click for link to poll results
More than 400 people reported being tortured or mistreated by authorities in eastern and southeastern provinces in the first six months of 2008, according to complaints received by a human rights organization…
The number of torture allegations in 2007 was 172, yet the number has already increased to 432 for […]
Photo from Turkish Daily News
…While he was commanding his troops to eliminate terrorists inside and outside of the country’s borders, Gen. Ilker Basbug was also pondering … ways to stop young Kurdish boys joining the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK…. He had proposed taking social and economic steps to make life better in the […]
I just published an essay on the situation in Turkey on the SSRC (Social Science Research Council) blog, The Immanent Frame. To read it, click here.
If even half of what is contained in the 2500-page indictment against the Ergenekon gang is true, this has been a long-running conspiracy of truly monstrous proportions. Below are some examples. (To read the article I took them from, click here)
Ergenekon, an organization [with alleged links to the military and security forces, as well as […]
For a cellphone video of the second explosion as it occurs, click here, then play the screen that says Cihan in the top right corner. Seconds before the blast, a man in a black shirt is seen suspiciously running from the scene. In the video, it has been marked by a red square.
For a video […]
This month-by-month summary and evaluation of recent crucial events in Turkey includes the AKP closure case and the AKP’s options, Ergenekon (including short bios of major characters), the headscarf issue, the new constitution, and the Kurdish situation.
Click here.
Excerpts from The Economist article on Turkey (for full article, click here)
… Many see the campaign to topple the AKP as part of a long battle pitting an old guard, used to monopolising wealth and power, against a rising class of pious Anatolians symbolised by the AKP. Others say it is mostly about an army […]
For full article, click here
An ongoing internal power struggle within the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) appears to be the cause of the kidnapping of three German mountaineers in eastern Turkey, according to Turkish security sources. Three Germans in a group of 13 mountaineers — Helmut H. (65), Martin S. […]
Erdogan in Iraq with his security force.
A strategic cooperation deal Turkey signed with neighboring Iraq this week is unprecedented and rather similar to a Franco-German alliance that laid the foundations for today’s European Union, PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said. … Barham Saleh, the Iraqi deputy prime minister, described the Turkish-Iraqi rapprochement as “significant enough […]
Excerpts from Nicole Pope’s column:
… “This is it. We have really become a Middle Eastern country, jumping from one crisis to the next,” a Turkish friend lamented when she heard the news of the bloody attack [on the US consulate in Istanbul].
The remarkable resilience that Turks have always displayed in the face of difficulties, […]