Author: Yara Emre

WASHINGTON ― A key senator is refusing to lift his longstanding hold on the sale of 40 Block 70 F-16 fighter jets to Turkey despite the Biden administration’s announcement last week that it wants to move forward with the deal. The $20 billion potential sale also includes 80 modernization kits. National security adviser Jake Sullivan said the sale would proceed last week after President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced at the NATO summit in Lithuania that Turkey would ratify Sweden’s NATO accession bid. But Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., told Defense News on Tuesday that he continues to use his position as Foreign…

Turkey supports the expansion of NATO to ensure stability in the world, said Fahrettin Altun, the director of communications for the Turkish presidency. “Turkey believes that the alliance’s expansion is the key to lasting peace and stability in the world,” he said in an article for the Middle East Eye news website on Saturday, TASS reported. The official said that Ankara has supported the integration of Northern Macedonia into NATO and backs Bosnia and Herzegovina’s accession to the alliance. Altun said Ankara’s support for NATO enlargement is not aimed against a certain country, but is aimed at turning the alliance into…

Workers went on strike Thursday saying the rail system is outdated, underfunded and dangerous. University students protested before the headquarters of private operator Hellenic Train in Athens. Family members awaited the results of DNA testing to identify victims of a train crash that killed nearly 60 people in Greece, as workers went on strike Thursday saying the rail system is outdated, underfunded and dangerous. Railway workers’ associations called strikes, halting national rail services and the subway in Athens to protest working conditions and what they described as a dangerous failure to modernize the rail system. A second 24-hour strike was…

A poll conducted by Gezici found that almost 73% of Turkish residents want good relations with Russia, with some 63% saying it is a friendly country. “The results of the survey showed that Turkish residents trust Russia more than the West,” Murat Gezici, head of the polling company, told the Aydinlik weekly. As many as 62.6% of the Turkish respondents believe Russia is a friendly country, 68.5% see that Russia supports the Turkish economy, and 72.8% favor good relations with Russia. The share of Turks who see the United States as an enemy has risen to 90% in recent year,…

In what appears to be a sweeping action, Turkey has deported over 1000 irregular migrants in the first five days of 2023.The country’s immigration agency stated on Saturday that a total of 1028 irregular migrants were deported from January 1 – 5 in the ongoing year. In a twitter post, the agency highlighted that during the same five days, 1,889 irregular migrants were prevented from entering Türkiye. The authority clarified that at present 20,497 irregular migrants were in repatriation centers and the number of irregular migrants whose procedures continue under invitation to leave stood at 91. Every year, thousands of…

Just a matter of decades ago, cheetahs boasted habitats from the eastern reaches of India to the Atlantic coast of Senegal. Today, the world’s fastest land animal, capable of reaching speeds of 120 kilometers per hour, is considered critically endangered. That is why news of the death of Iran’s only Asiatic cheetah cub born in captivity has been met with such sorrow among wildlife conservationists and the Iranian public, who have long attached cultural and social significance to these magnificent animals. Pirouz, which means victorious in Farsi, was the only survivor of his litter of three endangered Asiatic cheetahs. The…

Turkey’s pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP) announced on Saturday that it would be nominating its own presidential candidate for upcoming elections, shooting down the possibility of throwing its weight behind a joint opposition candidate. “We will name our candidate soon and go to the elections,” Pervin Buldan, the HDP co-chair, said during a party event in the eastern city of Kars.Buldan’s announcement isn’t a simple decision since the HDP, with its 10-13 percent of votes, is essentially seen as the kingmaker between two competing political blocs led by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and main opposition Republican People’s…

Türkiye cannot be expected to stay silent in the face of the growing terror threat along its southern border, the country’s president said on Tuesday. Speaking to reporters in the capital Ankara before flying to Turkmenistan to attend the first Türkiye-Azerbaijan-Turkmenistan trilateral summit, Erdogan said, “It is not possible for Türkiye to remain silent on terror attacks launched from northern Syria,” without specifying the date for a possible land operation across the border into northern Syria to eliminate the threat. Türkiye will never compromise on terror attacks, Erdogan said, adding that he had asked Russian President Vladimir Putin to take…