Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) faced mounting foreign criticism – and a wave of domestic unrest – on Wednesday for their handling of a mining disaster in the Turkish city of Soma, in which at least 274 people were killed just two...

• Kindle

Hurriyet Daily News on Tuesday conveyed a speech by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan that the outlet characterized as “slam[ming] Israel, Germany, the United States and many others” – which the Islamist leader did in the context of “defending Ankara’s press freedom record” from a recent Freedom House report...

• Kindle

“Some” are looking to turn Jerusalem into a city of one religion, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu said May 12 in a barely-veiled attack on Israel. He made the comment during the opening ceremony of a conference in Ankara on the status of Jerusalem, organized by the United Nation’s Committee on...

• Kindle

Turkish officials throughout the week and into Friday scrambled to respond to last week’s “Freedom of the Press” report – published annually by the Washington-based Freedom House watchdog group – which had downgraded Turkey from “Partly Free” to “Not Free” and had explained that “constitutional guarantees of freedom of the...

• Kindle

A Syrian plane attacked an aid convoy sponsored by a Turkish organization near the city of Aleppo killing one person. Agence France-Presse reports: Humanitarian Relief Foundation (IHH) said that trucks carrying flour and blankets were caught in the middle of an air campaign late Thursday by the Syrian Air Force...

• Kindle

Hurriyet Daily News on Tuesday reported that Turkey’s parliament, which is controlled by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), had established what the outlet described as a “single inquiry commission… dominated by the [AKP] itself,” to investigate graft charges against four former AKP ministers from the government of AKP...

• Kindle

A top Hamas official declared over the weekend that the possibility of disarming the Iran-backed terror group never came up during unity discussions between it and the rival Fatah faction, a boast that seems set to widen concerns that the agreement – which among other things envisions a single Palestinian...

• Kindle

Turkey has fallen into the “not free” category of countries ranked by Freedom House’s annual “Freedom of the Press” survey, with the NGO watchdog citing a steady decline in how Ankara treats journalists: The region’s largest numerical change occurred in Turkey, which declined from 56 to 62 points and moved...

• Kindle

Israel’s internal the security agency, the Shin Bet, announced the arrests of seven men in a Hamas terror cell for planning attacks within Israel. The arrests, which were made in recent months, were announced this week. The cell was based in the Palestinian city of Qalqilya, which borders the Israeli...

• Kindle

A diplomatic spat between Turkey and Germany over the human rights policies of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government escalated on Wednesday, as Turkish outlets conveyed critical remarks directed at Erdogan by German President Joachim Gauck regarding the behavior of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). Gauck had...

• Kindle