Human rights and civil liberties groups are blasting Turkey after a Turkish court convicted one of the country’s top composers on charges of denigrating Islam. Pianist Fazil Say – a noted critic of the ruling Islamist government of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan – was given a suspended sentence for making...

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The State Department is emphasizing that a planned trip by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to the Gaza Strip next month is “counterproductive.” Speaking to reporters at a briefing yesterday, State Department Acting Deputy Spokesperson Patrick Ventrell added that U.S. officials consider the Iran-backed group to be a “foreign terrorist organization [and]…...

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Israel and Cyprus will hold joint military exercises in the Mediterranean Sea later this month. The exercise will focus on search and rescue operations and on protecting the two countries’ natural gas assets: The Ministry of Defense in Cyprus announced that in the context of the cooperation between the Republic...

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A NATO initiative to bring together Israel and six Arab states situated along the Mediterranean has been scrapped after Turkey and Egypt raised objections. Turkish diplomats scrambled to deny that their moves had anything to do with ongoing anti-Israel diplomacy being conducted by the Islamist Justice and Development party of...

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Officials from the U.S.-backed Palestinian Authority (PA) are blasting Turkey’s announcement that a date has been set for a visit to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, which PA officials have lobbied the U.S. to stop: The PA believes that Erdogan’s visit to the Gaza...

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Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is delaying a planned trip to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, which if carried out would widely be viewed as a diplomatic victory for the Iran-backed terror group. He will now delay the trip at least until after he meets with President Barack Obama in May....

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An upcoming meeting designed to facilitate Israeli-Turkish reconciliation has been postponed until late April, as worries deepen that backsliding by top Turkish officials may delay or even scuttle rapprochement between the two countries. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was maneuvered last month by U.S. officials into accepting reconciliation terms that he had...

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Secretary of State John Kerry met Sunday with Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu amid increasing concerns that Ankara is backsliding on commitments it made to Israel during a phone call arranged last month by President Barack Obama to facilitate rapprochement between Turkey and the Jewish state: Eager to smooth the path...

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The State Department has seemingly confirmed speculation, first reported yesterday by The Hill, to the effect that Secretary of State John Kerry is traveling to the Middle East this weekend in part to bolster fraying reconciliation efforts between Israel and Turkey. Journalists yesterday pressed State Department Spokeswoman Victoria Nuland over...

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The White House is dispatching Secretary of State John Kerry to “smooth things over” between Israel and Turkey, after statements and threats made by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan raised “worries that the Obama administration’s newly brokered friendship between [the two countries] risks unraveling.” The administration is concerned about Turkish...

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