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On the 11th anniversary of Russia's annexation of Crimea via an "illegitimate referendum," Türkiye said it does not recognize the "de facto situation in Crimea," expressing its support to Ukraine's territorial integrity and sovereignty. "We reiterate that Türkiye does not recognize the de facto situation in Crimea, which constitutes a violation of international law, and that we support the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Sunday. "We will continue to closely monitor developments in Crimea, particularly the situation of the Crimean Tatar Turks, the indigenous people of the peninsula, and we will...

Turkey, with the second largest army in NATO after the United States, could contribute to a potential peacekeeping mission in Ukraine, a Turkish defence ministry source said on Wednesday. "The issue of contributing to a mission will be considered if deemed necessary for establishing regional stability and peace, and will be assessed mutually with all relevant parties," the source told reporters in Ankara. -snip- Turkish media reported last week that President Tayyip Erdogan had discussed a possible deployment with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov during separate meetings in Ankara last month. Turkey has maintained cordial...

Syrian insurgents fighting forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad have launched attacks in the central province of Hama, threatening to cut off government troops from a key route linking the capital, Damascus, with rebel-held Aleppo. The army was engaging in “violent confrontations” with armed groups in Hama, the Syrian state news agency, Sana, reported. Separately, a longtime independent war monitor, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said on Tuesday morning that rebel factions in the province had managed to seize several “towns in the last few hours”. “Syrian and Russian air forces carried out dozens of strikes on the area,”...

Uzay Bulut @bulutuzay_: İsmet Özel, a well-known Muslim poet from Turkey, said at a conference: "Muslims are terrorists. The first duty of Muslims is to be terrorists. Kafirs [infidels] should be afraid of Muslims. If they are not afraid, then a Muslim is not a Muslim." https://t.co/oyNMAnLP7E — Uzay Bulut (@bulutuzay_) September 27, 2024.

Opponents of Israel and allies of Hezbollah and Iran on Saturday condemned the killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, after the Lebanon-based terrorist group confirmed his death in an Israeli strike on south Beirut a day earlier. Among those expressing outrage at Israel’s actions were Hamas, Turkey, Russia, Yemen’s Houthis and Iraq. Hamas in a statement said: “We condemn in the strongest terms this barbaric Zionist aggression and targeting of residential buildings… and we consider it a cowardly terrorist act.” It offered “condolences, and solidarity with the brothers in Hezbollah and the Islamic Resistance in Lebanon on the martyrdom of…...

Ankara has remained firm in recent years it would keep the Russian-made S-400 "Triumf" air-defense system, even though it meant it was expelled from the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program. Washington and NATO leaders argued the platforms weren't compatible and Turkey's adoption of both would compromise security of the stealth fighter. Greek-based media reported the U.S. has "submitted a detailed proposal" that could resolve the matter. It would "formally allow" Turkey to keep the S-400, but essentially transfer the control to the United States. The system would be stored at the Incirlik Air Base. Employing a Russian-made system when the...

"The return of Crimea to Ukraine is a requirement of international law." Erdoğan said in his video address that Turkey has always been opposed to Russia's annexation of Crimea. He decried the persecution of Crimea's ethnic Tatars since 2014. Erdoğan added: "Our sincere wish is for the war to end with a fair and lasting peace based on Ukraine's territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence." In October 2020, the Turkish leader said during a joint press briefing with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that his country would never recognize the annexation of Crimea. "We have and always will support Ukraine's sovereignty and...

BEST EFFORT SUMMARY: Why has WEF shut down investigation of the site for 150 years? Gobekli Tepeis a 12,000-year-old temple (7,000 years older than and fifty times the size of Stonehenge and 5,000 years before the known invention of the wheel) that predates humanity's oldest known civilizations and is full of strange animal carvings and towering stone pillars. Discovered in Turkey in 1995, it is the oldest, largest and most mysterious archaeological site ever found. Composed of pillars that are upward of 20 feet tall and weigh 20 metric tons. Construction would require enormous amounts of work, ingenuity and...

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...

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğa reiterated Türkiye’s offer to facilitate negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, as he said Ankara emphasizes diplomacy and dialogue to put an end to the war between the two countries. -snip- Erdoğan also said Türkiye supports Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s 10-point peace plan in principle. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s 10-point peace plan is based on a complete Russian withdrawal from Ukraine, reparations and punishment of war criminals, as well as the release of Ukrainian prisoners of war and their return under mediation by Riyadh.

Answering reporters’ questions on Friday, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said strikes by United States and UK targeting Yemen was not proportionate as they claimed and accused them of trying to turn Red Sea into "sea of blood." Erdoğa said Houthis were mounting "successful defense, response" against attacks.

According to Germany's largest daily newspaper, Bild, Russia has established a new airline in Turkey. The intention is to organize a stream of refugees to Europe through the NATO country, thereby causing chaos on the continent. As early as today, December 23, the first airplane is supposed to have taken off. "Polish security authorities explicitly warn of a 'new, organized rush of refugees via Russia and Belarus'," the German newspaper reports. One of the airlines identified in the operation is the Turkish Southwind. Yesterday, Friday, Belarusian authorities also announced that the company will start flying between the major cities in...

Mayor Eric Adams admitted that he helped the Turkish consulate get approval to open two years ago despite fire concerns — saying it was simply what politicians do. His comments came as he was grilled by the media Tuesday about details of a federal probe into his campaign, that reportedly focuses on illegal foreign donations from Turkey. “This is what we do every day,” Hizzoner told a packed room of reporters in City Hall Tuesday. “When the constituency reaches out to us for assistance to another agency … you reach out to an agency and ask them to look into...

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned that the US aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford, which happens to be the largest of its kind, and recently arrived in Israel, may contribute to serious massacres against Palestinians and destroy Gaza, amid ongoing tensions in the region. "What is the U.S. aircraft carrier doing in Israel? It will start to carry out serious massacres there by striking, destroying Gaza," Erdogan told a joint news conference with Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer in the capital Ankara on Tuesday. He added: "I have to explain something here. Look, there are over 20 American bases in Syria...

...Excavations in Boğazköy-Hattusha have been going on for more than 100 years under the direction of the German Archaeological Institute. The site has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1986; almost 30,000 clay tablets with cuneiform writing have been found there so far. These tablets, which were included in the UNESCO World Documentary Heritage in 2001, provide rich information about the history, society, economy and religious traditions of the Hittites and their neighbors.Yearly archaeological campaigns... continue to add to the cuneiform finds. Most of the texts are written in Hittite, the oldest attested Indo-European language and the dominant language...

A centuries-old tomb stele smuggled from the ancient Turkish city of Zeugma to Italy has been returned to its home, Turkish Culture and Tourism Minister Mehmet Nuri Ersoy announced on July 13.A stele is a standing stone slab used in the ancient world for several purposes, including grave and tomb markers, dedications, commemorations and demarcations.The repatriated tomb stele depicts a noblewoman, wearing a veil and a tunic. Her right hand is placed on her left breast. Under the bust refiguring the deceased is an inscription in ancient Greek reading, "Satornila, the wife who loves her husband, farewell!"The Venetian authorities seized...

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.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy collected five previously imprisoned Azov battalion commanders in a recent trip to Turkey, prompting confusion from Russia, which accused Ankara of walking back an agreement to keep them until the war's end. In a Saturday video posted by Zelenskyy, commanding members of the battalion — a white nationalist paramilitary force within the Ukrainian National Guard — can be seen hugging the Ukrainian president before they board a plane. The commanders had been captured in the port city of Mariupol. "We are returning home from Turkey and bringing our heroes home," a post on Zelenskyy's Twitter read.

Russia was the world's largest gas exporter until February 24, when Moscow invaded Ukraine, shaking global energy markets and forcing Europe to end its dependence on Russian fossil fuels. Europe imposed sanctions on Russia, which Turkey has refused to apply. Since the war began, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has sought to play a mediating role in the conflict, supplying weapons to Kyiv while maintaining close relations with President Vladimir Putin. In response, Putin proposed in October to make Turkey a hub for Russian gas deliveries as an alternative supply route to Europe — a plan backed by Erdogan. But...

Much is being reported worldwide about the reelection Sunday of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and its impact on relations between Turkey and the U.S., Russia, China, and other world powers....According to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, the 40 jailed journalists in Turkey at the end of 2022 is a big increase over the 18 who were in prison in '21....Earlier this month, the Mezopotamya News Agency reported that since June of last year, 34 journalists in 21 counties have been rounded up by the Ankara Chief Public Defender's Office as part of an investigation into their ties...