Turkey was engulfed by anti-government protests over the weekend and into Monday, after small demonstrations aimed at stopping the demolition of a city park in Istanbul were met with heavy-handed police tactics, including the use of tear gas, which in turn triggered further protests. On Friday Turkish protesters across the country took...

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Turkish analysts are sounding alarm bells over recent legislation adopted by Turkey that tightens restrictions on alcohol sales. The move has deepened worries that the country’s Islamist government is limiting individual rights in the interest of imposing Islamist norms. The legislation, which also bans alcohol advertisements, is being blasted by secular opponents for undermining what used...

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John Brennan, the longtime counterterrorism advisor to President Barack Obama who this year became director of the CIA, flew Thursday to Israel — on a working visit not announced in advance. Israeli officials suggested that the main topic in consultations on Friday was Syria – that is, what might be done...

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A massive car bomb Saturday killed 46 people in the Turkish town of Reyhanli, near the country’s border with Syria. Turkish officials blamed the Bashar al-Assad regime for the attack: Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said on Sunday that he believed fighters loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad were behind...

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More than half a million Syrian refugees are crammed into camps in Jordan. The need to house and feed them is just one of the ways in which the Syrian conflict is devestating the Jordanian economy: “Jordan’s economy has been devastated because of the lack of trade toward Syria going...

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In January – amid rumors of a thaw in relations between Israel and Turkey, which had been frozen by Ankara three years ago – Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan bitterly denounced what was widely suspected to be an Israeli air strike on missiles in Syria in transit to Hezbollah....

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Qatar and Turkey are playing key roles in boosting hard line Islamic groups across the Middle East. Saudi Arabia, the U.A.E., and Jordan are trying to support groups which are relatively more moderate. The Obama administration is, as a result, finding its regional posture being… complicated: The regional divisions, described...

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A controversial map published in a major Turkish newspaper is threatening to ignite regional concerns about Turkish expansionism and neo-Ottomanism. The map – which was published in Milliyet and is similar to another report published in the Hurriyet daily – was accompanied a report describing a “New Turkey” that could be...

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Hamas is hailing the announcement by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan that he will defy requests from the U.S. not to visit the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip in late May. Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh is celebrating the trip as marking the end of American hegemony: In a brief statement from...

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Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has reaffirmed his intention to brush off repeated objections from the United States and from the U.S.-backed Palestinian Authority, and to travel to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip later this month: Official Turkish sources told the al-Sharq al-Awsat newspaper that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan...

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