Mr. Erdogan’s hold on power. It was closely watched as a barometer of his standing with voters after Turkey’s economy fell into recession and he assumed sweeping new executive powers.Mr. Erdogan claimed victory over all in the...

ISTANBUL — Voters headed to the polls across Turkey on Sunday in local elections that are seen as a critical test of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s nationwide popularity, especially in large cities, at a moment when Turks are expressing growing anxiety because of an economic downturn. A crackdown on the government’s opponents that intensified after a failed coup in 2016 has added to the domestic unease and has also troubled Turkey’s relationships with western allies, causing sharp fluctuations in the Turkish lira and putting investors on edge. Erdogan’s own position is secure. But the economic crisis and polls that suggest...

Turkey's official news agency says three people have been arrested for alleged involvement in a drive-by shooting at the U.S. Embassy last month. Anadolu news agency said a court ordered them to be jailed pending trial. Three others who had been detained were released on Saturday under judicial control, requiring them to regularly check in with authorities. Shots were fired embassy in Ankara from a moving car early on Aug. 20. Three of the six bullets hit the embassy gate and a reinforced window. No one was injured

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - The U.S. Embassy in Ankara has not put out a statement regarding pastor Andrew Brunson, an embassy official told Reuters on Monday, after a report on social media cited the embassy as saying he would be released from house arrest by Aug. 15. The case of Brunson, an evangelical Christian being tried by a Turkish court, is one of a series of disputes that lies at the heart of deteriorating ties between the two NATO allies.

ISTANBUL - The US embassy in Turkey's capital Ankara will be closed to the public on Monday due to a security threat and only emergency services will be provided, it said in a statement on Sunday. The embassy advised US citizens in Turkey to avoid large crowds and the embassy building and to be aware of their own security when visiting popular tourist sites and crowded places. It did not specify what the security threat that prompted the closure was.

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan 24) - A mob of about 50 people on Wednesday attacked a funeral ceremony in the Turkish capital of Ankara for the deceased mother of the imprisoned Deputy Co-chair of the pro-Kurdish opposition Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) Aysel Tugluk. Speaking to Kurdistan 24, HDP lawmaker Adem Geveri confirmed the reports that a racist crowd assaulted Hatun Tugluk's evening funeral despite the presence of riot police and gendarmerie in the Ankara cemetery. Tugluk's mother passed away because of natural causes related to her old age in the early hours of Wednesday. The family after the assault decided...

Turkey's main opposition leader told a huge protest rally on Sunday that the country was living under dictatorship and pledged to keep challenging the crackdown launched by the authorities after last year's failed military coup. Addressing hundreds of thousands of people waving Turkish flags and banners demanding justice, Kemal Kilicdaroglu said his 25-day march from Ankara to Istanbul - culminating in Sunday's rally in Istanbul - was the first stage of a long campaign. "We will be breaking down the walls of fear," he told the crowd who gathered to welcome him at the end of his 425 km (265...

Saddam's Ambassador to al-QaedaBy Jonathan SchanzerWeekly Standard | February 23, 2004 A RECENTLY INTERCEPTED MESSAGE from Iraq-based terrorist Abu Musab al Zarqawi asking the al Qaeda leadership for reinforcements reignited the debate over al-Qaeda ties with Saddam Hussein's fallen Baath regime. William Safire of the New York Times called the message a "smoking gun," while the University of Michigan's Juan Cole says that Safire "offers not even one document to prove" the Saddam/al-Qaeda nexus. What you are about to read bears directly on that debate. It is based on a recent interview with Abdul Rahman al-Shamari, who served in...

A State Department spokesman on Monday chose his words carefully in condemning the assassination of the Russian ambassador to Turkey and the killing of 12 people run down by a truck at a Christmas market in Germany. He said he “couldn’t rule out” that the shooting in Ankara may have been a terror attack, and referred to “the horrendous events” in Berlin. President-elect Donald Trump had no qualms preempting investigations and calling both incidents — along with a shooting near a mosque in Zürich — “terror attacks.” “Today there were terror attacks in Turkey, Switzerland and Germany — and it...

Germany on Wednesday tried to row back from its latest spat with Turkey, its crucial partner in efforts to stem mass migration, after Ankara lashed out over a leaked government report alleging Turkey was a hub for Islamist groups. Turkey and Germany have had a series of rows in recent months, just as the European Union has been trying to secure Turkey's help in tackling the influx of migrants to Europe, of which Germany has taken in the bulk. Ankara has also been incensed by criticism from the West of its crackdown following a failed coup attempt on July 15....

DEVELOPING: A fire broke out in Turkey's capital city of Ankara Tuesday with initial reports indicating a large explosion, but Twitter reports later suggesting it was a fire in a large residential building.

The recent terrorist attack in Istanbul was not an attack aimed at Israel, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Thursday, according to Reuters. Erdogan made the remarks in a speech at the Brookings Institute think tank. The attack in Istanbul killed three Israelis and an Iranian citizen but Erdogan’s remarks indicated he did not think the terrorists targeted Israelis. The Turkish president also said in his speech he expected a meeting of Turkish and Israeli officials next month to yield positive results, after the sides collaborated closely following the Istanbul attack. .....