Ankara

Development projects in Turkey supported by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) have helped improve the incomes and quality of life of the rural poor, according to the findings of an independent evaluation, which were presented on Jan. 28 in Ankara by the Independent Office of Evaluation of IFAD. 

A cabinet decision designating locations for 39 new fortified military installations has gone into force, with a majority of new security posts to be built in southeastern Turkey, which is currently scene to violent clashes between the security forces and outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) militants.

Neither the current regime under President Bashar al-Assad nor any "terrorist organization" has a place in Syria's future, Turkey's top national security body has reiterated, while also pledging to take measures to compensate civilians for damages incurred during ongoing deadly operations in Southeast Anatolia.

Alternate Migration Affairs Minister Yiannis Mouzalas appeared agitated on Thursday evening while addressing a Radical Left Coalition (SYRIZA) party event. Leftist daily Avgi states that the minister said that Greece faces the threat of being turned into the “Ellis Island” of Europe.

The Istanbul prosecutor's office asked on Jan. 27 for life imprisonment for two Turkish journalists, Can Dündar and Erdem Gül, who had been arrested on suspicions of plotting against the government and military espionage for reporting on an ongoing court case alleging Turkey's National Intelligence Agency (M?T) sent weapons to the civil war-hit Syria.

It is not clear if Salih Muslim, the co-chair of the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), was not invited to the Geneva talks because of pressure from Turkey or much broader considerations. Ankara says the PYD is a terrorist organization allied to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

The United States shares Turkey's concerns that the formal participation of the Syrian Democratic Union Party (PYD) in the Geneva talks will give legitimacy to the group and the territories it controls in the northern Syria, although Washington differentiates the PYD from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) despite Ankara's wishes. 

Russia's federal tourism agency on Jan. 27 issued a warning that the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) jihadists were planning to abduct Russian citizens in Turkey.

"According to the competent agencies, leaders of the IS [ISIL] terrorist group plan to take hostages from among Russian citizens in Turkey," it said in a statement.

Attempts to include the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) in U.N.-backed talks on Syria planned for later this week were a last minute fait accompli, a senior Turkish official has said, adding Turkey would be represented "at the highest level" during the planned talks in Geneva.

A 63-year-old German woman who was injured in a jihadist suicide attack in Istanbul's Sultanahmet neighborhood two weeks ago has succumbed to her injuries while receiving treatment in a Berlin hospital.

A police spokeswoman confirmed the death of Birgit Glorius to the German newspaper Berliner Kurier.