Free Republic

Turkey’s Religious Affairs Directorate (Diyanet), which controls 90,000 mosques globally and employs 140,000 people, mandated that women must cover their entire body except for the face, hands, and feet, asserting that veiling is an Islamic command, not a personal choice. The mask has come off, and the facade of the Left-Islamic alliance has been removed. The insistence that Islamic dress for women is a matter of modesty and personal choice has been debunked by a top Islamic authority. But will the Western, Islam-enabling left-wing media report this truth or continue to assist Islam in its quest for dominance in the...

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen recently warned Israel against cutting off Palestinian banks and spoke about the need to increase aid to Gaza, that is, Hamas, even further. Yellen’s words gained little attention, as the Biden regime’s betrayal of Israel is now old news. It is now widely known that the regime, deeply afraid that it could lose Michigan in November, has brought a seventy-year-old alliance perilously close to rupture to gain the Arab vote. Yet the betrayal of Israel didn’t begin when the polls started looking bad for Old Joe. The seeds of it were planted long before Hamas massacred...

ISTANBUL, July 12 (Reuters) - Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday it is not possible for NATO to continue its partnership with the Israeli administration. "Until comprehensive, sustainable peace is established in Palestine, attempts at cooperation with Israel within NATO will not be approved by Turkey," Erdogan said at a news conference at the NATO summit. Turkey also continues its diplomatic efforts to end the Russia-Ukraine war, he said. Erdogan said as well that he has instructed Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan to meet Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to start to restore relations with Syria.

Three-quarters of Europe’s Jewish community hide their identities as they fear being harassed or attacked by anti-Semites. Jews in EU member states are in the grip of a “rising tide of anti-Semitism”, an EU rights agency that conducted the survey said, as it blamed increased tensions over the war in Gaza. Across Europe, 76 per cent said in the survey they hid their Jewish identity “at least occasionally” while 34 per cent said they took care to avoid Jewish events or places as they did not feel “safe” there. Sirpa Rautio, the director of the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights...

Erdogan Germany has a well-known period in its history where it gave in to a dictator. Things didn’t work out so well for a lot of people. Now there’s another dictator exerting his influence, apparently. This time, the dictator is from Turkey. New York Times bestselling author and Christian evangelist Joel Richardson blasted German Chancellor Angela Merkel for approving a criminal probe against German comedian Jan Böhmermann. The satirist’s supposed crime is reading a satirical poem about Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Richardson, who highlights the plight of Middle Eastern Christians in his new documentary “Global Jesus Revolution,” said...

The head of the Shiite Lebanese terrorist organization Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, threatened to expand his war against Israel in a speech on Wednesday, boasting that he allegedly has 100,000 terrorists at his disposal and suggesting war with Cyprus may also be imminent. Hezbollah, one of many Iranian proxy terrorist organizations, has long maintained ties with the Sunni jihadist group Hamas. The group has expanded its attacks on Israel since October 7, when Hamas terrorists launched an unprecedented invasion of Israel that resulted in an estimated 1,200 deaths, the abduction of about 250 people, and widespread torture, rape, and other atrocities....

YEREVAN, Armenia (AP) — The leader of Armenia on Wednesday declared his intention to pull out of a Russia-dominated security alliance of several ex-Soviet nations as tensions rise between the two allies. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said his government will decide later when to leave the Collective Security Treaty Organization, or CSTO, a grouping that includes Russia and the former Soviet Central Asian nations of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Amid the widening rift with Russia, Armenia earlier froze its participation in the alliance, canceled its involvement in joint military drills and snubbed CSTO summits. Pashinyan said Wednesday for the...

A Russian-dominated security grouping held a summit in Belarus on Thursday with the absence of one of its members, Armenia, which has been irked by what it sees as a lack of support over the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Speaking at the meeting of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, CSTO, Russian President Vladimir Putin hailed what he called the group’s role in securing peace and stability in the region. But in a sign of the widening rift between Russia and Armenia, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan snubbed the summit in the Belarusian capital of Minsk, citing his government’s dissatisfaction with the organization....

Gunmen attacked the United States embassy building in Lebanon on Wednesday morning, according to statements from the U.S. government and the Lebanese army. “At 8:34 a.m. local time, small arms fire was reported in the vicinity of the entrance to the U.S. Embassy. Thanks to the quick reaction of the LAF [Lebanon Armed Forces], ISF [Israel Security Forces], and our Embassy security team, our facility and our team are safe. Investigations are underway and we are in close contact with host country law enforcement,” the embassy said in a statement on X. At 8:34 a.m. local time, small arms fire...

President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan, took advantage of a major rally held today in Ankara, the Turkish capital, to continue his rampage attack on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Addressing an audience of thousands of supporters, Erdogan called Netanyahu derogatory names and called on the world to "stop the bloodthirsty thug Netanyahu." "We need to stop this barbarian, thug, and bloodthirsty Netanyahu, who is dragging our region and the entire world into disaster," Erdogan said. He then reiterated Turkey's commitment to the Palestinians and said that Turkey stands by the Palestinian people. "Turkey opposes the oppression, the massacre, and the...

World leaders have been targeted quite frequently this month, and that should deeply alarm all of us. I think that all of this geopolitical instability is a sign that there is far more going on behind the scenes than we are being told. The major powers appear to be making moves in anticipation of what they believe is coming next. Right now, the death of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi is dominating the news cycle, and at this stage we don’t know if that was an accident or not. But as a Twitter user known as “Cillian” has pointed out, there...

In a conversation with the First Vice President, the special assistant to the Russian President stated that, by Putin's order, two advanced aircrafts with special helicopters and 50 professional mountain rescue personnel will be dispatched to Tabriz, Iranian media reported on Sunday overnight.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan claimed on Wednesday that Israel would "set its sights" on Turkey if it succeeded in defeating Hamas in the Gaza Strip, AFP reported. "Do not think that Israel will stop in Gaza," Erdogan told his party lawmakers in the parliament in the capital Ankara. "Unless it's stopped... this rogue and terrorist state will set its sights on Anatolia sooner or later," he added, referring to the large Turkish peninsula also called Asia Minor that comprises more than half of Turkey's territory. "We will continue to stand by Hamas, which fights for the independence of its...

Turkey was in "constant contact" with and supports Hamas, which is not a terrorist group, said the Turkish leader. ... Erdoğan has made a habit of comparing Netanyahu and Israel to Hitler and the Nazis... Last week, Foreign Minister Israel Katz accused Erdoğan of acting like a “dictator” by blocking the country’s ports to Israeli imports and exports as part of a trade war. “This is how a dictator behaves, disregarding the interests of the Turkish people and businessmen, and ignoring international trade agreements,” tweeted Katz. Erdoğan’s government, which openly supports Hamas in its war against Israel, announced export restrictions...

ANKARA (Sputnik) - Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has held an emergency meeting with the heads of intelligence and the ministry of justice after his fellow party member, Nationalist Movement Party leader Devlet Bahceli, had warned of a possible coup d'état being prepared by law enforcement agencies, the Turkiye newspaper on Wednesday. The dismissal of several police officers in Ankara's security directorate accused of links to criminal organization Ayhan Bora Kaplan has caused widespread concern. Their homes had been searched to seize digital materials. Bahceli has said the situation could be a conspiracy against the government, and the suspension of...

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Sunday that the United States and European countries were not doing enough to pressure Israel to agree a ceasefire in Gaza, after Hamas' move to accept a truce proposal, Reuters reported. Speaking to Muslim scholars in Istanbul, Erdogan said Hamas had accepted a ceasefire proposal by Qatar and Egypt in a "step in the path toward a lasting ceasefire", but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government did not want the war to end. "The response of the Netanyahu government was to attack the innocent people in Rafah," he charged. "It has become clear who...

Turkish Foreign Minister: We must stop Israel. Either by peace or by force.

The president of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) of Iraq, Nechirvan Barzani, traveled to Tehran on Monday to meet with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, who warned him to prevent “anti-revolutionary elements” from getting too friendly with the autonomous Kurdish region. The warning appeared to be a threat intended to dissuade Kurdish cooperation with the United States and any potential cordial ties with neighboring Israel. The KRG maintains friendly relations with the United States and cooperates militarily with Washington, particularly against the Islamic State (Isis) jihadist organization. The KRG’s Peshmerga forces were pivotal in the ouster of the ISIS “caliphate” from...

Iran informed Turkey in advance of its planned operation against Israel, a Turkish diplomatic source told Reuters on Sunday, adding that Washington had conveyed to Tehran via Ankara that any action it took had to be "within certain limits." The Turkish source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan had spoken to both his US and Iranian counterparts in the past week to discuss the planned Iranian operation, adding Ankara had been made aware of possible developments. Earlier this week, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke to Fidan to make clear that escalation in the...

Iran said it warned its allies and neighbors in the region 72 hours before the drone and missile attack on Israel began, the Iranian foreign minister said Sunday. "We informed them that the Islamic republic's response was legitimate and definitive," Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said in a televised meeting.