Eastern Mediterranean

Five people were killed in a missile strike against the International Fair in Damascus, the Syrian Center for Human Rights said.

An independence referendum set to take place on Sept. 25 in northern Iraq, which has been suffering from an economic crisis for three years, preoccupies the agendas of businessmen who are associated with the area.

Were federation prospects dead in Cyprus? Can it be claimed that whatever may be done the two people of the island cannot be geared towards creating a working and sustainable federal resolution? If all prospects of a federal solution were exhausted, what kind of a settlement might be possible in Cyprus?

 German-Turkish author Dogan Akhanli was arrested in Spain on Saturday after Turkey issued an Interpol warrant for the writer, a critic of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government, fanning an already fierce row between the NATO allies, reported Reuters.

More than a dozen Turkish fighter jets violated Greek air space 60 times on Friday, according to Greek military authorities. The violations by 14 planes occurred in the northeastern, central and southeastern Aegean.

Recently published by Cambridge University Press, "A History of the Ottoman Empire" by Douglas Howard, Professor of History at Calvin College in Michigan, is the first single-volume history of the Ottomans to appear in a number of years. 

In yet another pessimistic statement coming from Ankara, Turkey's EU Minister Omer Celik said Thursday that the Cyprus settlement talks were "not suspended, nor frozen," but "over."

According to the Anadolu news agency, he made his statement following a meeting with the UK's minister of state for Europe, Sir Alan Duncan, in Turkey.

The United Nations said Wednesday that Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will decide "in due course" on the way forward with regard to Cyprus, after the collapse of reunification talks last month at the Swiss resort of Crans-Montana.

Municipal authorities of the occupied town of Morphou in northern Cyprus have reiterated a call to the United Nations and the European Union to exert pressure on Turkey to change its stance and contribute to a just solution to the Cyprus problem that will restore the basic human rights of all Cypriots.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu accused the Greek Cypriot side of not wanting a solution to the Cyprus problem in Crans-Montana.

Speaking to the Turkish state television station TRT, Cavusoglu also claimed that the Greek Cypriot side tried to put Turkey in a difficult position using false information.