Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan completed his first ten years in office today [March 15] while resting at his Istanbul home since he called sick in with flu on Tuesday.
Read more: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/03/edrogan-prime-minister-turkey-10-years-in-office.html#ixzz2OaGt4iyc
Read the story »Speaking of the international order or lack thereof has always been controversial. For Turkey to challenge the international order, however, carries some real risks — simply because it’s a NATO member country, and its objections raise questions as to whether it’s proposing an alternative foreign policy to this military bloc’s generally perceived worldview, and if so, whether it is diverging in its perception of security issues from the rest. NATO is also the most significant alliance Turkey has, anchoring it in the West.
Read more: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/03/turkey-davutologu-ottoman-new-order-mideast.html#ixzz2OaGSc4UG
Read the story »After the Palestinian Ma’an News Agency broke the news on Tuesday, March 5, that Sakir Ozkan Torunlar, Turkey’s consul general in Jerusalem, will be accredited as Turkey’s ambassador to the Palestinian Authority, it became obvious that for the foreseeable future it will not be possible to speak of any kind of normalcy in Turkish-Israeli relations.
Read more: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/03/turkey-diplomatic-recognition-palestine-abbas-jerusalem.html#ixzz2OaG6zKE3
Read the story »Turkish government’s peace initiative to solve Turkey’s Kurdish issue has been moving forward without a break since members of the National Intelligence Organization (MIT) talked to Abdullah Ocalan, the imprisoned Kurdistan Workers Party leader on the island of Imrali, in late December 2012 to discuss cooperation on bringing the bloodshed to an end.
Read more: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/03/esat-canan-bdp-saudi-turkish-kurdish-unity-peace.html#ixzz2OaFV5Z5i
Read the story »The most troubling part of it all was that no one was surprised that Derya Sazak, the executive editor of Milliyet daily, might have walked out of his job under government pressure as a result of publishing one of the bigger scoops in a long time. Namik Durukan, the daily’s long time correspondent on Kurdish affairs reported on Feb.26th the notes of the meeting between imprisoned Kurdistan Worker’s Party leader Abdullah Ocalan, and the three members of the Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party during their visit to Imrali on Feb, 23. Like it or not, people had a chance to learn about the inside dynamics of Ocalan’s control of this government initiated peace talks with the Kurds, and what role he thinks he has in all of this. But Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan got furious by media exposure, and trashed it by saying “damn your journalism!”
Read more: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/03/milliyet-protest-erdogan-media-pressure-ocalan.html#ixzz2OaFAgWRW
Read the story »It’s long been said: “Don’t kill the messenger,” and since Namik Durukan of Milliyet daily reported what was discussed between imprisoned Kurdistan Worker’s Party leader Abdullah Ocalan and the three members of the Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party during their visit to Imrali — part of the ruling party’s effort to finding a solution to Turkey’s Kurdish problem — he has created a storm of perceptions and reactions to his professionalism.
Read more: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/03/abdullah-ocalan-pkk-tukey-kurdish-peace-process-journalist.html#ixzz2OaEnfZpj
Read the story »Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s remarks equating “Zionism” to a “crime against humanity” at the Fifth Global Forum of the Alliance of Civilizations on Feb. 28 received strong reactions from the U.N. secretary-general, United States and Israel. His remarks, however, supplement what Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said at a special session of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation on Feb. 6. “In the course of the 65 years since the establishment of [Israel], it has imposed war against the people of Palestine and the regional countries,” Ahmadinejad said. “Hearing the name of Zionist regime is today synonymous with war, death and bloodshed.” And Erdogan’s remarks were, “It’s necessary that we must consider — just like Zionism or anti-Semitism or fascism — Islamophobia as a crime against humanity.”
Read more: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/03/erdogan-zionism-comments-turkey-pm-reactions.html#ixzz2OaEOEmrd
Read the story »Two former generals, and three lower-ranking soldiers, were called to testify in Ankara on Wednesday [Feb. 27] regarding their role in the “February 28th Process” — the so-called military coup which deposed former Islamist Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan in 1997.
Just minutes before the day turned to Feb.28, the court announced its decision to arrest former land forces commander retired Gen. Erdal Ceylanoglu, well known for ordering tanks to parade on the streets of Ankara, as well as retired Maj. Gen. Yucel Ozsir. Thursday marks the 16th anniversary of the alleged coup.
There was a growing tension in that part of Ankara after the Iranian ambassador attended an event called “Jerusalem night” on Jan. 30, 1997, and that the staged theater was perceived as targeting the main pillars of this secular democracy and aiming at the alliance that it’s a member of.
Read the story »ANKARA Turkey — Turkey’s effort to join the European Union is still far from being realized. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has justifiably expressed his frustration with this, which was set as a state policy since more than a half-century ago. As he is, however, openly lambasting the country’s past at any given opportunity, starting from the military coups to the generals’ role in policy-making; from the alleged state restrictions that prevented pious Muslims like him from practicing Islam to the previous governments’ economic failures, the Europeans take even a more critical look at Turkey — coupled with all of the things that Erdogan has been critical about this country’s past as well as the size of its population, belonging to a different culture, tradition and religion.
Read more: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/02/turkey-eu-bid-issues-human-rights-democracy.html#ixzz2MUsgLmpH
Read the story »After Al-Monitor’s Mustafa Akyol opened the debate by asking, “Is there a Turkish Kurdistan?” and another contributor, Cengiz Candar, continued the conversation with “part of Turkey’s territory is Kurdistan,” it may actually be time to ask yet another question: Why is Kurdistan different from Palestine?
This is not to suggest that there is any copy-paste parallel between the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Turkey’s Kurdish issue, but the obvious fact is that since Ottoman times, both Palestine and Kurdistan have defined lands without borders. Neither has ever claimed sovereignty in any time in history, nor have either’s people been regarded as a nation.
Read more: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/02/kurdistan-palestine-differences.html#ixzz2MUsI0GX5
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