Hulusi Akar

Turkish army has started hitting some PKK/YPG targets in northern Syria's Tal Rifaat and Manbij districts with cannon fire as the preparations for an upcoming crossover military operation, aimed to be conducted for safe return of some 500,000 Syrians, are ongoing.

After months of declarations from top Turkish government officials that Greece's sovereignty over a number of its islands in the eastern Mediterranean is contingent upon Athens demilitarising them, now Turkish Defence Minister Hulusi Akar has reportedly decided that he wishes to forbid Deputy Defence Minister Nikos Hardalias from visiting the said islands without Ankara's permission.

Turkish and Russian top diplomats, Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu and Sergey Lavrov will discuss the modalities of a secure corridor to be established through the Black Sea for the shipment of nearly 20 million tons of grain to world markets to avoid a major global food crisis.

No one should try to prevent Turkey from conducting a military operation in Syria's north to secure its borders, Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar has said.

"We act as principled, open, transparent and in compliance with international law as much as possible in all our activities," Akar told a group of journalists following a cabinet meeting late on June 6.

While voicing Turkey's support for ongoing peace talks between Azerbaijan and Armenia, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has said it's time to open a new page in the South Caucasus to build the future together by taking lessons from the pains suffered in the past.

Turkey has neutralized more than 100 PKK terrorists in Operation Claw-Lock, Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar has said, following the killings of five Turkish soldiers in clashes with the terrorist organization in northern Iraq.

Four Turkish soldiers have been killed and three wounded in clashes with PKK terrorists in the Operation Claw-Lock zone, the Turkish defense minister has said.

Naming the soldiers "brothers in arms," the Defense Ministry highlighted that four were "martyred" and three were "hospitalized" on May 24.

The European Union has finally started to see the Greek policy of pushbacks in the Aegean Sea, which has claimed many lives of asylum seekers, Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said on May 7.

Turkish and Russian defense ministers have discussed the humanitarian situation and the need for the evacuation of civilians from Mariupol in a phone conversation, the Turkish Defence Ministry announced late May 2.

Defense Minister Hulusi Akar and Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu talked over the phone, the ministry said in a written statement.

Straight on the heels of the recent barrage of Turkish violations of Greek airspace, with flights over large, inhabited Aegean islands such as Rhodes and Kalymnos and the Imia rock islets (that led the two countries to the brink of war in 1996), and two strongly-worded Greek foreign ministry demarches to Ankara's ambassador to Athens, Turkish Defence Minister Hulusi Akar unleashed yet another a