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qkirkpatrick

CNN.com - 'Fascist police' jibe angers Italy - March 14, 2002 - 0 views

  • An Italian ambassador has hit back after Turkey's foreign minister accused Italian riot police of acting like "fascists" during a brawl at the Champions League match between Roma and Galatasaray.
  • Both teams face the threat of a fine or even suspension from European football's most prestigious club competition after fighting broke out between players, stewards and police at the end of Wednesday night's 1-1 draw in Rome's Olympic Stadium.
  • But Italy's ambassador in Ankara, Vittorio Surdo, replied on Thursday: "We're talking about individuals who may have made mistakes. There is no need to refer to the Italian police as fascist police. Frankly we find it quite out of place and we hope this description will never be repeated."
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  • Police used batons to push Galatasaray players off the pitch as missiles were hurled from sections of the 60,000-strong crowd. Scuffles continued in the players' tunnel.
  • Some Roma players said Galatasaray players had used intimidation throughout the ill-tempered match.
johnsonma23

ISIS steps up attacks far from its 'caliphate' - CNN.com - 0 views

  • ISIS steps up attacks far from its 'caliphate'
  • Istanbul, Jakarta, Philadelphia, multiple locations in Libya, the Russian republic of Dagestan: within the past two weeks all have been the target of attacks by ISIS supporters or affiliates, killing and wounding dozens of people.
  • Islamic State in Iraq and Syria is spreading its wings as it comes under greater pressure in its Iraqi-Syrian heartland
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  • Abu Bakr al Baghdad
  • rusader" countries and beyond.
  • indiscriminate attacks on civilian targets
  • , symbols of Western power or decadence
  • Beyond ISIS "branded" attacks -- those launched by affiliates and members -- ISIS also seeks to make political capital out of individuals who claim to be "inspired" by it, such as those in San Bernardino, California, in December and last week in Philadelphia.
  • stage of the investigation, there is no evidence accused gunman Edward Archer was part of an organized cell or that other attacks were in the works.
  • here is no doubting ISIS' lure to a fringe of extremist Muslims and Muslim converts
  • A year ago, ISIS was focused almost exclusively on carving out its self-declared caliphate. Overseas terror attacks in the style of al Qaeda did not appear high on the agenda
  • An early indication that ISIS' leadership favored overseas attacks came when the Belgian jihadist Abdelhamid Abaaoud -- a high-profile member of the group, if only a lieutenant -- plotted a series of gun and bomb attacks against police stations
  • "Know that we want Paris -- by Allah's permission -- before Rome and before Spain, after we blacken your lives and destroy the White House, Big Ben and the Eiffel Tower."
  • the "caliph" himself, Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, suggested ISIS will look for further opportunities to export its war to the "far abroad."
  • Throughout 2015, there was a steady stream of terror attacks that could be linked firmly to ISIS-associated groups, even if the relationship between them and the group's central leadership was often opaque
  • What, if any, role the central ISIS leadership had in the bombing of the Metrojet plane is still unknown. Its Sinai affiliate claimed the attack, and it was some time before the ISIS online publication Dabiq referred to it.
  • The suicide bomb attacks in Ankara were likely ordered by ISIS itself
  • The Paris attacks in November were a landmark: the first clearly organized and claimed by ISIS itself from Syria rather than the autonomous actions of affiliates or individuals.
  • t has a growing network of wilayat, or provinces -- places where it has an established presence such as Libya, Yemen and Afghanistan -- where government is weak and conflict endemic. In some instances it has sent fighters from Syria and Iraq to expand its presence in these places, most notably in Libya.
  • It also has a pool of experienced foreign fighters
  • The disappearance of one of the Paris attackers, Salah Abdeslam, and several alleged co-conspirators suggests ISIS may have a network of safe houses and travel facilitators in Europe
knudsenlu

Greek protesters demand release of two soldiers held in Turkey | World news | The Guardian - 0 views

  • Protesters have taken to the streets of northern Greece demanding the release of two Greek soldiers detained by Turkey, amid rising tensions between the two countries.
  • Greece’s defence minister, Panos Kammenos, described the pair as “hostages” and ordered border patrols to be stepped up along the heavily defended land frontier the two nations share.
  • In rallies in Orestiada, the Greek town closest to the border, and Thessaloniki, the country’s northern capital, protesters called for the soldiers to be set free immediately.
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  • Athens’ leftist-led government raised the case with Nato and the United Nations last week, asking both to intervene. Internationalising the case further, Kammenos told his Romanian counterpart during a visit to Bucharest that Greece was seeking support for the “immediate release of Nato, European and Greek servicemen.”
  • Diplomats in Europe have become increasingly alarmed as tensions have risen markedly not only along the land border between Greece and Turkey but in the Aegean Sea and off the coast of Cyprus, where Ankara has threatened to use military force in a dispute over the ethnically divided island’s right to explore for oil and gas reserves.
  • At a rally this weekend, Erdoğan surprised supporters by making a hand gesture long associated with the fascist Grey Wolves, an unprecedented move by any leader since the foundation of modern Turkey.
Javier E

Opinion | Turkey's Crackdown on Academics Represses History Once Again - The New York T... - 0 views

  • How do gaps in history happen? Ms. Altinay pointed to the four critical moments identified by the prominent Haitian scholar and anthropologist Michel-Rolph Trouillot in his book, “Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History”
  • “The moment of fact creation (the making of sources); the moment of fact assembly (the making of archives); the moment of fact retrieval (the making of narratives); and the moment of retrospective significance (the making of history in the final instance).”
  • Academics are crucial in each of these steps, from recording primary sources through putting narratives into historical context. Without them, this process remains incomplete.
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  • Mr. Erdogan himself seemed to recognize this. Six years ago, when the country was closest to peace talks with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or P.K.K., after three decades of bitter conflict that had already cost 40,000 lives, he called on prominent academics to help facilitate the process, and appointed a committee of “wise people.”
  • prominent academics, intellectuals and artists who traveled the country, hosting panels and town halls to convince a bitterly polarized nation that peace not only was important, but also possible.
  • Then came the failed coup attempt of 2016. Academic activism on sensitive subjects like the Armenian and Kurdish issues quickly flipped from an act of social progression to near treason, and the Turkish government issued decrees that removed more than 5,800 academics and shuttered over a hundred universities. One wave of dismissals nearly gutted Ankara University’s departments of law and of political science.
  • Nowhere is the silence more profound than in Turkey’s Kurdish region. During an offensive launched in 2015, the Turkish government shuttered cultural sites, multilingual schools and longstanding civil society organizations like the Kurdish Institute in Istanbul
  • This spring, nearly 200 of the Academics for Peace cases were concluded. All ended in sentences of one to three years in prison. Most of the sentences were suspended, but three dozen of them — including Ms. Altinay’s — were not.
maxwellokolo

US troops patrol Turkey-Syria border after airstrikes - 0 views

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    The People's Protection Units (YPG) and the Peshmerga in Iraq -- both Kurdish groups -- said at least 25 of their fighters had been killed in the strikes on Tuesday. Ankara denies deliberately targeting them.
katherineharron

This week was a turning point for Republicans on Trump - CNNPolitics - 0 views

  • But it was Vice President Mike Pence, along with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who went to Ankara to negotiate a ceasefire. "The President didn't go. He sent Pence in his place," says CNN White House Correspondent Kaitlan Collins, who traveled with the vice president on Thursday. "It was just interesting watching Pence be in that room for so many hours negotiating."
  • As Collins flew back to Washington with Pence's team, they were already getting feedback from the US criticizing the deal, as well as some reports of ceasefire violations.
  • "The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments about President Trump's decision to end DACA," Shear says. That case, heard on November 12, will focus on whether the Trump administration will be allowed to phase out a program that provides protections for nearly 700,000 so-called Dreamers.
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  • Washington Post Congressional Reporter Karoun Demirjian says that election could have an impact on a critical trade deal, the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement. Neither Canada nor the US have ratified the USMCA.
  • Barrón-López reports that LULAC is "trying to register tends of thousands of Latinos ahead of the Iowa Democratic caucuses, hoping that the group could have some sway" in who ultimately carries the state in the Democratic presidential contest.
  • But McConnell did tell Senate Republicans in their weekly meeting that they needed to prepare for an impeachment trial. The GOP cracks when it comes to impeachment are very limited, but still worth tracking.Republican Rep. Francis Rooney of Florida this past week told CNN, "I don't think you can rule anything out until you know all the facts." Rooney also decided this past week not to seek reelection, which could him more of a wild card in the weeks ahead.Former GOP Gov. John Kasich of Ohio said he would vote yes on impeachment if he were in the House. Kasich was in the House back when President Bill Clinton was impeached. Kasich, though, is a constant Trump critic, so reading too much into his tough criticism would be unwise. But, again, it is worth tracking any Republican dissent or wavering on the impeachment question.
johnsonel7

U.S. Spies: Turkish-Backed Militias Killing Syria Civilians | Time - 0 views

  • Turkish-backed militias, armed by Ankara, have killed civilians in areas abandoned by the U.S., four U.S. military and intelligence officials tell TIME. The officials say they fear that the militias committing those potential war crimes may be using weapons that the U.S. sold to Turkey.
  • Turkey and its allies may be preparing to clear civilian populations from the area, which has largely been controlled by the Kurds, Ankara’s long-time enemies in the region. Turkish President Recep Erdogan told the United Nations on Sept. 24 that he planned to establish a safe zone across the border in Syria, and to resettle some of the 3.6 million Syrian refugees currently sheltered in Turkey.
  • This intelligence is emerging as the U.S. struggles to manage the fallout from its precipitous retreat from Syria, which was announced Oct. 13, after Erdogan told Trump that Turkey was about to attack territory in northern Syria where U.S. troops were deployed. Trump gave the Pentagon and State Department no warning of his decision to pull the U.S. out of the area, and no time to plan an organized retreat or to negotiate a handover of territory. That has left U.S. military officials and diplomats scrambling to deal with the situation.
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  • The scope of U.S. intelligence activity in the region has drawn renewed interest in recent days, in the wake of a U.S. raid on Saturday that killed ISIS Leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The CIA, as well as Iraqi and Kurdish intelligence officers, tracked the ISIS chief by interviewing the wife of an al-Baghdadi aide and one of his couriers, and by recruiting local spies along the Syrian-Iraqi border.
  • “The oil fields are small, we blasted them after Daesh [ISIS] seized them, and they will take years to rebuild,” said one official. So why leave forces there to protect them? “Talking about oil was the only way we could talk the President into keeping any U.S. military force in the area,” the official says. On Friday, after the plan to protect the oilfields was unveiled, Trump tweeted, “Oil is secured.”
  • U.S. officials are worried that a humanitarian crisis and renewed fighting in the region will invite a resurgence of ISIS, which operates best in chaotic situations. Many captured ISIS fighters remain in Kurdish custody in northern Syria. Trump appeared to dismiss the danger of a renewed terrorist threat Friday, when he tweeted, “ISIS SECURED”. Esper told reporters at NATO that the U.S. mission remains preventing a resurgence of ISIS.
  • U.S. intelligence officials aren’t the only ones seeing evidence of war crimes. The human rights group Amnesty International reported on Friday that Turkish-backed Syrian forces have committed war crimes, including executions of Kurdish civilians.
katherineharron

Syria-Turkey crisis: Putin now owns this mess - CNN - 0 views

  • Only a few hours later, airstrikes and artillery fire could be felt in northern Syria as the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces accused Ankara and its proxies of severe ceasefire violations.
  • The mood both in Washington and in the Middle East is that the ceasefire is not the real deal. It expires on Tuesday, October 22, the same day Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Recip Tayyip Erdogan will meet in Sochi to discuss the future of Syria. It seems pretty clear: that's when the world will find out that the real deal will be for the future of this volatile region.
  • Russia immediately started negotiations with the Kurds and Moscow's main ally, the Assad government, quickly reaching a deal to allow the Syrian military into Kurdish-held areas where Damascus has not had a presence for years in order to stave off the Turkish-led offensive. Moscow also quickly deployed its own military as a buffer to keep the Turks and their forces apart from the Kurds and Syrian government troops.
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  • The move caused a good deal of chest thumping among Putin's military: "When the Russian flag appears, combat stops -- neither Turks nor Kurds want to harm us, so fighting stops thanks to our work," a Russian army officer, Safar Safarov, was quoted as saying by Tass state news agency, as the country's military police units began patrolling Manbij.
  • With Russia's new role as the undisputed lead nation also come grave risks. The situation in northeastern Syria is more than volatile. The Turks have made clear they will not allow a Kurdish military presence near their border. But Ankara's ground force consists largely of Syrian rebel groups, many of them hardline Islamists whom the Kurds fear could unleash a campaign of ethnic cleansing against minorities in this diverse region.
  • The Kremlin is gravely concerned that Russians who fought with ISIS and other rebels groups could return to their homeland and cause instability there. From the moment Turkey launched its offensive in Northern Syria the Kremlin voiced extreme doubts about Turkey's ability to keep a lid on the thousands of ISIS prisoners and their relatives that the Kurds had been guarding.
  • "There are areas in northern Syria where ISIS militants are concentrated and until recently, they were guarded by the Kurdish military. The Turkish army entered these areas and the Kurds left... Now [ISIS fighters] can simply run away and I am not sure that the Turkish army can -- and how fast -- get this under control," Putin said last week at The Commonwealth of Independent States forum in Ashgabat.
  • But despite all the dangers facing Putin's high-stakes Syria gambit the Russian leader still seems to be in a position to possibly prevent the situation from blowing up even more than it already has.
  • Russia has a devastating track record in the Syrian conflict. Human rights groups have accused Moscow of committing war crimes in its campaign to support Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The US says Moscow has systematically bombed civilian infrastructure, especially hospitals, and aided Assad in covering up alleged chemical weapons use by the Syrian military. Russian vehemently denies all these allegations.
  • And when the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces -- which were backed by the US and lost nearly 11,000 fighters in the war against ISIS -- found out they'd been dumped by Trump and left to be invaded by Erdogan's proxy force, they too went straight to the Russians because guess what: Moscow has been working with and talking to the SDF for years as well.
anonymous

Turkey extends exploration in disputed Mediterranean waters to Oct. 27 | Reuters - 0 views

  • Turkey said on Wednesday it extended the stay of its Oruc Reis survey vessel and two other ships in a disputed area of the eastern Mediterranean until Oct. 27, in a move likely to further escalate tensions in the region.
  • NATO members Turkey and Greece are at odds over conflicting claims to hydrocarbon resources in the eastern Mediterranean and overlapping views on the extent of their continental shelves.
  • Ankara had withdrawn Oruc Reis from last month to “allow for diplomacy”
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  • but sent it back this month, prompting an angry rebuke from Greece, France and Germany.
  • further strained Turkey-EU ties
  • “imperial fantasies.”
peterconnelly

Turkey wants to be called Türkiye in rebranding move - BBC News - 0 views

  • Turkey will be known as Türkiye at the United Nations from now on, after it agreed to a formal request from Ankara.
  • "Türkiye is the best representation and expression of the Turkish people's culture, civilization, and values," Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in December.
  • Most Turks already know their country as Türkiye. However the anglicised form Turkey is widely used, even within the country.
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  • As part of the re-branding, "Made in Türkiye" will feature on all exported products, and in January a tourism campaign was launched with the catch-phrase "Hello Türkiye".
  • The Ü may be tricky for most of the international audience who don't have that letter in their alphabet but it's the same as the German Ü, like the U in pure or cue. So for an English-speaker, changing the first vowel of Turkey to a Ü and adding an E to the end (as in pet) is enough to pronounce the new name perfectly.
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