The head of Mossad, Tamir Pardo, earlier this week met secretly with his Turkish counterpart, according to a report published in the Turkish daily Hurriyet. The meeting between Pardo and Hakan Fidan, the head of MIT, the Turkish intelligence agency, took place Monday in Ankara according to the report. The...

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Hamas officials are scrambling to shore up ties with Iran, which have been strained by the role that Iran and its Lebanese terror proxy Hezbollah have been playing in bolstering the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria: “I cannot say the relationship with Iran was severed, but it was affected,” Salah...

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Photos and video are emerging from Turkey this evening after police again attempted to disperse protesters who had assembled as part of ongoing anti-government demonstrations that began several weeks ago. Police fired volleys of tears gas and turned water cannons against those who had assembled. Bloomberg and Associated Press reports...

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Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has called on his supporters of to stage demonstrations in response to several weeks of protests held by critics of both Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP). The demonstrations began in late May after the announcement of redevelopment plans in Istanbul’s Taksim Square,...

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The European Union has called on Turkey to investigate whether security officers used excessive force in putting down the widespread protests which have roiled the country since last Friday. The call echoes statements of concern made last week by Secretary of State John Kerry. The E.U. wants an account: “Peaceful...

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Israel’s massive, newly discovered natural gas fields have opened up vast diplomatic and economic possibilities for the Jewish state. The country is poised not just to improve its economy but its ties with some of its eastern Mediterranean neighbors. The significance of the finds was discussed by energy experts and...

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On Tuesday, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden called on Turkey’s government to respect demonstrators’ right to protest as demonstration continued across the country Wednesday for the sixth straight day. The vice president made his remarks before the American-Turkish Council: “Turkey’s future belongs to the people of Turkey and no one...

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Turkish officials have arrested dozens of people for speaking out against the government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Twitter. The moves are deepening concerns which have already triggered a wave of Western criticism leveled in response to the authoritarian overtones of Ankara’s ongoing crackdown on protesters: “Polis raided 38 addresses and...

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Some 100 people rallied outside the Turkish Embassy in Tel Aviv over the weekend in solidarity with the tens of thousands of Turkish citizens marching in cities across Turkey. The protesters, many of them Turkish-Israelis, chanted pro-democracy, anti-violence, and anti-Erdogan slogans: “Enough with the violence by the state and the...

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Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is being criticized for his response to the rioting that has engulfed the country, after the Islamist official dismissed thousands of protesters as “looters,” declared that foreign agents were behind popular calls for his government’s resignation, and implied that he had personally led an Arab Spring-style...

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