Free Republic

In an incident that took place less than two weeks after the Greek Defense Ministry announced that Turkey had violated Greek airspace 138 times in a single day, a Turkish coast guard patrol boat on February 13 rammed a Greek coast guard vessel off the shore of Imia, one of many Greek islands over which Turkey claims sovereignty. Most of the areas within modern Greece's current borders were under the occupation of the Ottoman Empire from the mid-15th century until the Greek War of Independence in 1821 and the establishment of the modern Greek state in 1832. The islands, however,...

ANKARA, Turkey - The funeral of former Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit turned into a protest against the Islamic-rooted government on Saturday when thousands of pro-secular mourners booed the Turkish premier at a mosque and vowed to defend the secular regime against radical Islamic influences. Turkey is secular and will remain secular,’ thousands of people shouted when Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan arrived at the Kocatepe mosque for funeral prayers for Ecevit, who died at 81. Ecevit, a much respected pro-secular political force in Turkey for almost half a century, died on Sunday after nearly six months in a coma following...