Eurasia

Lebanese expatriates in 48 countries including France and the United Arab Emirates voted Sunday ahead of the May 15 parliamentary elections, state media reported.

Following seven years of renovation work, St. Giragos Church in the southeastern province of Diyarbakır is now open to offer religious services once again.

The church, heavily damaged by PKK terrorists in 2015, was reopened with a ceremony attended by Turkish Culture Minister Mehmet Nuri Ersoy.

The special representatives of Turkey and Armenia held the third round of normalization talks in Vienna on May 3 and agreed to continue the negotiations without preconditions, the Foreign Ministry has said.

Faiz Sucuoğlu, the prime minister of Turkish Cyprus, has presented the resignation of his coalition government for a second time in the last 10 days, increasing the possibility of a new general election.

Turkey's tourism revenues jumped 122 percent on an annual basis in the first quarter of 2022, while nearly 2.1 million foreign tourists visited the country in March, marking a robust increase of 129 percent from a year earlier.

The Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK) said on April 29 that the country's tourism income amounted to $5.45 billion in January-March.

The size of the fast-developing gaming industry in Turkey has reached $1.2 billion in 2021, a recent study has shown.

Nearly a half of revenues -$620 million- came from mobile games last year, rising from $450 million in the previous year, said the Turkey Gaming Industry 2021 report.

Turkey and Russia had agreed on the procurement of two batches of Russian-made S-400 air defense systems as part of a deal, but talks on technology transfer extended the delivery time for the second system, Defense Industries Presidency (SSB) head İsmail Demir told state-run broadcaster TRT on April 26.

The construction of the 295-kilometers wall along the border of Turkey and Iran will be finished by 2023, the country's interior minister has said.

After inspecting the borderline from a helicopter, Soylu spoke at a press conference held at one of the border posts on April 24.

A new coalition government has been established in Turkish Cyprus, headed by prime minister Faiz Sucuoğlu.

Turkish Cyprus' 39th government was announced with a statement on early April 25 after President Ersin Tatar's approval.

If Turkey joins Syria and Lebanon as the third narco-state in the Eastern Mediterranean, this will only compound the region’s trafficking and money laundering problems