Turkey

US President Joe Biden and Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan sounded upbeat after their first face-to-face talks on Monday, although they did not announce major breakthroughs in the relationship between the two allies, at odds over Russian weapons, Syria, Libya and other issues. “We had a positive and productive meeting, much …

US President Joe Biden and Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan will discuss problematic bilateral ties on Monday including Ankara’s purchase of Russian S-400 missiles, but there is little hope they will resolve any of several disputes that divide NATO. The two leaders will hold their first face-to-face talks since Biden took …

President Tayyip Erdogan said on Sunday that Turkey’s central bank had agreed with China to increase an existing currency swap facility to $6 billion from $2.4 billion, in a move that could boost foreign reserves. Turkey’s FX reserves plunged by 75% last year, raising concerns about a possible balance of …

Turkey has shared data on its Black Sea discovery with U.S. energy majors Chevron and Exxon Mobil ahead of possible cooperation in extracting the gas, a Turkish official with knowledge of the matter told Reuters. Ankara has so far insisted it would develop the estimated 540 billion cubic meters field, …

Turkey should withdraw its troops from Afghanistan under the 2020 deal for the pullout of U.S. forces, a Taliban spokesman said on Thursday, effectively rejecting Ankara’s proposal to guard and run Kabul’s airport after U.S.-led NATO forces depart. The development raises serious questions for the United States, other countries and …

U.S. President Joe Biden and Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan will meet to discuss Syria, Afghanistan and other regional issues next week and will also look at the “significant differences” between Washington and Ankara, the U.S. national security advisor said on Monday. Speaking at a White House briefing, Jake Sullivan said …

Turkey’s environment minister has pledged to defeat a plague of “sea snot” threatening the Sea of Marmara, with a disaster management plan he said would secure its future. A thick slimy layer of the organic matter, known as marine mucilage, has spread through the sea south of Istanbul, posing a threat …

Turkey has discovered 135 billion cubic metres (bcm) of additional natural gas in the southern Black Sea, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said, raising the total discovery in the region to 540 bcm. Speaking at an opening ceremony in the Black Sea province of Zonguldak on Friday, Erdogan said Turkey had …

Turkish agents have captured a nephew of US-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen in an overseas operation and have brought him to Turkey where he faces prosecution, Turkey’s state-run news agency said Monday. Selahaddin Gulen, who was wanted in Turkey on charges of membership in a terror organization, was seized in …

Turkey convinced its NATO allies to opt for a milder official stance after Belarus forced down a European airliner passing through the country’s airspace so it could arrest a dissident journalist, Reuters reported on Thursday. The Ryanair passenger plane was flying from Greece and bound for Lithuania, however Belarus diverted …

Greenpeace welcomed a ban by Ankara on imports of most plastic waste after the environmental group said it uncovered exports, some possibly illegal, from Britain and Germany that created “mountains” of trash in southern Turkey. The environmental group said its teams visited ten sites in Adana province and found plastic …

Turkey’s Karpowership, which provides electricity to Lebanon from two barges, said on Friday it was shutting down supplies over payment arrears and a legal threat to its vessels as the nation grapples with a deep economic crisis. The company, which supplies 370 megawatts (MW), or about a quarter of Lebanon’s …

Muslim countries must show a united and clear stance over Israel’s conflict with the Islamist Hamas movement in Gaza, Turkey’s vice president, Fuat Oktay, said on Thursday, criticising world powers for condemning violence without acting. “What we desire is that active measures are taken,” Oktay told reporters after morning prayers …

The Arab League on Tuesday condemned deadly Israeli air strikes on the Gaza Strip and called on the international community to move urgently to stop escalating violence that it blamed on Israeli actions against Palestinians in Jerusalem. The violence began with confrontations between Palestinian protesters and Israeli security forces at …

Turkey criticised Israel and accused it of unleashing “terror” on Palestinians after Israeli police fired rubber bullets and stun grenades towards rock-hurling Palestinian youth at Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa mosque late on Friday. The clashes at Islam’s third holiest site and around East Jerusalem, which injured 205 Palestinians and 17 police officers, …

Egypt and Turkey on Thursday held talks on the conflict in Libya, where they back competing factions, on Syria and the security situation in the eastern Mediterranean, in a push to rebuild their fractured relations. The discussions, held over two days and led by deputy foreign ministers, were the first …

German Chancellor Angela Merkel told Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday that the withdrawal of foreign troops from Libya would be an “important signal” as both leaders vowed to support the new interim government there, a German government spokesman said. Libya’s new Government of National Unity (GNU) was sworn …

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and Saudi Arabia’s King Salman bin Abdulaziz discussed bilateral ties in a call on Tuesday, the Turkish presidency said, the second conversation between the two leaders in less than a month. Turkey is seeking to improve ties with the Gulf Arab state after they were thrown …

A close aide of killed Daesh group leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi has been caught in Istanbul, police said Sunday. The Afghan national, only identified by the codename Basim, was detained in the Atasehir district on the city’s Asian side on Wednesday, according to an Istanbul police statement. News reports of …

Turkish police detained 212 demonstrators after scuffles broke out at May Day marches on Saturday amid a coronavirus-related curfew, according to the Istanbul governor’s office and Reuters witnesses. Riot police and plainclothes officers jostled with union leaders and other demonstrators and threw some to the ground before detaining dozens of …

Turkey added cryptocurrency trading platforms to the list of firms covered by anti-money laundering and terrorism financing regulation, it said in a presidential decree published early on Saturday. The Official Gazette said the country’s latest expansion of rules governing cryptocurrency transactions would take immediate effect and cover “crypto asset service …

-U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Turkey and all U.S. allies on Wednesday should refrain from making further purchases of Russian weaponry, threatening the possibility of more sanctions. Frayed relations between NATO allies Turkey and the United States were further tested over the weekend after President Joe Biden recognized …

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan urged U.S. President Joe Biden to swiftly reverse his declaration that the 1915 massacres of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire constituted genocide, an action he said was upsetting and diminished bilateral ties. Biden’s historic declaration on Saturday infuriated its NATO ally Turkey, which has said the announcement …

Turkish prosecutors ordered the arrest of 532 suspects including 459 serving military personnel in an operation targeting people linked to a Muslim cleric who Ankara says was behind a 2016 attempted coup, state-owned Anadolu news agency said on Monday. The investigation was being conducted in 62 provinces as part of …

Tensions between Washington and Ankara may be further strained on Saturday when US President Joe Biden is expected to become the first US leader to officially recognize the Armenian Genocide of 1915 onward. The massacre of around 1.5 million Armenians in the early 20th century was formally recognized as genocide …

President Tayyip Erdogan named a prominent member of Turkey’s ruling AK Party, Mehmet Mus, as trade minister on Wednesday and split another ministry into two, in what officials said was the first move in an expected broader cabinet shuffle. In a presidential decree Ruhsar Pekcan, the cabinet’s highest-profile woman, was …

Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias arrived in Egypt on Sunday during a tour leading up to a visit to Saudi Arabia. It comes within the framework of a diplomatic move by Athens against the backdrop of the situation in Libya and tension with Turkey in the eastern Mediterranean. Dendias tweeted …

Leading Turkish actor Genco Erkal, 83, announced on Saturday that he is facing an investigation for exercising his freedom of expression. Erkal, an outspoken government critic, is being investigated for “insulting the Turkish president” and will give his testimony on Monday. His social media postings on Twitter since 2016 are …

Turkey’s foreign minister said a new period was beginning in Ankara’s ties with Egypt with senior officials from the two countries set to hold talks, broadcaster NTV said on Wednesday. Last month Turkey said it had resumed diplomatic contacts with Egypt and wanted further cooperation after years of tension since …

Turkey will hold an Afghan peace summit from April 24 to May 4 meant to jump-start efforts to end Afghanistan’s war and sketch out a possible political settlement, Turkish authorities said on Tuesday. The summit includes the United Nations and Qatar as part of a U.S.-backed push to advance talks …

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday that Turkey and Libya were committed to a 2019 maritime demarcation accord in the eastern Mediterranean, after meeting Libya’s Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibeh in Ankara. “The maritime accord signed between Turkey and Libya secures national interests and future of both countries…We confirmed our …

Canada on Monday scrapped export permits for drone technology to Turkey after concluding that the equipment had been used by Azeri forces fighting Armenia in the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, Foreign Minister Marc Garneau said. Turkey, which like Canada is a member of NATO, is a key ally of Azerbaijan, whose …

Libyan Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibeh and a delegation of ministers will make their first visit to Turkey on Monday since taking office last month, the Turkish presidency said on Sunday. Libya’s new unity government was sworn in on March 15 from two warring administrations that had ruled eastern and western …

Another major international blunder by Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. The European commission’s first female president Ursula von der Leyen was left standing during a meeting of the EU’s two presidents and Turkey’s leader. Von der Leyen was unpleasantly “surprised” after being left without a chair. She has demanded such …

Turkey called in China’s ambassador on Tuesday after his embassy said it had “the right to respond” to opposition leaders who criticised China’s treatment of Uighur Muslims three decades ago. The politicians, IYI Party leader Meral Aksener and Ankara mayor Mansur Yavas of the main opposition CHP, had marked what …

Turkey’s top court sent an indictment calling for the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) to be banned back to the prosecutor on procedural grounds, state-owned Anadolu Agency said on Wednesday. The Constitutional Court ruled that the indictment had procedural omissions and returned it to the Court of Cassation, it said. …

Protesters have taken to the streets of Istanbul and other cities for the second straight weekend to protest against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s decision to withdraw from an international treaty to combat violence against women. By the Levant News newsdesk Erdogan last week sparked anger with the announcement Turkey was …

Two weeks from now: Angel NicGillicuddy is sent to meet the central banker. They meet in the park. The central banker is resting on a park bench. The sun is setting. What light is left of the day has a bluish glow to it. Angel approaches the central banker. He …

Turkey raised the issue of Uighur Muslims during talks with China’s foreign minister in Ankara on Thursday, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said, as hundreds of Uighurs protested against the treatment of their ethnic kin in China. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met Cavusoglu and later President Tayyip Erdogan, as …

Turkey’s lira briefly fell 15% to near its all-time low on Monday after President Tayyip Erdogan abruptly fired the central bank governor at the weekend and installed a critic of tight policy who is expected to reverse recent rate hikes. Sahap Kavcioglu, a former ruling party lawmaker who shares Erdogan’s …

European leaders criticised what they called Turkey’s baffling and concerning decision to pull out of an international accord designed to protect women from violence, and urged President Tayyip Erdogan to reconsider. Erdogan’s government on Saturday withdrew from the Istanbul Convention, which it signed onto in 2011 after it was forged …

Turkey has asked Egyptian opposition television channels operating on its territory to moderate criticism of Egypt’s government, as Ankara seeks to improve strained ties with Cairo, the owner of one of the channels said on Friday. Ayman Nour, a liberal opposition figure and former Egyptian presidential candidate, told Reuters Turkish …

The Turkish airforce conducted its first strikes in 17 months against a zone in north Syria held by Kurdish militia on Saturday night, a monitor said. “A Turkish fighter jet has struck military positions of Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in Saida village in Ain Issa countryside… which caused loud explosions,” …

President Tayyip Erdogan pulled Turkey out of an international accord designed to protect women, the country’s official gazette said on Saturday, despite calls from campaigners who see the pact as key to combating rising domestic violence. The Council of Europe accord, forged in Istanbul, pledged to prevent, prosecute and eliminate …