Geography of Turkey

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdo?an is scheduled to ride a specially customized bike, based on a model used by a world biking champion, during the launch of the Presidential Tour of Turkey (TUR).

The Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality has allowed for the construction of a mosque on the seafront of the biggest and most touristic island of Istanbul?s Princes? Islands, after rejecting an objection of its members from the main opposition Republican People?s Party (CHP). 

A former professor at Ege University in Turkey's Aegean city of ?zmir, who was jailed for preventing a female student with a headscarf from entering a faculty building, was released on April 16 after spending four-and-a-half months in jail. 

Cannonballs from the 15th century period of Ottoman Sultan Mehmet II have been unearthed during recent archaeological excavations in a castle on the Takkeli Mount of the Central Anatolian province of Konya, which was once the capital of the Anatolian Seljuk state.

Eight former managers from the mine where Turkey's worst industrial disaster occurred in May 2014 appeared in court April 15 on murder charges, with prosecutors demanding they spend the rest of their lives in jail.

A prosecution office has closed the case of a bridge collapse in Turkey's northern province of Zonguldak in 2012 which killed 15 people, as no permission was given for an investigation into the responsible state institutions which were found guilty in an expert report. 

Human bone fragments found during an excavation conducted in a rural zone in the eastern province of Tunceli will be tested to determine whether they are the remains of 24 people who were killed during the Dersim massacre in 1938.

A rural area in eastern Turkey will be excavated on April 15 to reveal bones allegedly belonging to 24 people from two families killed during the Dersim massacre in 1938.

The recent clash between Turkey?s security forces and the outlawed Kurdistan Workers? Party (PKK), which took place in the Eastern Anatolian province of A?r? on April 11, has apparently forced a change in the schedule of Prime Minister Ahmet Davuto?lu?s election rallies ahead of the June 7 parliamentary election. 

Turkey on April 14 deported nine Britons, including the son of a local councillor, two weeks after arresting them for attempting to cross into Syria to join jihadists, the official news agency said.