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All European policies are in search of a suspect of Turkish origin aged 22, whose face appears on the video surveillance images of Zaventem airport. The individual owns a black Audi S4 registered in Belgium, a former model who is actively sought by the police. Moreover, the man is known Belgian security services since April to have traveled in the company of other young people in Saudi Arabia.
Bulgaria shouldn’t have election campaign in Turkish.
Bulgarian MP from the Parliamentary Group of Patriotic Front, Slavcho Atanasov, told the aforementioned at a parliament session, responding to the speech of Lütfi Mestan, leader of Bulgarian ethnic Turks’ Movement for Right and Freedoms (HÖH) party , Bulgarian Focus information agency reports. The campaign relates to the presidential elections which are to be held in Bulgaria in 2016.
Mestan made a smart move defending the Turkish language by the history of the Slavs, showing off his knowledge of Old Bulgarian. He reminded that Cyril and Methodius invented a writing system so that the Slavs could study the word of God in their native tongue, which wasn’t welcomed under the doctrines of that time. Following this, Methodius went on citing from the rostrum the texts in Old Bulgarian.
After this, he showed the invoice for a fine, which was imposed on him by the governor of Razgrad for addressing the voters in Turkish during the opening of election campaign.
However, Slavcho Atanasov objected to him. According to the former, there is nothing wrong with talking to God in one’s tongue. But the election campaign in Bulgaria should be held in the official language, Bulgarian, Atanasov stressed.
In 2015, Slavcho Atanasov participated in a march commemorating the Armenian Genocide in Plovdiv city. And on April 24, he was the only politician from Plovdiv to visit the liturgy held in the city’s Armenian church of St. Kevork.
The Turkish language became an official language of the European institutions in Strasbourg after the promotion of Turkey among the countries most represented in the Council of Europe.
The Council of Europe has adopted Turkish as one of its six official languages with English, French, Russian, German and Italian at its winter session being held in Strasbourg.
The adoption of Turkish as an official language was motivated by the transformation of the Turkish delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), the number rose from 12 to 18. Turkey has become one the most countries represented in PACE with France, Russia, Germany and the United Kingdom and Italy.
The first speech in Turkish PACE was that of deputy Utku Cakirozer (Republican People’s Party – CHP) during Wednesday’s session.
Speaking to the Anadolu Agency on adoption of Turkish as the official language of the Council, Talip Kucukcan, chairman of the Turkish delegation (Party of Justice and Development – AK Party), said he was “proud” of promote Turkish as a working language at international level.
“The influence of a country is measured by its powers of representation,” he added.
Moreover, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), international court established by the Council of Europe, also adopted Turkish as one of its working languages.
The platform of the Reports of Judgments and Decisions of the Court (HUDOC) has become available in Turkish with English, French and Russian.
Turkey’s main opposition party has filed a lawsuit against the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, accusing Ankara of “aiding and abetting a terrorist organization.”
The Republican People’s Party (CHP), Turkey’s main opposition party, has filed a criminal complaint against senior officials of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), including President Erdogan, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, National Intelligence Organization (MIT) Chief Hakan Fidan.
The complaint accuses Ankara of being complicit in violence caused by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which Ankara itself considers a terrorist organization, as well as the group’s accumulation of weapons, for political gain.
“More fatally, just in order to go through election periods calmly, the terrorist organization’s activities of transferring and piling up weaponry, both in rural areas and in urban centers, were openly overlooked,” CHP Deputy Chair Bulent Tezcan said as part of the filing.
The complaint cites the fact that only eight out of 290 requests to conduct anti-terror operations by the Turkish Armed Forces were granted during election periods.
As evidence, Tezcan cited a secret meeting between leaders of the AKP and jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan.
The complaint follows statements made by CHP leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu, accusing the AKP of aiding terrorist organizations by “overlooking the stockpiling of weapons by the PKK.”
Highlighting unrest within the Turkish government, the nation’s highest court opened its own investigation into government links to the PKK last summer. This followed a criminal complaint by the ruling AKP against the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP).
Critics claim that the AKP’s complaint is political, attempting to force the HDP to comply with the Erdogan government.
Southeastern Turkey has been engulfed in violence as Turkish security forces crackdown on Kurdish communities to root out militant groups. The government’s actions have been roundly criticized by a number of rights groups.
“If we cannot solve the Kurdish issue in democratic ways, I am sure the next generation of the Kurds will be very radical,” Mehmet Yuksel, a representative of the Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party, told Sputnik.
“We already see youths of old that are much more radical. They already think that the political ways are not the solution.”
Reports have emerged that Kurds have shot down a helicopter over Iraqi Kurdistan, which they say was used in airstrikes against them. Turkish officials have made no comment, but a source confirmed to RT that the incident took place.Previously Ankara acknowledged conducting airstrikes on alleged PKK targets in Iraq. Turkish military is also targeting Kurds inside the country and shelling Kurdish militias in northern Syria.
One sortie apparently went wrong for a Turkish assault helicopter as Iraqi Kurdish militia claim they shot the aircraft down.
Kani Xulam, from the American Kurdish Information Network, told RT that official Ankara would refrain from reporting any losses in operations against the Kurds, striving to portray the Turkish military as “an invincible power that cannot be beaten.”
The Turkish authorities are aiming to make the Kurds submit to them and “come down on their knees,” he said.
Xulam said “scores of Turkish soldiers” were taken prisoner by the Kurds with the Turkish government never acknowledging such facts.
In the case of the allegedly downed helicopter, there is no reference about the incident in Turkish media, yet the story is now emerging in Kurdish media, Xulam said.
No Turkish military losses ever make it into national mainstream media, Middle East political analyst Shwan Zulal told RT.
The Kurdish PKK militia, which may be responsible for the alleged downing of the Turkish helicopter, traditionally remains idle during the harsh winter months. However, it will be active from the beginning of spring, which explains why Turkey has recently been shelling Kurdish positions in the mountains, Zulal said.
With the military operation against the Kurds ongoing in Turkey for months now, the violence is likely to escalate further, Zulal predicted.
The Turkish military has been operating against Kurdish PKK militia in northern Iraq since the early 1990s.
In September 2015, the Turkish parliament prolonged a mandate allowing the deployment of its military in neighboring Syria and Iraq to fight Kurdish militants.
Early last December, Ankara started carrying out airstrikes targeting Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) forces in northern Iraq.
Tensions have recently spiked between Ankara and Baghdad after Turkey deployed more than 100 troops equipped with tanks and artillery to Iraq’s northern Nineveh governorate, saying they will train forces battling Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL).
Prominent columnist Cengiz Çandar faces four years in jail for “insulting” President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in seven opinion pieces published on the Radikal news website.
The indictment prepared by Bakırköy Public Prosecutor Ertuğrul Sarıyar is based on a complaint filed by Erdoğan’s lawyer Ahmet Özel regarding seven of Çandar’s pieces published between July 26 and Aug. 19.
Çandar will be tried for violating Article 299 of the Turkish Penal Code (TCK). If found guilty he faces between one to four years in prison.
The trial will begin on April 7.
Speaking to news website T24, Çandar said he received the written notice on Feb. 26, which he noted coincided with both President Erdoğan’s birthday and “Can Dündar and Erdem Gül’s release from prison.”
Imprisoned daily Cumhuriyet journalists Dündar and Gül were released from pre-trial detention after 92 days of imprisonment, after Turkey’s Constitutional Court ruled that their rights had been violated.
February/26/2016
Two prominent Turkish journalists from a leading opposition newspaper have been freed in the early hours of Friday after Turkey‘s top court ruled that their detentions had violated their rights.
A large group of supporters greeted Cumhuriyet newspaper’s editor-in-chief Can Dündar and the paper’s Ankara representative, Erdem Gül, as they emerged from a van after being freed from Silivri prison on the outskirts of İstanbul.
The arrest of journalists last November drew international condemnation and revived concern about media freedom in Turkey under President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
They were detained after the publication of video footage purporting to show the state intelligence agency helping send weapons to Syria.
“We think the Constitutional Court’s ruling is a historic one,” Dündar told reporters outside the prison, next to their friends and families. “This verdict has cleared the way not only for us but for all of our colleagues and freedom of press and expression,” he said. He also said his release on Friday would be “a present” on Erdoğan’s 62nd birthday.
The two were charged with intentionally aiding an armed terrorist organization and publishing material in violation of state security. Cumhuriyet published photos, videos and a report last May that it said showed intelligence officials transporting arms to Syria in trucks in 2014.
Dündar also said the Wait for Hope vigil in front of Silivri Prison where he was held — which initially was started to show solidarity with him, Gül and other imprisoned journalists — should be continued, and that they would follow the fight of their imprisoned colleagues until the end. Saying that their case is about freedom of the press, Dündar vowed to fight for humanity, for press freedom and for freedom of expression until the Silivri Prison “turns into a museum,” as it is the prison where most of Turkey’s imprisoned journalists are kept.
BY GAREN YEGPARIAN
It is remarkable, almost unbelievable. For the first time in a quarter century of reading the Los Angeles Times and seeing endless advertising flaunting Turkish touristic venues coupled with occasional articles in the paper’s travel section, I noticed a negative item in the February 14 issue titled “Turkey and safety issues.” Of course it is accompanied by a pretty picture of hot air balloons over Cappadocia, just to attenuate the “harshness” of such a piece in what is the paper’s forum for promoting travel to interesting places.
The author, Christopher Reynolds, takes great pains not to come out and explicitly write “don’t go, it’s not safe.” He writes that the State Department is “increasingly nervous,” that Turkey has been a terrorist target in recent months, that “Istanbul… as worldly a city as can be” is 550 miles from the Syrian border – an implicit reference to the instability Turkey has fomented in its neighbor which is now spilling across the border. He is silent about the Kurds and the war being waged by the government against them, except in “code,” contained in the reference to “an increased threat of terrorist attacks” in southeastern turkey.
Reynolds notes the huge numbers of Russian tourists who used to visit Turkey and its beaches until the Russian jet was downed by Turkey in November. The decreasing flow of European, and especially German tourists is not mentioned.
My favorite comment is “before you book that that Turkish trip – or cancel it, consider…”
To anyone paying attention, the very appearance of such an item is screaming “don’t go, you fool!” I’m curious (and hope someone analyzes/counts) what happens to advertising in the LA Times by Turkey’s tourism interests, governmental and private. Will it increase, decrease, or stay the same relative to levels prior to this article?
If Erdoğan’s inclinations penetrate into this realm, then a cutoff of advertising could be forthcoming. That would be great. If it happens, that might be a good time to find a way to get advertising for Turkish Airlines off the City of LA’s buses. Currently, that course of action is stymied by freedom of speech considerations, I’ve been informed. But it seems to me there must be ways of accomplishing that end.
It’s embarrassing to Armenians in the Los Angeles basin to have such a potent, positive presence painting Turkey as a charming place, all courtesy of the people Turks have persecuted and massacred through the ages, and even now.
The decline in tourism dollars is a blow to Turkey’s economy, and we should be doing everything we can to discourage travel there until real progress is made. The promising part of this proposal is the prospect of profit to neighboring countries such as Greece, Cyprus, Lebanon, Israel/Palestine, and even Egypt. People can get the same kind of history, climate, and beaches by going there and avoiding Turkey!
It might be the right time to take up this fight. Perhaps our numerous travel agents could form an ANCA coordinated consortium to promote these alternative destinations, strike a blow for Hai Tahd, and make a buck along the way.
Beirut, February 19, 2016 (AFP) – Turkey bombed intensely Thursday night areas controlled by the Kurds in the northern province of Aleppo, Syria, reported the Syrian Observatory of Human Rights (OSDH). “Turkey bombards Kurdish areas north of Aleppo, in his strongest attack against these regions since it started bombarding their positions in the last few days,” the NGO said. The bombing lasted for over five hours and continued, according to the NGO.
The director of the SOHR, Rami Abdel Rahman, told AFP that the bombing targeted the Kurdish stronghold of Afrin, not only controlled areas recently by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDS), an Arab coalition Kurdish largely dominated by the Kurds protection Units (YPG).
Supported by Russian air raids, the SDS took control of several areas that were controlled by the rebels in the northern province of Aleppo, near the Turkish border.
The FDS Advanced alarm Turkey which bombards since Saturday. Ankara hit for the first time Thursday the city of Afrin, where two civilians were killed and 28 others wounded, according to Abdel Rahman.
The province of Aleppo is now split into several bands from the Turkish border: the rebels in the north, closely followed by more Kurdish southeast, and then there are the prorégime forces that control the majority of the southern province, while the group jihadist Islamic state (EI) control areas to the east.
An explosion severely damaged part of a building that housed a Turkish cultural association in a Stockholm suburb late on Wednesday but no one was injured, police said.
Police said all the windows of the centre were blown out and that technicians were on site to investigate the cause. The centre was located in the basement of a building in Fittja, in southwest Stockholm.
“No one was inside. No one was injured. It had been locked since earlier in the evening,” a police spokesman said.
No one has been arrested and there are currently no suspects, he added.
Earlier on Wednesday, 28 people were killed and dozens wounded in Turkey’s capital Ankara when a car laden with explosives detonated next to military buses near the armed forces’ headquarters, parliament and other government buildings.