Turkey’s Prime Minister Erdogan has hinted he will use the NATO treaty to obligate intervention in Syria [REUTERS] Princeton, NJ - The conventional wisdom last week on whether Syria would comply with former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan‘s ceasefire plan was that it was up to Russia. We were reverting to Cold War politics, in which [...]
Turkey says Israel must apologize for killing 9 Turkish nationals in May 2010. ISTANBUL (Reuters) — Turkey has refused to allow Israel to take part in a NATO summit next month because the country has not apologized for the 2010 killing of Turkish activists in a raid on a ship taking aid to Palestinians, a [...]
Recep Tayyip Erdogan‘s first stop was in Urumqi, home to China‘s Uighurs who are ethnically related to Turks. Their plight has been a source of contention between Turkey and China. Photograph: Umit Bektas/Reuters Turkish prime minister visits China Trip by Recep Tayyip Erdogan is first to China by a Turkish leader for 27 years and [...]
Bibi: First We’ll Take Tehran, Then We’ll Take Istanbul By Richard Silverstein March 29, 2012 “Tikun Olam” – Yesterday, brought ominous news regarding yet another aggressive Israeli projection of its military power in the Mideast. Since 1967, with but [...]
THE ROVING EYE Russia rules Pipelineistan By Pepe Escobar Nabucco – the alleged gas Holy Grail from the Caspian Sea to Europe, 4,000 kilometers from Turkey to Austria – is the perennial Pipelineistan soap opera. Part of the gas to supply Nabucco may come from Azerbaijan. Another part might – a very problematic [...]
Israel is using the the Gaza Strip as a testing ground for a possible military strike on its arch foe Iran, the head of the radical Palestinian movement Hamas said on Monday. “Israel is warming up the region for a possible war against Iran,”Khaled Meshaal said in an interview with Turkey’s Anatolia news agency. Accusing Israel of pursuing “state terrorism” [...]
Restaurants in Istanbul are translating their menus into Arabic to entice Arab diners. Photograph: Atlantide Phototravel/Corbis In the Turkish restaurants around Taksim Square in Istanbul, the menus are getting a new look. It’s not so much the food that is changing but the languages, as more and more restaurateurs choose to include Arabic. Erkan Ali Karabulut, manager of [...]
A Year of Foreboding By Deepak Tripathi An old colleague who was a distinguished Africa expert used to say, ‘When the mainstream media focus on one half of the story in a continent full of brutal and corrupt dictators who have been bought by foreign powers, it becomes the duty of [...]
World public opinion of the US military and its operations has soured after 9/11 [GALLO/GETTY] New York, NY - Portents of declining US and Western prestige marked the closing months of 2011. There is of course the ongoing economic crisis, and the inability to respond to it effectively. But another sign was the rapidity with [...]
Turkey’s Prime Minister Erdogan and Hamas‘ Gaza leader Haniyeh greet members of parliament from Erdogan’s ruling AK Party during a meeting at the Turkish parliament on January 3, 2012. (REUTERS/Stringer) ANKARA: Gaza’s Hamas prime minister Ismail Haniya received a warm welcome on Tuesday from lawmakers of Turkey’s ruling party during a visit [...]
Obama Secretly Preparing for Syria Intervention Officials Seek Options to Aid Syrian Opposition by Jason Ditz, December 28, 2011 | Print This | Share This | Antiwar Forum Members of the Obama Administration are confirming tonight that the National Security Council has [...]
Recep Tayyip Erdogan‘s attack follows the passing of a bill by French MPs criminalising the denial of genocide in Armenia in 1915. Photograph: Bulent Kilic/AFP/Getty Images Turkey‘s prime minister has accused France of having committed genocide during its colonial occupation of Algeria in the latest round of the worst diplomatic row between the two Nato allies in [...]
A Syrian child cries as his cousins watch at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees office in Amman [Reuters] To those who claim to ‘speak for us’ You need the Turkish government’s approval to have a face-to-face meeting with Colonel Riad al-Asad, who is currently in a refugee camp close to [...]
Erdogan has made an apology for the many thousands of Kurds killed in the 1930s. more to come Tahrir Square continues apace. Democracy and who is running the country are the issues Savage floods in Italy Eurozone looks at combined debt These and other stories will be featured shortly as more information comes to hand. [...]
Turkey‘s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan addresses lawmakers in Ankara on Nov. 22. (AFP/Adem Altan) DAMASCUS (AFP) — Syria‘s Bashar Assad was branded a coward on Tuesday by his onetime friend and ally, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who urged him to quit or face a bloody death like other dictators. The opposition Syrian [...]
Turkish president says Syrian crisis at a ‘dead end’ and change is inevitable An exclusive interview with Abdullah Gul on the eve of a visit to Britain amid reports Turkey is preparing a buffer zone with Syria view video of interview at http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/21/turkish-president-syria-abdullah-gul Turkey calls for Assad to call elections or resign after [...]
The ‘great game’ of ‘losing Syria’ is currently being played out. (SANA) By Maidhc Ó Cathail In 1996, an Israeli think tank, the Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies, prepared ‘A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm‘ for incoming Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In that seminal report, the Richard Perle-led study [...]
Turkish PM says Syria on ‘knife edge’ Scores of people reported killed over the past 24 hours in one of the country’s bloodiest days of violence Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey‘s prime minister, has increased pressure on Damascus over its crackdown on protesters, warning President Bashar al-Assad that Syria is on a “knife edge”. Erdogan said [...]
US Shifts Drones From Iraq to Turkey Military sources say the drones are unarmed, but Turkey’s harsh response to PKK rebels should raise questions by John Glaser, November 14, 2011 | Print This | Share This | Antiwar Forum The United States has removed Predator drones from Iraq and deployed them to Turkey in support of Ankara’s [...]
Davutoglu’s diplomatic skills have been compared to those of Henry Kissinger [GALLO/GETTY] By a happy quirk of personal destiny I happened to be in Istanbul a few days ago when the Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu gave a talk at the opening dinner session of the Istanbul Forum. His theme was the Arab Spring as [...]
The Tahrir is now headed through international waters on its way to Gaza. (MaanImages/Democracy Now, HO) By Andrew Quinn WASHINGTON (Reuters) — The United States warned on Thursday that a new effort to send a flotilla to challenge Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip was dangerous and urged US citizens not to take part. [...]
Image by freestylee via Flickr Icelandic People Said No Michael Hudson: Peoples of countries indebted without their consent should refuse to repay odious debts The Legal Basis to Reject Odious Debt Léonce Ndikumana and James K. Boyce: International law supports Africa rejecting debts that did not benefit the people High stakes at euro [...]
Turkish President Gul (far left) issued a warning after the attacks, saying the response would be “immense” [Reuters] Turkish forces have launched an incursion into the mountains of northern Iraq following simultaneous attacks by Kurdish separatists in southeastern Turkey that killed at least 26 soldiers. The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has waged a decades-long separatist struggle against [...]
Muslims in Bulgaria are represented by the MRF party that holds 37 out of the 240 seat unicamreal parliament [EPA] Europeanisation of the Balkans? The historic Europeanisation of the Balkans has resulted in the development of a renewed political landscape. Behlul Ozkan Leon Trotsky, the most prominent figure of the Russian Revolution of 1917 [...]
Israel: Many Enemies, Much Prestige By Uri Avnery An old photo from World War I shows a company of German soldiers getting on the train on their way to the front. On the wall of the car somebody had scribbled: “viel Feind, viel Ehr’” (“The more enemies, the more Honor”.) In those [...]
Assad should reform or quit over Syria uprising, says Dmitry Medvedev Russian president breaks ranks with Bashar al-Assad for the first time since the start of protests in Syria six months ago Russian president Dmitry Medvedev insisted that any change in leadership should be decided upon in Syria and was not a matter for Nato [...]
In Syria, Turkey‘s goal is to prevent civil war and sectarian violence, and encourage gradual democratisation [Reuters] Turkish foreign policy has come under close scrutiny in the wake of the Arab Spring. Prior to this, discussion of Turkish foreign policy – especially in the US – revolved around specific themes such as “axis shift”, “drifting [...]
Published yesterday (updated) 05/10/2011 18:12 Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Recep Erdogan and South African Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe answer questions during a press conference in Pretoria.(AFP/South African Dirc Jacoline Prinsloo) PRETORIA, South Africa (AFP) — Israel is a “threat” to its region because it owns nuclear weapons, Turkey‘s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said [...]
Over 1,000 women are raped every day in the Democratic Republic of Congo [GALLO/GETTY] The price of oppressing your women A recent Newsweek article listed the best and worst places to be a woman, and explained the disadvantages of oppression. The top and the bottom of the list of countries in Newsweek’s recent cover story, [...]
AMY GOODMAN: We continue with Noam Chomsky. His latest book, 9-11: Was There an Alternative?, has been republished—well, with a new essay about the assassination of Osama bin Laden. His original book,9-11, just months published after the 9/11 attacks, was the seminal counter-narrative to what was being said after the attacks of September 11th, 2001, as he [...]
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses the 66th United Nations General Assembly at the UN headquarters in New York, September 23, 2011. (REUTERS/Eric Thayer) JERUSALEM (AFP) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak both warned in interviews published Wednesday that the situation in Egypt’s Sinai poses a “very troubling” threat [...]
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, pictured, speaks at a press conference during the Palestinian ambassadors meeting with President Mahmoud Abbas in Istanbul. [AFP/Mustafa Ozer]\ PM: ‘Broken’ ties with Israel may become norm for Turkey Published yesterday (updated) 25/09/2011 20:34 WASHINGTON (AFP) — Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared Sunday that his country’s [...]
A Litany of Diplomatic Failures in US and Europe By SPIEGEL Staff DPA Sixty years after Israel declared statehood, the Palestinians want to follow suit this week. Washington, Jerusalem and Berlin are all trying to prevent the move. However, the Arab Spring has created new realities in the Middle East that can no longer be [...]
Erdogan: Israel is the West’s Spoiled Child Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. AP by JAMES M. WALL on SEPTEMBER 18, 2011 Spread it! 10| 38Share 0 inShare 0digg print (By James M. Wall * | Sabbah Report: www.sabbah.biz) On Tuesday, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told an Arab League meeting in Cairo, Egypt, that a vote to accept a [...]
Turkey had no other option but to escalate before an obstinate ‘ally.’ (UN Photo) By Ramzy Baroud The UN Palmer Report, which largely exonerated Israel for murdering nine unarmed Turkish civilians in international waters on May 31, 2010, seemed in some ways like the last straw. Prior to its publication, the camel’s back had already [...]
Turkey‘s PM rallies Arab world in Cairo with call for UN to recognise Palestine Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan speaks during the opening session of Arab foreign ministers meeting in Cairo. Photograph: Khaled Elfiqi/EPA Analysts believe Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Egypt visit is designed to strengthen Turkey’s influence in the region and isolate [...]
Turkey says flotilla raid was ’cause for war’ ANKARA, Turkey – Turkey’s prime minister says Israel’s raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla last year was “cause for war” but adds that his country had shown “patience” and refrained from taking any action. Prime Minister Recep Erdogan’s comments to Al-Jazeera television come as a rift between [...]
Israeli pyromaniacs are setting the Mideast on fire Autumn 2011 is teeming with disasters and our fate has been entrusted to a handful of cynical politicians, headed by Benjamin Netanyahu By Gideon Levy It’s as if summer 2011 never happened, as if there had never been a protest here: Israel is being led with dreadful blindness by a [...]
Turkish FM Slams Israeli Counterpart Over Calls to Back Terror Hopes Netanyahu Will ‘Back Denials With Actions’ by Jason Ditz, September 11, 2011 | Print This | Share This | Antiwar Forum Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has condemned the reports coming over the past few days that Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman is planning to arm the [...]
Israel faces worst crisis with Egypt for 30 years as diplomats flee Protesters use a light pole to knock down a concrete wall built in front of the Israeli embassy Photograph: Amr Abdallah Dalsh/REUTERS Israel is facing its worst crisis with Egypt for 30 years after being forced to airlift diplomats and their families to [...]
In May 2010, Israeli commandos raided a Gaza-bound aid flotilla, killing nine Turks and igniting a diplomatic row [EPA] Erdogan: Turkish forces to escort aid to Gaza Defying Israel‘s blockade, PM Erdogan says Turkey will send aid shipments to Gaza under the protection of naval forces. Last Modified: 08 Sep 2011 23:58 Turkey’s naval forces would [...]
Benjamin Netanyahu’s unwilligness to apologise to Turkey has damaged Israel’s relationship with Turkey [EPA] Can it be? Did the Turks really dare to say “No” to Bibi Netanyahu, threaten to break ties with Israel, [...]
Erdogan: We will not let Israel disrespect Turkey, no matter the price Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, August 17, 2011. Photo by: AFP Comments come on the heels of Turkey’s expulsion of top Israeli diplomats, suspension of all military deals. By The Associated PressTags: Turkey Israel Turkey Palestinians Mavi Marmara Gaza flotilla Turkey’s prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan [...]
As the rift between Israel and Turkey deepens, the Israeli media is preparing its crowd for another possible exciting bloody conflict. Israel’s leading news outletYnet, published yesterday a detailed comparison between Israel’s and Turkey’s military capacity – it outlines the size of the air force, navy, ground forces in the respective countries. “Turkey”, it says, [...]
The Panel was obsessed with Israel’s security. (Via Aljazeera) By Julie Webb-Pullman – Gaza The most fundamental fault of the Palmer Report on the 31 May 2010 Flotilla Incident(1) is its one-eyed view of security. The second is its exceeding of the Terms of Reference (TOR). While the Report upholds, and goes into considerable detail [...]
Nine people died when Israeli forces attacked the Mavi Marmara, which was en route to Gaza as part of a flotilla [AFP] A United Nations-mandated inquiry into a deadly Israeli raid on a Turkish-led aid flotilla to Gaza in 2010 says Israel’s action was “excessive”, according to extracts published Thursday by the New York Times. The [...]
Israeli marines shot dead nine Turkish passengers on the Mavi Marmara aid ship in May 2010 [AFP] Israel says it will stick to its refusal to apologise to Turkey for killing nine of its citizens on a Gaza-bound aid ship, an Israeli official has said. Wednesday’s announcement, which the official said Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu conveyed to [...]
Scott Horton Interviews Pepe Escobar Scott Horton, August 15, 2011 Email This | Print This | Share This | Comment | Antiwar Forum Pepe Escobar, journalist and author of Obama Does Globalistan, discusses why his article “Why the Syrian regime won’t fall” could prove false if major demonstrations break out in the largest urban areas, including Damascus and Aleppo; [...]
Israeli DM: We Must Apologize for Flotilla Errors Insists Comments Won’t Mean Apology for Killing Aid Workers by Jason Ditz, July 29, 2011 Email This | Print This | Share This | Antiwar Forum In extremerly controversial comments made earlier today, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said that it was important to reach a compromise with the Turkish [...]
UN’s Flotilla Investigation Report Delayed Yet Again Another Round of Delays as Israel, Turkey Continue Talks by Jason Ditz, July 24, 2011 Email This | Print This | Share This | Antiwar Forum Early this month, the UN’s official report on their investigation into the 2010 Israeli attack on the Mavi Marmara aid ship was delayed, nominally for [...]
