Islamism

Turkey has been passing through one of the worst and complicated periods of its history. Nationalist analysts say that ever since the republic was established on the ashes of the Ottoman Empire, this country had never had such a "multilateral" and "concentrated" existential threat. Yet, the same analysts agree that the worst is probably yet to come.

How many of us see it this way I have no idea but I tend to believe that there ought to be at least two different forms of apocalypse: One is concerning humanity and the other is a very individual one. Which is bigger? Of course the closer the apocalypse is, it gets bigger and the biggest ought to be the individual one…

According to news reports, the assassin who killed the Russian Federation's ambassador was on duty for eight of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's events in Ankara. 

I don't understand what kind of business this is. The murderer is known as a "Fethullahist" but at the same time, he is able to enter the immediate outer circle of the president's protection squad. 

Police forces on patrol pass under the closed Eiffel Tower in Paris, France, Saturday, Nov. 14, 2015. French President Francois Hollande vowed to attack the Islamic State group without mercy as the jihadist group claimed responsibility Saturday for orchestrating the deadliest attacks on France since World War II. (AP Photo/Kamil Zihnioglu)

The new suspect for the attack in Berlin is linked to one of the most dangerous networks of salafites in Germany. He is known to the police as dangerous and is part of an Islamist network, reported local media.

President-elect Donald Trump has described the Dec. 19 shooting of Russian Ambassador to Turkey Andrey Karlov in Ankara "a violation of all rules of civilized order" carried out by a "radical Islamic terrorist." 

Trump also condemned the deadly terror attack at a Christmas market in the German capital Berlin, vowing to "eradicate Islamic terrorism's regional and global networks."

Iranian diplomatic missions in Turkey were suspended on Dec. 20 until the next order, an embassy official has told the Hürriyet Daily News. U.S. missions to Turkey were also closed on Dec. 20 for security reasons. 

It is not easy to be an intellectual in Turkey. It is even more difficult to be a diva. Like her or not, Demet Akbağ has become synonymous with extraordinarily good performance not only on the theater stage, but at every moment of her life.

'Submission' by Michel Houellebecq (Picador, 256 pages, Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

We have this saying among journalists in Turkey; you never become a real journalist until you are tried in court. We get complaints for the stories we air or the ones we don't. This, I guess, is part of our jobs.

 Sometimes we defend our stories in court. We are used to this. But these days, it is different.