Turkey

Asylum seekers who have fled conflicts in Iraq and Syria are still not formally recognized as refugees in Turkey, while Yazidis are not afforded equal rights, a new report by the Diyarbak?r Bar Association Children's Rights Center has found.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Feb. 28 said there was no "Plan B" for the European Union regarding a deal reached with Turkey to reduce the flow of migrants, hours after she and Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davuto?lu discussed the issue by phone. 

German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Feb. 28 said there was no 'Plan B' for the European Union deal reached with Turkey for reducing the flow of migrants, defending her open-door policy for migrants and  rejecting any limit on the number of refugees allowed into her country despite divisions within her government. 

Turkish lawmakers have engaged in a noisy and almost physical dispute in parliament over remarks by President Recep Tayyip Erdo?an on a top court ruling that led to the release of two journalists who were arrested in late 2015 over a news story on state-owned trucks allegedly carrying weapons to Syria.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Sunday that the EU cannot allow Greece to plunge into “chaos” by shutting European borders to refugees.

Heavy fog blanketed Istanbul on Feb. 29 affecting transportation in the metropolis, including the cancelations of most ferry lines as well as disruptions in air traffic. 

Many city ferry lines were canceled due to the fog, which began to show its effects early in the morning.

However, ferry lines bound for the Prince Islands and the Golden Horn continued without disruption.

The Bulgarian parliament is expected to dissolve the recently established ad hoc committee of inquiry on allegations of Russian and Turkish interference in the internal affairs of Bulgaria.

This was stated by high-level sources within the main ruling party GERB for Standart daily.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davuto?lu spoke Feb. 28 to discuss the current state of cooperation between Berlin and Ankara, as well as Brussels and Ankara, amid increasing rancor from European countries trying to cope with an influx of refugees.

Ankara has extended condolences to Russia over a deadly coal mine accident which killed dozens of people in Russia's far north over the weekend.

A nine-hour-long Turkish cabinet meeting chaired by President Recep Tayyip Erdo?an on Feb. 22 focused on foreign policy, with the future of Ankara's bilateral relations Israel and Egypt as well as its position regarding the Syrian conflict reviewed in a bid to update its roadmap on these thorny issues.