Category Archives: Turkey

Anger over Ankara response is a product of Turkish government’s past record

By Cemal Burak Tansel, University of Sheffield

Turkish voters will go to the polls on November 1, still reeling from the horrific bombings at a peace demonstration in Ankara on October 10.

The labour, peace and democracy rally in Ankara was planned as an intervention into the cycle of conflict that has engulfed the country since the parliamentary elections in June. Those who gathered did not get the chance to shout their calls for peace. A dual explosion went off, leaving at least 97 dead and more than 500 wounded.

In the aftermath of the attack, there have been mass protests against the government. The public anger, it seems, is being directed not at the perpetrators of the attack but at the people in charge of the country.

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Ankara suicide bombings cast long shadow over Turkey’s Syria policy

The National reports: The deadly suicide bombings in Ankara have heightened fears that Turkey’s troubled Syria policy may be experiencing blowback.

The twin attacks – Turkey’s most devastating in recent history – killed at least 97 civilians and wounded 246 more on Saturday during a predominantly Kurdish peace rally in the capital.

ISIL is the prime suspect in the suicide bombings, and investigators are close to identifying one of the perpetrators, prime minister Ahmet Davutoglu told Turkish broadcaster NTV on Monday.

Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has dangerously supported hardline militant groups – such as the Army of Conquest, a coalition that includes Al Qaeda’s Syria branch Jabhat Al Nusra and the Salafist group Ahrar Al Sham – to topple Syrian president Bashar Al Assad.

His contentious policy in Syria was already under strain before this, with Russia directly intervening in the war and the US forging close ties with Turkey’s other nemesis on the ground – the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD).

The growing tussle of superpowers in the Syrian war is edging Turkey out of the equation, according to analysts. [Continue reading…]

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Ankara bombs: Turkey is being torn apart by bad leaders and bad neighbours

By Alpaslan Ozerdem, Coventry University

It had already been a deadly summer of political instability in Turkey. And now this. Another bloody massacre – this time at the hand of twin bomb attacks on a peace rally in Ankara, which have killed at least 97 people.

It is the worst terror attack in Turkey’s history, and the culmination of a dreadful wave of violence. In just a few months, hundreds of civilians, Turkish security personnel and PKK members have been killed. Barely a single day passes in Turkey nowadays without some incident of lethal political violence.

Freedom from fear is the very basic principle of human security, which should be protected by any state that wants a true sense of legitimacy over its population and territory. In Turkey, that freedom is under enormous pressure from all sorts of internal and external forces.

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Turkey bombs PKK after Ankara’s deadly blasts as unrest persists

Bloomberg reports: Turkey’s military said it killed dozens of Kurdish separatists hours after explosions in Ankara left at least 97 people dead, making good on the government’s vow to continue attacking the group even after it was reported to have declared a unilateral cease-fire.
Thirty-five members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, were killed when fighter jets targeted their bases in northern Iraq, state-run Anadolu news agency reported on Sunday. Another 14 died in airstrikes in Turkey’s largely Kurdish Diyarbakir province, the military said in a statement. Two soldiers and a policeman were killed in the operations, Hurriyet newspaper reported, while clashes broke out between police and protesters in Turkish cities.
The violence leaves Turkey in the throes of deepening domestic unrest three weeks before a general election. Authorities have said the carnage in Ankara, for which no one claimed responsibility, could be the work of Islamic State militants who are battling allies of the PKK in Syria. Police are analyzing DNA samples from the families of 16 suspects, according to Hurriyet. [Continue reading…]

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ISIS suicide bombers suspected in the Ankara attack

The Daily Beast reports: The so-called Islamic State has emerged as the main suspect behind the deadliest bomb attack in Turkish history, which killed almost 100 people in the capital Ankara on Saturday. Analysts say the incident shows that the conflict in neighboring Syria is destabilizing Turkey, a crucial U.S. ally and NATO member in the Middle East.

There has been no official statement by police or the government blaming ISIS jihadists for the twin suicide attack on a peace rally in Ankara. But the official Anadolu news agency quoted police sources as saying the bombs used in Ankara— packs of TNT fortified with metal balls for increased destructive effect— were similar to the one a suspected ISIS suicide bomber used in an attack in the town of Suruc on July 20 that killed more than 30 people.

Several Turkish newspapers also reported that one of the two suicide bombers, Yunus Emre Alagoz, 25, was the brother of Suruc bomber Seyh Abdurrahman Alagoz. The other Ankara bomber was a woman, news reports said. The Alagoz brothers allegedly traveled to Syria last year to join ISIS and received bomb-making training before returning to Turkey. [Continue reading…]

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Ankara bombings came as Kurdish forces prepare to advance on ISIS stronghold

Following yesterday’s bombing in Ankara, Bloomberg reports: No one immediately claimed responsibility for the deadliest terrorist attacks in Turkey’s recent history, though suspicion quickly turned to Islamic State. The blasts on Saturday targeted a march called to urge an end to violence between the government and Kurdish militants. In the wake of the attack, Kurdish fighters declared a unilateral cease-fire, which they said they would honor as long as they are not attacked.

The carnage in Ankara, the Turkish capital, came as U.S.-allied Kurdish forces affiliated with the militant Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, were preparing to advance toward Islamic State’s self-declared capital of Raqqa in Syria, according to Nihat Ali Ozcan, who studies the Kurdish conflict at the Economic Policy Research Foundation in Ankara.

“Daesh struck at the PKK in Ankara before a Kurdish offensive on Raqqa,” Ozcan said by phone, using the Arabic acronym for Islamic State. “Turkey has become the battleground in a growing war between the PKK and Daesh.” [Continue reading…]

Simon Tisdall notes: Many in Turkey accuse Erdoğan of deliberately fuelling a reviving conflict with militant Kurdish groups, including the outlawed PKK, ‎in order to scare voters into supporting his law-and-order, security-first platform in the coming elections. If he succeeds, it is argued, he will seize more powers for the presidency and promote himself as a sort of modern-day Sublime Porte. Thus, it is suggested, the last thing Erdoğan really wants at this juncture is a Kurdish peace. [Continue reading…]

Reuters reports: Government officials made clear that despite alarm over the attack on a rally of pro-Kurdish activists and civic groups, there would be no postponement of November polls Erdogan hopes can restore an overall majority for the AK Party he founded.

Thousands of people gathered near the scene of the attack at Ankara’s main railway station, many accusing Erdogan of stirring nationalist sentiment by his pursuit of a military campaign against Kurdish militants, a charge Ankara vehemently rejects.

“Murderer Erdogan”, “murderer police”, the crowd chanted in Sihhiye square, as riot police backed by water cannon vehicles blocked a main highway leading to the district where parliament and government buildings are located.

The pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), a major presence at Saturday’s march and holding seats in parliament, said police attacked its leaders and members as they tried to leave carnations at the scene. Some were hurt in the melee, it said in a statement. [Continue reading…]

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NATO warns Russia after warplane enters Turkish airspace

The New York Times reports: NATO officials issued a warning to Russia on Monday, and the United States began what officials called urgent consultations with Turkey, after Turkish fighter jets intercepted a Russian warplane that entered its airspace over the weekend.

Russia’s actions were “an unacceptable violation” of Turkish airspace, NATO’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, said after meeting with the Turkish foreign minister, Feridun Sinirlioglu. Mr. Stoltenberg added, “Russia’s actions are not contributing to the security and stability of the region.”

Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter, speaking in Madrid during a news conference with his Spanish counterpart, said that American officials were conferring with Turkish counterparts over next steps.

“I don’t believe this was an accident,” said a senior administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because she was not authorized to comment publicly. [Continue reading…]

McClatchy reports: A Russian warplane on a bombing run in Syria flew within five miles of the Turkish border and may have crossed into Turkey’s air space, Turkish and U.S. officials said Sunday.

The incident raises new concerns that Russia’s armed intervention in Syria could spill over to neighboring countries, lead to an unintended military confrontation and trigger an even bigger regional conflict.

A Turkish security official said Turkish radar locked onto the Russian aircraft as it was bombing early Friday in al Yamdiyyah, a Syrian village directly on the Turkish border. He said Turkish fighter jets would have attacked had it crossed into Turkish airspace.

But a U.S. military official suggested the incident had come close to sparking an armed confrontation. Reading from a report, he said the Russian aircraft had violated Turkish air space by five miles and that Turkish jets had scrambled, but that the Russian aircraft had returned to Syrian airspace before they could respond. [Continue reading…]

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Following Russia’s intervention in Syria, will Saudi Arabia supply rebels with the kinds of weapons they’ve long been denied?

The Guardian reports: Saudi Arabia and Qatar are already embroiled in an expensive and bloody war in Yemen that may limit both their military and financial resources. They have also so far deferred to western bans on transferring hi-tech weapons – including missiles that could take down aircraft – over fears that they might change hands in the chaos of the war and be used against their makers.

“The uncertain question today is the degree of power combined with efficiency that regional powers will be willing to bring to the table,” said [Julien] Barnes-Dacey [senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations]. “Do the Saudis now try to take matters decisively into their hands, including by providing rebels with sophisticated weaponry long denied them?

“The new [Saudi] king [Salman] has shown a willingness to be much more assertive and take measures into the kingdom’s own hands. If the Saudis see the situation slipping out of their hands, and there is a real sense that the Iranians are consolidating their position in Syria, you could see much stronger response.”

That is unlikely to go as far as troops on the ground, however, and not only because so many assets are already tied up in Yemen.

“A Saudi military role would be too much of an escalation,” said analyst Hassan Hassan, author of Isis: Inside the Army of Terror. “It’s seen as far from Syria, not seen as a direct security threat. With Yemen, people have accepted [Saudi] hegemony for years, unlike Syria, where Iran is seen as dominant.

“The best way to respond to the Russian intervention is to engage the rebels more and step up support so they can face down the escalation and create a balance on the ground,” he said. “The Russians will [then] realise there are limits to what they can achieve in Syria, and modify their approach.” But the wider regional struggle for influence between Saudi Arabia and Iran makes it almost impossible for Riyadh to walk away, whatever the cost. [Continue reading…]

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Will Russia’s move ruin Erdogan’s plan for Syria?

Kadri Gursel writes: Ankara is now likely to be forced to end the de facto situation — virtually a no-fly zone — it has enforced casually in border areas since 2012. In June 2012, after a Turkish reconnaissance plane was shot down by an air defense system in Syria, Ankara announced new rules of engagement, including the interception of Syrian aircraft flying close to Turkish airspace. There has been no indication so far that these rules of engagement have changed. Since the summer of 2012, Turkish media have occasionally reported incidents of Turkish fighter jets taking off from their bases to chase off Syrian planes and helicopters flying “too close” to the border.

Ankara-backed Islamist groups fighting Assad’s regime have emerged as the main beneficiary of these rules of engagement, which have effectively served as a Turkish air cover for their military and logistical operations in border regions.

Now, the following question arises: Will Ankara stick to its rules of engagement if airplanes approaching the border have the Russian star on their wings? My guess is that the rules of engagement will not be enforced against Russian aircraft, thus ending the de facto air cover for the rebels.

Similarly, Ankara’s intention to create a safe zone along the border stretch from Jarablus to Azaz inside Syria has become completely meaningless since the Russian intervention. [Continue reading…]

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Turkey can’t be Europe’s gatekeeper

Sinan Ulgen writes: Next week, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey will visit Brussels and tell his European Union counterparts that Europe must act decisively if it wants to stop the massive flow of refugees leaving his country and entering the European Union by land and sea. Turkey is willing to help halt the exodus, but the union cannot expect it to do so if European governments offer Turkey little in return.

Unlike Europe, Turkey decided to adopt an open-door policy for refugees at the beginning of the Syrian crisis in 2011. It did so out of humanitarian concern and a misplaced optimism about the weakness of the Assad regime. But now the refugee population in Turkey has grown to approximately two million.

Turkey’s ability and willingness to accept this huge number seems to have lulled European policy makers into complacency. Their vision for dealing with the tragic consequences of the Syrian war has, it seems, been limited to hoping that Turkey will act as an eternal buffer zone for Europe. That is a pipe dream. [Continue reading…]

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Jihadis see wide-ranging ceasefire deal brokered by Iran and Turkey as a historic victory

Hassan Hassan reports: Syrian Islamist rebels linked to al-Qaida have struck a wide-ranging ceasefire deal with Bashar al-Assad’s regime. If it holds, the agreement will in effect cede sovereignty of the city of Idlib, create a de facto no-fly zone, and freeze the conflict in several hotspots.

The 25-point deal was brokered by Iran, acting for Damascus, and by Turkey, representing the rebel coalition Jaish al-Fateh, which includes the al-Qaida-affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra. The deal, which urges UN monitoring and implementation, covers 14 towns in the north and south of the country, where intense fighting along sectarian lines had devastated the ranks of all those fighting, taken a bloody toll on civilians left in the area and ravaged towns and infrastructure.

The accord may not hold, especially now that Russia is scouting targets in the ceasefire zone and after reports that renewed clashes erupted between the two sides when pro-regime forces fired into Taftanaz, a town north of Idlib specified in the deal. But the deal itself and the circumstances that led to it are worth pondering.

If it holds it will be a remarkable development in the Syrian conflict. Rebels are claiming the deal as a strategic triumph at a time when Russia is sending extra forces to help prop up Assad’s regime, and western voices that once called for the president’s ousting are apparently softening. It also follows a three-month offensive by pro-Assad Hezbollah forces to clear Al-Zabadani, a southern city near the Lebanese border. It suggests that, even as the tide of foreign opinion is turning towards him, Assad is so hard-pushed he is willing to accept unpalatable realities on the ground in return for military breathing space.

Sources from Jabhat al-Nusra said terms were seen as favourable to Jaish al-Fateh. The jihadi coalition’s chief cleric, Abdullah al-Muhaysini, also heralded the deal as a historic victory for the anti-Assad forces.

Most important, the agreement prohibits the regime from flying helicopters or planes in certain areas controlled by Jaish al-Fateh in Idlib, even to drop aid and ammunition to fighters on the ground. That deprives Damascus of the air power that has been perhaps its biggest advantage over rebel forces, sowing both death and fear around the country. [Continue reading…]

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The rise and fall of Erdogan’s Turkey

Der Spiegel reports: Traveling through Turkey reveals a country divided. On the one side, there is Erdogan’s Turkey. It includes his hometown on the Black Sea, cities of Anatolia’s economic miracle, such as Kayseri, and of course Ankara, the seat of power. The other side is the land of his enemies. It stretches from Kurdish Diyarbakir, where people fear for their lives, to the Qandil Mountains, where Kurdish fighters have holed up, and finally to Istanbul, the nucleus of Turkish democracy.

Gültan Kisanak closes her eyes as the window panes in her office begin to shake. Every few minutes, fighter planes thunder over the town hall of Diyarbakir heading toward the Qandil Mountains. There, in the autonomous region of Kurdistan, the Turkish air force has been bombing positions of the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) since July 24.

Kisanak, 54, is a sturdy woman whose gray hair falls down to the shoulders of her pink blazer. Since early 2014, she has been the co-mayor of Diyarbakir — the first woman to hold the job. The pro-Kurdish HDP party, which received more than 80 percent of the vote here in June, mandates that all important offices are shared between one man and one woman.

During the election campaign, the HDP billed itself not only as a party for the Kurds, but also as an advocate of gender equality and gay rights. Above all, its candidates promised to challenge Erdogan’s plan of establishing a presidential republic. As it became clear that the HDP had received a solid 13 percent of the vote on June 7, people in Diyarbakir, the largest city in the southeast, were jubilant. They danced in the streets to an endless chorus of car horns and fireworks. All that was only three months ago. Today, the mood is grim. By nightfall, it’s quiet. Stores close early and people prefer to stay home out of fear for their lives. [Continue reading…]

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Syrian Kurd offensive against ISIS has stalled

McClatchy reports: A Syrian Kurdish offensive described last week by U.S. officials as the most effective assault to date on the Islamic State has ground to a virtual halt because of Turkey’s opposition to the advance and Kurdish commanders’ reluctance to extend their frontlines beyond Kurdish areas, Syrian Kurdish and Arab militants say.

The stalling of the offensive, which was aided by U.S. airstrikes that were coordinated with Syrian Kurdish fighters on the ground, deals a new setback to the Obama administration’s efforts to build an anti-Islamic State coalition among Syrian opposition forces, and it comes amidst a buildup of Russian jet fighters, armored vehicles and personnel near Syria’s coast.

“The Kurdish forces are important because they are America’s boots on the ground in Syria and Iraq,” said Soner Cagaptay, an expert with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a think tank.

The slackening in the drive by the Peoples Protection Units, a Syrian Kurdish militia known as the YPG, can be traced through the dramatic drop in the rate of U.S. airstrikes launched against the Islamic State in areas inside and adjacent to the swath of territory along the border with Turkey from which the brutal Islamist movement was expelled by the YPG offensive. [Continue reading…]

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‘We want a massacre’: Turkish-Kurdish tensions escalate as election looms

Der Spiegel reports: Cemile just wanted to get some fresh air and escape the feeling of confinement that the curfew in Cizre had brought with it. It was shortly after 8 p.m. on Sept. 4. Darkness had fallen over the city in southeastern Turkey. In the distance, Cemile could see the fire in the mountains. The soldiers were burning down the forests to destroy the Kurdish fighters’ hiding spots. “But don’t go on the street!” Ramazan Cagirga, her father, called out.

Outside, as is so often the case these days, shots could be heard. Suddenly a loud noise could be heard nearby. Cemile — 12 years old, long hair, brown eyes, with pearl earrings — collapsed on the spot. A gunshot had traveled through the wooden gate to the front yard and killed the girl. Eyewitnesses report it coming from an armored vehicle.

“We hoped Cemile would survive,” her father says. “We carried her into the house, but there was nothing we could do.” He then tried to organize an ambulance to pick up the body. But nobody came, because of the gunshots and the curfew. During the day, temperatures reached over 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit), so they cleared out the freezer, wrapped the body in cellophane and froze it. The girl’s body spent three days there before a car finally came to take her to the hospital in the neighboring city of Sirnak. Cemile’s family buried her on Friday.

The family had already lost relatives in an attack by Turkish security forces once before. In 1992, a grandfather, sister, aunts and uncles of Ramazan Cagirga died — seven people in total. The house — the same home where Cemile died this month — had been shot at.

It’s not just the deaths in the Cagirgas household that seem to be repeating themselves. Between 1984 and 2013, 40,000 people, mostly Kurds, died in Turkey’s bloody civil war. Now both sides are ramping things up once again, with attacks by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), assaults by the Turkish army, a state of emergency, restrictions on news coverage and a general climate of fear and violence. [Continue reading…]

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Erdogan’s great losing gamble

Henri J. Barkey writes: hese are unusual times in Turkey. This is not just because Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called for a new round of voting after the June 7 general election, in which the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) lost its parliamentary majority for the first time since 2002 or because of the renewed violence with the Kurds. These are also unusual times because there is a great deal of confusion in Ankara: Who actually runs the country, the Prime Minister or the President?

If we were to judge by appearances—namely Erdogan’s forceful personality—then we would conclude that it is the President who is fully in charge, whereas Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu seems to be just a functionary executing the former’s orders. The Turkish Constitution makes the President an impartial, yet powerful, above-party leader. Executive power resides with the Prime Minister. However, because of a modification to the constitution, Erdogan in 2014 became the first President ever to be elected directly by the people instead of by Parliament. Erdogan has repeatedly said that this change is tantamount to a regime change in Turkey, because a popularly elected President is de facto imbued with greater powers.

Still, the informal control he exercises—through his influence over the AKP stalwarts, allied or fully controlled media organs, and his control over the bureaucracy through years of careful appointments of loyalists—is not enough for Erdogan. He wants to amend the constitution yet again to replace the parliamentary system with a presidential one—probably one that resembles France’s. [Continue reading…]

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A sense of instability settles over Turkey as conflict with Kurds flares

The New York Times reports: Nationalist and pro-government throngs filled the streets of Istanbul and Ankara for two nights last week, chanting “God is great” as they stormed a prominent newspaper and set fire to the offices of a Kurdish political party.

Turkey’s economy, long an emerging market darling, has cooled, and the value of the Turkish lira slips by the day. Cruise ships have stopped docking in Istanbul, and many residents avoid the subway because of bomb threats.

A sense of unease is spreading in Turkey as the decades-old conflict flares between Kurdish militants and Turkish security forces in the volatile southeast. Fears are growing that the country could return to the dark days of the 1990s, when the conflict was at its height.

The upheaval in major cities has prompted Turks, especially Kurds, to share pictures on social media comparing their own cities to ravaged areas in Syria.

In recent years, Turkey has sought to influence and shape the Middle East, portraying itself as everything the region is not: democratic, prosperous and safe. But economic and political instability are deepening before the interim government holds a snap election in November — the country’s third national poll in a little over a year. [Continue reading…]

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Can Turkey pull back from brink of civil conflict?

Amberin Zaman writes: “Turkey is on the brink of a civil war.” This is how Selahattin Demirtas, the co-chairman of the pro-Kurdish bloc in the Turkish parliament, the Peoples’ Democracy Party (HDP), chillingly described the spiraling violence that has engulfed Turkey after a two-year cease-fire between rebels of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and the Turkish army ended in July.

While both sides continue to blame the other for the demise of what promised to be the most hopeful attempt yet at ending the 31-year conflict, the news coming out of Turkey’s mainly Kurdish southeastern region suggests that Demirtas’ rhetoric may not be entirely overblown. Eric S. Edelman, the former US ambassador to Turkey, went as far as to predict in an interview with Al-Monitor that Turkey might even “be sucked into the vortex swirling around Iraq and Syria,” unless the prevailing political dynamics are reversed.

In the southeastern town of Cizre, a city of around 120,000 where Kurdish nationalism pulses forcefully, the Interior Ministry said that 30 people have died in clashes with the security forces since the army moved in over a week ago with tanks and heavy artillery to flush out the PKK’s radical youth wing known as the Patriotic Revolutionary Youth Movement (YDGH). [Continue reading…]

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In shadow of Erdogan, Turkey’s AKP re-elects Davutoglu leader

Reuters reports: Turkey’s ruling AK Party re-elected Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu as its chairman at a congress on Saturday where the longest shadow was cast by a politician who, officially at least, is no longer a member: President Tayyip Erdogan.

Although Erdogan did not appear in person – as president he is supposed to refrain from party politics – many of his loyalists were named to executive committees, something Davutoglu had hoped to avoid, according to some party officials.

Turkey’s most popular and divisive politician in recent memory, Erdogan faces budding discontent from inside the movement he founded, officials say. His drive to secure an absolute majority for the AKP has pushed it toward a November snap election that could again leave the party in stalemate. [Continue reading…]

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