Foreign Ministry

Öztürk Yılmaz, Turkey’s consul general in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul who was abducted by Islamist militants on June 11, has previously served as an advisor to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

A government reshuffle was announced on Monday, June 9, 2014. The new cabinet comprises:

Prime Minister: Antonis Samaras

Deputy Prime Minister: Evangelos Venizelos

Foreign Ministry
Minister: Evangelos Venizelos
Deputy Minister: Dimitris Kourkoulas
Deputy Minister: Akis Gerontopoulos

A janitor employed by the Foreign Ministry is to be dismissed after failing to turn up to work for 11 months, according to a Council of State ruling made public on Thursday.

The employee’s dismissal was originally ordered by the ministry’s disciplinary council as the worker in question had never applied for sick leave or any other type of time off.

Turkey has said it is confident that the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights will stick to the court’s earlier decision ruled that punishing denials of "the Armenian genocide" constitute a violation of freedom of expression.

Orson Wells was at least partly right when he said: “Popularity should be no scale for the election of politicians. If it would depend on popularity, Donald Duck and The Muppets would take seats in the Senate.” Unfortunately, we don’t yet have a better instrument for democracy than the ballot box.

The Telecommunications Directorate (TİB) unblocked access to YouTube on June 3, some 67 days after a ban that triggered global criticism of the Turkish government’s tightening grip on the Internet.

Ankara has voiced support for the new unified government between Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and Hamas and has urged the international community to also support the move.

Ankara believes the newly formed government will eventually help build sustainable peace in the Middle East.

Moldova and Belarus have become the latest countries where Turkish citizens can enjoy visa-free travel.

FM: Serbia "maintains principled position on Ukraine"

BELGRADE -- Serbia is maintaining a principled position on the Ukrainian crisis and respects the territorial integrity of all UN member states, Ivica Dačić has said.

A suicide bomber yesterday killed three Turkish engineers and wounded another in eastern Afghanistan in the latest attack on foreigners in the war-torn country, while Taliban denied responsibility.