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TURKEY will let Sweden into NATO once they are allowed to buy F-16 fighter jets from the US. Referring to the F-16 plan and Sweden’s application to join the Alliance, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is reported as stating this Tuesday, September 26: ‘If they fulfil their promises, our parliament will also fulfil its own and take its steps accordingly’ Pointing out that the Turkish parliament has the final say on Sweden’s NATO membership, Erdogan stressed: ‘When the issue comes to the agenda of parliament, we will see together what the decision will be’, according to aa.com.tr. Speaking on the Presidential...

Thousands of people have fled from a disputed Azerbaijani territory to neighbouring Armenia amid fears that they may face ethnic cleansing. Nearly 6,700 people arrived in Armenia after leaving the Nagorno-Karabakh region, internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan, in the two days since the Armenian government began accepting refugees on Sunday. Armenia's prime minister, Nikol Pashinyan, said that the country has plans to look after up to 40,000 refugees, but said he expects up to 120,000 people to leave the region due to the 'danger of ethnic cleansing', raising serious concerns over whether Armenia will be able to cope with...

Update from Ukraine | South frontline success | Azerbaijan Armenia Conflict. Ukraine Poland tensions https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qW4Cm7IL0lM The summary of the situation of Russian re-invasion to Ukraine covering the recent developments on the battlefield, as of 13th September 2023 – 22:00 (Kyiv time). [NOTE: two summaries per week, released on Wednesday and Sunday] https://militaryland.net/news/invasion-day-567-summary/ *** Great interactive maps with viewer controlled Map magnification tool to use for each Front! https://militaryland.net/maps/

Russia expected to finish off its invasion of Ukraine within a week and a half, making sweeping gains in the initial days of the invasion that started on February 24, 2022. But this failed to materialize in the face of what experts called Ukrainian defiance that took the Kremlin by surprise. Western analyses have also suggested that Moscow made a number of crucial mistakes in the early phases, including how it used its tank crews, sustaining heavy losses of experienced personnel... Russia currently controls about one-fifth of Ukraine's internationally recognized territory. Kyiv's ongoing counteroffensive, which began in early June, has...

ISTANBUL -- Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that he trusts Russia as much he trusts the West. Explaining his recent meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Erdogan said he had failed to get him to resume the Black Sea grain deal the Kremlin withdrew from in July but had elicited a pledge for Russia to supply 1 million tons of grain to Africa. “I have no reason not to trust them,” Erdogan said during an interview late Monday with U.S. broadcaster PBS in New York, where he is attending the U.N. General Assembly. “To the extent the West is...

Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) expressed frustration Thursday with the Biden administration's lack of urgency in addressing what the United States has described as a "rapidly deteriorating humanitarian situation" in Nagorno-Karabakh, a hotly disputed region at the center of rising tensions between Armenia and Azerbaijan.Menendez, while chairing of a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on the crisis, said he was "amazed" by the responses from Yuri Kim, the acting assistant secretary for the State Department's Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs...The senator's frustration centered on the administration's application of Section 907 of the United States Freedom Support Act, which bans direct...

"The Genetic Bonds Between Kurds and Jews"by Kevin Alan BrookKurds are the Closest Relatives of JewsIn 2001, a team of Israeli, German, and Indian scientists discovered that the majority of Jews around the world are closely related to the Kurdish people -- more closely than they are to the Semitic-speaking Arabs or any other population that was tested. The researchers sampled a total of 526 Y-chromosomes from 6 populations (Kurdish Jews, Kurdish Muslims, Palestinian Arabs, Sephardic Jews, Ashkenazic Jews, and Bedouin from southern Israel) and added extra data on 1321 persons from 12 populations (including Russians, Belarusians, Poles, Berbers, Portuguese,...

Ukraine's defense ministry signed an agreement with Turkish drone magnate Baykar Makina to build a service center for the repair and maintenance of drones in Ukraine, a ministry official said on Monday. Ukraine is seeking to boost domestic production of drones to build an "Army of Drones" in its fight against Russian forces who invaded the country in February 2022. "The creation of a service center will be a significant contribution to strengthening Ukraine's defense capabilities and will help bring our victory closer," the ministry's state secretary Kostiantyn Vashchenko said in a statement. Ukrainian producers have sharply increased domestic drone...

Last week, Turkey's President Erdogan toured the Middle East, signing investment deals, while also gifting the leaders Turkey's first electric car. These recent moves come as a part of a diplomatic reset between Turkey and the Gulf states; so, in this video, we're going to take a look at the history of Turkish relations with the Gulf states, why Erdogan has U-turned, and what this means for the region.00:00 - Introduction01:08 - Why Turkey Fell Out with the Middle East in the First Place04:35 - Erdogan's Pivot08:35 - Sponsored ContentWhy Turkey is Cosying Up to Saudi Arabia | 10:25TLDR News...

The Jewish community in Azerbaijan has expressed deep satisfaction with the exceptional dialogue that took place at the international summit at the European Parliament, which dealt with Iran’s conduct towards minority groups residing in the country, primarily towards the Azeri community. “The Jews were persecuted for many years and we know well how it feels,” stated Rabbi Zamir Isayev, rabbi of the Georgian Sephardic community in Azerbaijan. We, specifically, are obligated more than anyone towards the Azeri nation that suffers from ongoing oppression.” Rabbi Isayev added, “We will raise the matter at every international forum, if we can. The matter...

Sweden's top court on Thursday blocked the extradition of two Turks that Ankara says are part of a terrorist group, potentially complicating Stockholm's bid to join NATO just days after Turkey dropped objections to Sweden's membership. Sweden and Finland applied for NATO membership last year in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, abandoning policies of military non-alignment that had lasted through the Cold War. Turkey has held up ratification of Sweden's bid. Ankara accuses Stockholm of doing too little to deal with people Turkey sees as terrorists, with extradition a key sticking point. However, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan on Monday...

Ukraine deserves to have NATO membership, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said, following talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that Russia said it was closely watching. Zelensky spent this week visiting NATO countries, courting support ahead of a NATO summit in Lithuania next week where members are expected to reaffirm that Ukraine will eventually join. “Without a doubt, Ukraine deserves to be in NATO,” Erdogan said. Zelensky said he was “happy to hear” that Turkey supports Ukraine’s bid to join during a joint press conference.

The Turkish DNA Project, an online endeavor to track Turkish genetics, is enraged at the popular genealogy site Ancestry.com and has called for it to be boycotted for stating an inconvenient truth: many, and possibly most, modern Turks are the descendants of the Greeks who once formed the overwhelming majority of the population of the land that is now Turkey. In this as in so many other instances, the truth hurts, but that doesn’t make it any less the truth.

The Justice Department has charged two former Twitter employees with spying for Saudi Arabia, The Washington Post reports. U.S. citizen Ahmad Abouammo on Tuesday was arrested for allegedly spying on the accounts of three users on behalf of the kingdom. Ali Alzabarah, a Saudi citizen, was charged on Wednesday with accessing the personal information of more than 6,000 Twitter accounts in 2015 on behalf of Riyadh. One of the accounts Alzabarah allegedly hacked belonged to Omar Abdulaziz, a known critic of Saudi Arabia, who later became friends with Jamal Khashoggi, The Washington Post columnist that was killed by the Saudi...

Both the Obama and Biden administrations have had two obsessions that have proven to be erroneous but continue to persist. One is the belief that the Palestinians are the key to Arab Israeli peace. Former President Barack Obama had spent eight years pursuing efforts to push Israel to make unilateral concessions to the Palestinians, including freezing settlement expansion for almost a full year. At the same time, Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas climbed on a high tree and refused to come down and negotiate. President Joe Biden has been less preoccupied with the Palestinians since other priorities emerged that made...

A Turkish homeowner chasing his chickens through a hole in his basement during renovations came across an abandoned underground Turkish city that once housed 20,000 people. ... the ancient city of Elengubu, known today as Derinkuyu. Derinkuyu, burrowed more than 280 feet beneath the Central Anatolian region of Cappadocia, is the largest excavated underground city in the world and is believed to connect to more than 200 smaller, separate underground cities ... Inside the subterranean city — whose entrances connect to more than 600 private homes in the modern, surface-level region of Cappadocia — researchers found 18 levels of tunnels...

The news was shocking beyond measure: a man went on a stabbing spree at a playground in the French city of Annecy last Thursday, stabbing four three-year-olds and an adult. The attacker shouted “In the name of Jesus Christ” as he did his stabbing and claimed to be a Christian. He even had a made-to-order Christian name: Abdelmasih Hanoun; “Abdelmasih” means “Slave of Christ.” It was suspicious and contrived, but it did seem to confirm the Leftist elites’ claim that the largest terror threat comes from right-wing Christians. There was just one catch: some people have recognized Abdelmasih Hanoun and...

He may want a Nobel Peace Prize, as might Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan or even Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev. It is unlikely, but should the Norwegian Nobel Committee oblige, the Blinken prize would herald a humanitarian disaster, as did the Nobel Committee's award to Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed in 2019.The problems with Blinken's peace plan are huge.Democracies should not bully fellow democrats into conceding to terror in the face of aggression. Nor should the State Department dismantle democracies and force their submission to dictatorship. Most alarming, Blinken actively ignores Aliyev's abuses, even as Aliyev incites genocide and denies...

Records show Siemens agreed to boycott of Israeli goods to secure $360 million deal with Turkey Germany-based conglomerate Siemens agreed to boycott Israeli products to secure a $360 million deal to provide Turkey with high-speed trains, according to copy of the contract obtained by a pro-Israel watchdog group that contradicts months of public denials from the company. The agreement, which includes a signature and seal from Siemens, has a provision that "providers of goods and works, and their associates and subcontractors, shall be in strict compliance with the Boycott Regulations of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, the League of...

Japan was the first country to break its silence after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year. Tokyo said of the Kuril Islands that it was “completely unacceptable that the Northern Territories have yet to be returned since the Soviet Union’s illegal occupation of them 77 years ago”. That annexation saw the expulsion of Japanese people from the southern islands, and since then, the countries have failed to reach a compromise. Talks broke down when Putin showed he was not willing to share lands but only to gain new ones. Then China started drawing maps marking part of Siberia and...