Turkey

Blood-curdling proposals for the persecution of Muslims played a central role in Trump’s election campaign. At one moment, he promised to stop all Muslims from entering the US, though this was later changed to “extreme vetting”. The use of torture by water-boarding was approved and applauded, and Hillary Clinton was pilloried for not speaking of “radical Islamic terrorism”.

With relations with Europe rapidly deteriorating, Turkey is threatening to send upwards of 3,000 refugees per day to Greece in what intelligence officials in Greece described as “blackmail” against the European Union. According to details uncovered by Greek intelligence officials and published in The Times (of London), thousands of dinghies and motorboats

Turkey’s Prime Minister and armed forces both accused the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad Thursday of conducting an airstrike on Turkish troops in the vicinity of al-Bab in the country’s north, resulting in three casualties. The incident threatens to escalate already sharp tensions between Ankara and Damascus

Suspending European Union membership negotiations would be the wrong signal for Europe to send Turkey. The move, set to be debated in the European Parliament, would eliminate what’s left of the EU’s leverage over Ankara and further erode the credibility of Turkish liberals, whose European-friendly narrative has already made them an endangered species.

Just days after the U.S. presidential election, newspapers allied with the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) published stories alleging that elements of the U.S. government would conspire to prevent Donald Trump from governing. Trump, the consensus in the pro-government media held, was a better choice for Turkey: As a billionaire who is outside of the Washington mainstream, he is above influence from members of the Gulen Movement, some of whom gave money to Hillary Clinton’s super-PAC.

One of the reasons, many observers believe, President Obama comes to Greece this week, is to press Athens to be “helpful” for a “solution” to the Cyprus problem. On the other hand the European Commission is also pressing hard both Nicosia and Athens to accept a solution, even worse than the one the Cypriot people had rejected back in 2004, by voting by an overwhelming majority NO in a referendum held in both the territories controlled by the Republic of Cyprus and those under the control of the Turkish Army, which invaded Cyprus in 1974 and does not seem in any way willing to leave the island, with or without an agreed solution.

Russian Foreign Affairs Minister Sergei Lavrov has called on “the United Nations and the UN Special Adviser on Cyprus Espen Barth Eide to stop trying to artificially appoint timeframes for reaching agreements and imposing solutions that are rejected by any of the parties to the Cyprus settlement.”

Two co-leaders of the People’s Democratic Party (HDP) and at least 12 of its MPs have been arrested as police raided homes in Ankara and Kurdish-majority areas in eastern Turkey. The arrests are linked to “terrorist propaganda” cases, Reuters said.

Aris Petasis* The Cyprus problem is a Russian problem as well. The current purblind negotiations, ostensibly between the two Cypriot communities (82% Greek and 18%...

Cavusoglu insisted that invading Iraq is Turkey’s “most natural right.” Turkey presently has about 500 troops in Iraq, which they’ve had for around a year. The Iraqi government has repeatedly demanded Turkey withdraw, but Turkish officials have insisted they will stay and participate in the war against ISIS.