Stateless people

The counter-terrorism police detained an ex-soldier in Turkey on Jan. 16 over his links to the FETÖ, the terror group behind the 2016 defeated coup attempt.

Former Lt. Gen. Metin İyidil was detained in the capital Ankara after a local court issued an arrest warrant over the prosecutors' demand.

A Romanian judge has blocked the extradition to Turkey of a Turkish schools director linked to the man accused by Ankara of orchestrating a failed 2016 coup, hours after the director was arrested on Tuesday.

A Turkish educational foundation will open more schools in Georgia, the Turkish foreign minister said on Dec. 23.

Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu attended the opening ceremony of the International Maarif Schools of Georgia in the capital Tbilisi.

"I would like to say that the Maarif Foundation will open new schools in Georgia not only in Tbilisi but also in other cities," Çavuşoğlu stressed.

A Romanian judge on Wednesday rejected a Turkish request for the country to extradite a 24-year-old teacher arrested by police and sought by the authorities in Ankara.

Busra Zeynep Zen, an English teacher affiliated to the movement of the exiled Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen, appeared before the appeal court judge soon after her detention.

Turkish police detained 171 suspects on Dec. 16 over links to the FETÖ, the group behind the 2016 defeated coup attempt, security sources said.

The Justice Minister of Montenegro must decide whether to extradite an alleged supporter of the exiled Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulenist to Turkey, after the Appeal Court in Podgorica on Monday rejected his appeal against the earlier ruling of a local court.

Turkey has deported an American foreign fighter and will soon deport another seven Germans, a spokesman for the interior ministry said on Nov. 11.

Two Turkish citizens controversially deported from Kosovo to Turkey last year have received heavy jail sentences in their home country.

On Wednesday, the Istanbul serious crimes court imprisoned Osman Karakaya and Cihan Ozkan for seven years and six months each for "participating in an armed terrorist organisation". It acquitted the two men of charges of "international espionage".

About 2,000 websites in Georgia, including those of the president, the courts and the media, are at the center of a major cyberattack, BGNES reported.

Georgian President Salome Zurabishvili's website was "attacked by hackers this afternoon," her AFP spokeswoman said. "Law enforcement is investigating the incident".

If it was once rare for Turks to seek asylum in the countries of the Balkans, since mid-2016 it has become a regular occurrence, according to an investigation by the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network.