14-year-old Turkish ISIL militant found at border, injured

June 26, 2014 By administrator

A 14-year-old Turkish child who joined Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militants was found in a serious condition at the Akçakale border gate with Syria, daily Milliyet has reported.

It was revealed that the young teenager, identified as Taylan Ö.Y., left his home in Ankara for Syria with five other friends, some 45 days before being delivered to Turkish soldiers at the border gate in the southeastern province of Şanlıurfa.

He was immediately rushed to the district hospital on June 22, where he underwent an eight-hour operation.

Crosses border for 20 Liras

According to daily Milliyet’s report, Taylan dropped out from school and was working as a garlic vendor in the streets of Ankara, like many members of his family.

Along with his five friends, he paid 20 Turkish Liras (9 U.S. dollars) to smugglers in the southeastern Kilis province to cross the border into the Syrian region controlled by ISIL militants. His friends then returned to Turkey after they were brought to Raqqa, but Taylan was taken into intensive training by the militants. He reportedly said they received military training and Quran lessons in the morning, while they played sports in the afternoons. He had also contacted his father, telling him that he did not intend to return to Turkey.

Taylan was then taken to the fighting grounds, where he was heavily injured after being hit by shrapnel. Due to his life-threatening condition Taylan was brought back to the Turkish border. The people delivering him to the soldiers had identified him as Syrian citizen Mehmed al-Ahmad, born in 1998.

The police only learned Taylan’s real identity after his father came to the hospital a day after the surgery, after being contacted by his son.

The father said the police even brought translators in order to interrogate the young teenager when he arrived at the hospital, adding that Taylan had been afraid to speak until he arrived. Taylan’s condition is reportedly improving, doctors have said.

Reports claiming that around 3,000 Turkish citizens, mainly from Istanbul’s suburbs, have joined ISIL militias have been rejected by the Turkish government.

June/26/2014

Turkish Intellectuals Who Have Recognized The Armenian Genocide

June 13, 2014 By administrator

By: Hambersom Aghbashian

Osman Köker is the founder and the editor-in-chief of Birzamanlar Publications. ( Birzamanlar Publications publishes books about Turkey’s multicultural heritage, and how it’s vanishing). He was born in Marash, and has worked for many years as a correspondent, editor, and publisher. His work has focused on the publication of historical subjects; between the years of 1997-2001, he was the editor of “Toplumsal Tarih” (Social History), published by Tarih Vakfi (Foundation of History). Throughout Turkey and in various other countries, he has made presentations on the history of the Armenian people in Turkey. His book ” Armenians in Turkey 100 Years Ago : postcards from the collection of Orlando Carlo” was issued in Turkey in 2005. The book contains century-old Ottoman post-cards depicting different aspects of the peaceful and, in many cases, prosperous life of the Armenian community in the former Ottoman Empire. Through 500 postcards from the period, the album endeavors to show, city by city and with supporting figures, how omnipresent Armenian communities were across the Ottoman territory and their role in society.(1)

In his article “1915 tragedy to be commemorated for second time in Turkey “, Emine Dolmci wrote in Today’s Zaman (Istanbul- 20 April 2011),” Publisher and human right activist Osman Koker said that there’s no Armenian problem in Turkey, but that there’s a Turkish problem in Turkey, which is about killings and denial. I see the solution of this problem right here,” he said. “This problem will be solved within Turkey. Many years ago, people were killed and it still weights heavy on us. Whenever Turkey realizes this pain and makes an apology, whenever it drops its policy of denial, this problem will be solved. Outside of Turkey, there might be parliament resolutions, protests, and so on, and they are free to do that, but if all countries recognized the Armenian Genocide, while Turkey didn’t, this problem would still exist. In that sense, any little event or commemoration done in Turkey is very important to me.”(2)

According to http://www.soas.ac.uk/gallery/mydearbrother/, The Armenian Institute, London, has organized the exhibition: My Dear Brother: Armenians in Turkey 100 Years Ago (1st May – 24th July 2010) at the Brunei Gallery . It provides fascinating insights into the life of the Armenians living in the borders of modern Turkey at the beginning of the 20th century through a large collection of postcards of daily life and scenery from across the region. The exhibition of both enlarged images and original postcards was conceived and put together by Osman Köker, based on his book by the same name (Istanbul: Birzamanlar, 2005).(3).

According to MASISPOST, In 2005, Osman Köker first came to international attention when he organized the unprecedented exhibition “Sireli Yeghpayrs (My Dear Brother)” in Istanbul. Eventually seen by thousands of people. The exhibition has also been mounted in Paris, Munich, Koln, Frankfurt, Yerevan and scheduled (Glendale – March 11.2011) . Osman Köker was also involved in the creation of the Istanbul Turkish-Armenian daily Agos and Aras Publishing House( 1996), the only publishing house which publishes books in Armenian and books translated into Turkish from Armenian.(4).

Armenians in Diyarbekir Province by Osman Koker and Orlando Carlo Calumeno was published in (2011) , and Armenians in Turkey 100 Years Ago, Volume II: by Osman Koker and Ahmet Fethi was published in (2013) .(5)

Over the decades, the Armenian past in Anatolia was gradually erased from the collective memory of Turkish society, as the nationalist project achieved success. Taking all these historical developments into account, the memorialization project “Armenians in Turkey 100 Years Ago” emerged in 2005 as an attempt to break through the discourse of denial and remind Turks of the significant role played by Armenians in economic and cultural life of the Empire for 500 years.(6)

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Orlando Carlo Calumeno comes from a “Levantine” family that immigrated to Turkey from Italy. He has been collecting Ottoman-era postcards for the past 25 years, and has accumulated more than 15,000 of them by now. In fact, many of these cards have Armenian, Ottoman Turkish and French writing on them, a reflection of the multilingualism of the Ottoman Empire in general.

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1- http://www.epfound.am/english/whats-new/announcements/armenians-in-turkey-100-years-ago-book-presentation-in-yerevan.html

2- http://www.armeniapedia.org/wiki/Armenian_Genocide_Commemorations_in_Turkey

3- http://www.soas.ac.uk/gallery/mydearbrother/

4- http://massispost.com/2011/01/illustrated-lecture-in-glendale-by-osman-koker-on-“images-of-armenians-in-turkey-100-years-ago

5- http://www.amazon.com

6- http://www.memorializeturkey.com/en/memorial/armenians-in-turkey-100-years-ago/

also published on Nor Or, June 12,2014

Is ISIL terrorist takeover of Mosul another Turkish false flag operation?

June 11, 2014 By administrator

To understand Turkish False-Flag operation, have a look at the map that Turkish schools book show until year 2012.

In addition to Bulgaria, the materials claim entire Armenia, some regions of Iraq, the Greek parts of Cyprus, and some regions in Georgia as Turkish territory,

The turkish new paper hurriyet daily report: The fall of Mosul could revitalize an open wound in the collective memory of the Turkish state as well. The War of Independence, which brought the change of Turkey’s regime from a monarchy to republic in 1923, saw Iraq left under British mandate by an agreement on June 5, 1926, almost 88 years ago this week. The young republic lead by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk was intimidated by a Kurdish rebellion in 1925, which they suspected that it was manipulated by Britain, and Ankara – with all its resources exhausted by the war – could not risk another conflict. The “Mosul problem” has always been considered one of the sources of the chronic Kurdish problem by the Turkish establishment.

Source of the map: novinite.com

Erdogan Angers US Turkish Lobby

June 11, 2014 By administrator

WASHINGTON (Eurasianet)—The annual Washington conference of the American-Turkish Council (ATC), perhaps the best-known group lobbying on behalf of Turkish interests in the United States, is usually an occasion for both sides to boast about the strength and importance of the Turkey-US relationship. This year’s conference, though, turned out to be a showcase for the deep divisions and political dysfunction gripping Turkey.

On June 1, the day the annual conference started, the ATC’s long-time president, former US ambassador to Turkey James Holmes, submitted his resignation along with several other top executives. As reported in the Turkish press, Holmes — whose organization counts among its members numerous corporations, especially in the defense industry — had been feeling some heat from Ankara in connection with the political divisions currently gripping Turkey. In particular, it appears supporters of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) were upset that the ATC had sent out a news bulletin which included articles from Today’s Zaman, the English-language newspaper affiliated with the Gulen movement, which is currently locked in an intense political battle with the AKP.

Moreover, as the pro-government Daily Sabah reports, Holmes further angered AKP supporters when he suggested during a recent conference in Washington that the actions of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan were undermining Turkey’s democratization. To show its displeasure with Holmes, Ankara this year refrained from sending any high-level government officials to the ATC’s conference. In turn, the US government also kept its top officials from the event. The result was not only a lackluster gathering, but also another reminder of how Turkey’s domestic political battles are working their way into Washington.

Writing in Milliyet, columnist Asli Aydintasbas, who spoke at the ATC conference, saw the politics surrounding Holmes’s resignation as yet another strike against Ankara’s “already dented” image in Washington. From her column (as translated by Al-Monitor.com):

Someone who was once an influential figure in Turkish-US relations told me, ‘Being a bully may work in Turkey, but not here. ATC is an American organization.’ Another labeled the pressure on Holmes as ‘shameful.’

The most salient comment came from an official who asked, ‘If they make ATC ineffective, how is Turkey going to voice its problems?’

For years, there were three different sources working as a Turkish lobby in Washington. The first was the Israeli lobby. The second was TUSKON [the Confederation of Businessmen and Industrialists of Turkey] and extensions of the Gulen movement. The government, after destroying its bridges with these organizations, now blew up its last pillar in Washington.

A night before the meeting was to start, ATC Chairman Holmes quietly submitted his resignation to the executive board, hence the mournful ambiance at the meeting. But I don’t think this story will end here. From what I have heard, neither the US administration nor the giant corporations on the ATC board are happy with Ankara’s pressure.

Delivering the keynote address at the conference was Serdar Kilic, Turkey’s newly arrived ambassador in Washington. Considering the bad taste left behind by the way Holmes was pushed out of his job, it would appear Kilic will have to start his new job doing some damage control work and making sure Turkey’s internal political squabbles stop finding their way to the American capital.

Turkish nurse writes book about Genocide-surviving Armenian grandmother

June 10, 2014 By administrator

June 10, 2014 | 08:08

Aysel Karsli, who works as Senior Nurse at Lokman Hekim Etlik Hospital in Ankara, Turkey, has introduced her book about the life of her Armenian grandmother.

Karsli held her book’s official presentation with active participation of readers, and she sold the book with her autograph, reported Milliyet daily of Turkey.

Karsli noted that in her book, which is titled Ali of Vartanush, she presented the life story of her Armenian grandmother named Vartanush.

It is also noted that, in the coming days, Aysel Karsli will attend presentations in the Turkish cities of Istanbul, Bursa, Malatya, and Giresun, during which likewise she will sell the book with her autograph.

Masked demonstrator takes down Turkish flag on Air Force base in Diyarbakır

June 9, 2014 By administrator

DİYARBAKIR

A masked demonstrator took down the Turkish flag inside of an Air Force base in the southeastern province of Diyarbakır during protests that erupted June 8, following the

funeral of a man killed during clashes in Lice. The demonstrator was photographed by Agence France-Presse photo reporter İlyas Akengin, as the demonstrator climbed the flagpole after jumping over the walls surrounding Diyarbakır’s 2nd Air Force Command.

“A masked person among the demonstrators, some of them children, jumped in from the main entrance of the base and climbed the flag pole in the vehicle control zone between two wire fences. A team [of soldiers] was sent to the area and fired two warning shots in the air, but the person took our flag from the pole,” the Turkish General Staff said in a statement.

Turkish factor contributed to Nakichevan incident – debate in Yerevan

June 7, 2014 By administrator

The recent fatal incident on the Nakichevan border was evidently a Turkish-Azerbaijani attempt to escalate tension in the run-up to the Genocide centennial, says Vardan Devrikyan, an Armenian literary critic and a veteran the Nagorno-Karabakh war.

“The closer we are to the Genocide centennial, the more Turkey will use Azerbaijan as a second front to distract attention,” he told reporters on Saturday, calling for a higher degree of attention to the Turkish factor.

Devrikyan said he doesn’t think that the choice of location was accidental given that the situation on the Armenia-Nakichevan Contact Line has always been relatively calm.

“Armenia thus experienced the breath of war, as the shootings were closer to Yerevan,” he said, noting that the Nakichevan Line of Contact is not limited to an Armenian-Azerbaijani border.
Larisa Alaverdyan, a former ombudsman also attending the news conference, said the periodic shootings against the border villages of Tavush have come to be perceived as something ordinary in Armenia, with the repeated violations of ceasefire on the Nagorno-Karabakh Azerbaijan Contact Line not catching any attention at all.

“The government bodies’ behavior forces the defense and security agencies to shoulder the entire burden. But the question has to be included into international organizations’ agenda,” she said.

Alaverdyan added that Armenia’s failure to respond to the statements by James Warlick, the US co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group, put the country in a position of a guilty side that appears unable to resort to any resistance.

“We too, have the right to speak about the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic in the language of international law. We must never have our heads down whenever an ignorant politician addresses a letter which is later read out by another politician who is equally illterate,” said the former ombudsman, referring to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev’s letter which president Norsultan Nazarbaev of Kazakhstan read out at the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council’s recent summit in Astana (in the letter, the Azerbaijani leader said Armenia has to make reference to internationally recognized borders when acceding to the Eurasian Economic Union – Ed).

Alaverdyan added that Azerbaijan seems to be taking advantage of the situation in Ukraine and Syria where, she said, violence against civilians has gone unpunished. “Azerbaijan seems to be getting a carte-blanche, seeing those countries’ example,” she said.

Turkish Intellectuals Who Have Recognized The Armenian Genocide 19- Oya Baydar

June 6, 2014 By administrator

By: Hambersom Aghbashian

Oya Baydar (born Jan.1,1940-Istanbul- Turkey), studied at Notre Dame de Sion High School in Istanbul . She graduated from Istanbul University‘s Department of Sociology in 1964 and became an

assistant prof.. Inspired by French writer Françoise Sagan, she wrote and published her first novel “God Has Forgot Children” while she was a student in high school. After that she had a break from writing, and shifted towards politics for a long time, then back to literature in later life.

During the military coup in 1972 she was arrested due to her socialist activity as a member of the Workers Party of Turkey and the Teachers’ Union of Turkey and she left the University. Between 1972 and 1974 she worked as a columnist in Yeni Ortam (New Platform) and Politika (Politics) newspapers. She issued her first journal together with her husband Aydın Engin and Yusuf Ziya Bahadınlı. She was known as a socialist writer, researcher and activist woman. During the 1980 military coup she went abroad and remained in exile for 12 years in Germany, then returned to Turkey in 1992 and worked as editor for the Istanbul Encyclopedia, a common project of the History Foundation and the Ministry of Culture, and as the editor in chief for The Unionism Encyclopedia of Turkey. She has won many awards for the novels and stories she published after returning to Turkey, and become a beloved writer(1)

Oya Baydar was one of the Turkish intellectuals who have signed an open letter to the Royal Library, in response to official statements that the Royal Library of Denmark has agreed “to balance” an Armenian Genocide exhibition by allowing the Turkish government to mount its own “alternative” . The Turkish intellectuals mentioned that ” Turkish government has been suppressing historic truths and following a policy of denial for more than 90 years. The European Court of Human Rights has ruled in several cases on this subject against Turkey’s position and actions.” Further, they have asked the authorities “Not to Stand Against Turkey’s Democratization and Confrontation with its History. “(2)

In his article “1915 tragedy to be commemorated for second time in Turkey”, (Today’s Zaman, 20 April 2011) , Emine Dolmaci’s mentioned that ” Armenians who lost their lives in the Armenian displacement that took place in 1915, during the final days of the Ottoman Empire, will be commemorated through a variety of events for a second time this year. He added that “A statement with the head line, (This pain is ours) has been opened up for signatures. More than 100 intellectuals, writers and journalists including Ahmet İnsel, Ali Bayramoğlu, Alper Görmüş, Bekir Berat Özipek, Cafer Solgun, Ferhat Kentel, Gülten Kaya, Leyla İpekçi, Mehmet Bekaroğlu, Oral Çalışlar, Orhan Miroğlu, Oya Baydar, Şebnem Korur Fincancı and Ümit Kardaş have signed the statement. (3)

On April 16, 2013, Catriona Troth* (triskelebooks) wrote about “The Independent Foreign Fiction Prize” ( Translated books) . According to Troth , Oya Baydar, in a conversation with Kamila Shamsie, mentioned that “Many people in Turkey – the Kurds, the Armenians – feel like foreigners in their own country.” Baydar added “Even though the situation in Turkey is much more relaxed, serious issues of freedom of expression remain (taboo). She noted that, while it is easier to discuss the Kurdish issue, there are still heavy restrictions around any mention of the Armenian genocide. Saying anything slightly outside the ideological lines can lead to trouble. You may not go to prison any more, but you may lose your job as a journalist.”(4)

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*Catriona Troth was born in Scotland and grew up in Canada before going back to the UK. After more than twenty years writing and editing technical material, She has made the shift into freelance writing. She is proud to be the latest member of the Triskele Books author collective.

1- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oya_Baydar

2- http://www.armenianweekly.com/2012/12/18/turkish-citizens-sign-petition-against-denialist-exhibit-in-denmark/

3- http://www.armeniapedia.org/wiki/Armenian_Genocide_Commemorations_in_Turkey

4- http://triskelebooks.blogspot.com/2013/04/gained-in-translation.html

Turkish pop star Deniz Seki vanishes after conviction

June 3, 2014 By administrator

ISTANBUL

Deniz Seki, who was expected to release a new album, has vanished without a trace days after a drug conviction was approved by a high court.

Police raided four addresses to arrest Deniz Seki, including her residence in Istanbul’s neighborhood of Tarabya, but failed to find the singer.

Turkish pop star Deniz Seki has vanished without a trace days after her drug conviction was approved by a high court.

Turkey’s Court of Appeals had approved Seki’s conviction for drug trafficking last week and sent the file to the prosecution for the execution of the 75-month prison sentence, which was meted out earlier by the Istanbul 13th Court of Serious Crimes. Seki is required to serve at least two and a half years in prison.

Police raided four addresses to arrest the pop star, including her residence in Istanbul’s affluent neighborhood of Tarabya, on June 1, but failed to find the singer.

“We want justice,” Seki had said in a message on Twitter the previous day, while adding: “No hopes, but prayers.”

Bülent Seyhan, the producer of Seki’s albums, said on June 3 that they had recently completed a new album. “Her phone is off. If she says that she’ll be in prison and doesn’t want to release an album now, I won’t release it,” Seyhan said.

Hürriyet columnist Ayşe Arman, on the other hand, wrote that she spoke to Seki’s mother. “According to what she told me, Deniz [Seki] hasn’t run away. Her brother-in-law has died. She’s mourning for him, who had done a lot for her,” Arman wrote

Swan killer in UK turns out to be of Turkish origin

June 2, 2014 By administrator

The man pictured at the scene after zipping up the dead swan in his rucksack
The man who killed a swan in the English town of Hildenborough, Kent, on March 18 has been identified as Turkish-origin Hasan Fidan, the London Evening Standard reported on June 2.

The 46-year-old man was pictured at the scene after zipping up the dead swan in his rucksack. Police are believed to have found the swan, chopped into pieces and jammed into Fidan’s freezer, when they traced him to his house in Tonbridge.

Read the rest of this story in the London Evening Standard