Turkey

A Turkish prosecutor has launched an investigation into daily Hürriyet columnist Ertu?rul Özkök to probe whether he insulted President Recep Tayyip Erdo?an in his latest article.

The kidnapping of 18 Turkish workers in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad was not the work of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) or the outlawed Kurdistan Workers? Party (PKK), Turkish Foreign Minister Feridun Sinirlio?lu said on Sept. 3.      

Images of three-year-old Aylan Kurdi have done the media rounds. He became the face of the refugee tragedy and showed how easily the dream of a new and better life could turn to tragedy. A picture on its own tells a thousand words, but here are some stories behind THAT photo.

The Greek caretaker government has been forced to deal with the asphyxiating problems caused by the huge inflow of refugees to Greece’s border islands. Caretaker economy minister Nikos Christodoulakis said that financial support will be transferred to the islands with the greatest problems during a press conference on Thursday.

In the heydays of the cooperation between the government and the brotherhood (Gülenists); when police used to hold operations at five o'clock in the morning in households; what did dailies Bugün, Zaman, television channel Samanyolu, and writers Ekrem Dumanl? and Ahmet Altan used to say?

They used to say:

Turkey has gained notoriety for being unpredictable. Not always. Take, for instance, this micro chronology, starting with your columnist?s lines of curiosity, and related events afterwards: 

It was as if the entire world collapsed on me. Was it possible at all to look at that photograph of a little boy?s body washed up on a Bodrum beach without pain in the heart? Moments later, a young soldier was gently carrying in his arms the lifeless body of a little boy. He was three-year-old Aylan Kurdi.

His name did not appear in agency bulletins. He is also somebody?s son, like the 3-year old Syrian toddler Aylan al-Kurdi whose dead body was swept by the waves of the Aegean Sea to Turkey?s Bodrum shores as the boat carrying them to Greek island of Kos sunk early September 2. 

The United States on Sept. 3 encouraged the families of troops and diplomats stationed in southern Turkey to leave the country as it ramps up efforts in the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militants.
  

Turkey's parliament has voted to renew by another year a mandate allowing the military to conduct operations in Syria and Iraq.
                   
In a show of hands, legislators from the Justice and Development Party (AKP), the Republican's People Party (CHP) and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) voted on Sept. 3 in favor of the motion to extend the permit.