Fertile Crescent

Turkey and the United States will begin training and equipping moderate Syrian opposition fighters on March 1 within the framework of a Feb. 19 agreement signed by the two countries, Ankara has announced.

"I can say that it will begin as of March 1," Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesperson Tanju Bilgiç briefly told reporters at a press conference on Feb. 27.

According to reports quoted by “The Independent”, ISIS jihadists ransacked the Mosul library and set fire to thousands of rare documents, papyrus scrolls and hand-written works, some dating back many centuries.
 

Around 8,000 tomes were destroyed, as well as hundreds of rare and unique documents.

Are there any Turks aware of what Süleyman ?ah's tomb on the bank of Euphrates, the sole Turkish territory cut off from the mainland, who could say right away that s/he was pleased with the "relocation" of the tomb?

After a series meetings between the government and the main Kurdish party, the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), the pair has announced that they will prepare a "joint text" for the so-called "Kurdish resolution process." Under different circumstances, it would be very good news, but because of the fact that Turkey is in an election process, it is rather confusing.

A Turkish citizen has been arrested for being a member of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) for the first time in Turkey, daily Vatan reported on Feb. 4.

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has declared itself "extremely concerned" by photographs showing its food parcels being handed out in Syria with Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) logos on them.
   
Images circulating on social media show food being distributed from cardboard boxes with "Islamic State in Syria" labels pasted over the WFP logo.
   

US President Barack Obama has requested $8.8 billion to fund the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in his 2016 budget unveiled Feb. 2.
      
A total of $5.3 billion would go to the Pentagon to finance Operation Inherent Resolve, which was launched in August with a series of airstrikes against militants in Iraq and Syria.
      

It is unbelievable. The president of the country is speaking and sending everyone into shock. Can elements within the state plot against the state, plant bombs with the state's armored cars and murder people in cold blood?

Two Italian aid workers abducted in northern Syria last summer arrived Jan. 16 in Rome, where they were welcomed with "relief" a day after their release.
      
Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni welcomed Greta Ramelli, 20, and Vanessa Marzullo, 21, after their flight from Turkey landed at Ciampino military airport near Rome in the early hours of the morning.
      

Turkish security authorities have begun to dig trenches at the country's border with Syria as Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militants fleeing airstrikes took shelter in an energy facility on the Syrian side of the border.