Turkey

Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu, a senior academic and diplomat nominated by Turkey’s two biggest opposition parties as a joint candidate in the upcoming presidential election, has commemorated the Sivas massacre which happened 21 years ago today.

The expected happened. Yesterday, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced his candidacy for the upcoming presidential elections in August. It was a majestic event, organized in a huge hall in Ankara full of thousands of emotional supporters. First, an 18-minute video clip showing the life story Erdoğan was presented.

Turkey has again extended by two months the deadline for bids for a multi-billion dollar anti-missile defense system tender, despite having provisionally awarded the deal to China, a Turkish official has told the Hürriyet Daily News.

Compared to the drive of the first half of the 2000s, Turkey is exhibiting a slower pace of reform, according to the World Bank’s Turkey director.

A pro-government newspaper’s report claiming that the Gülenists almost seized control of the Turkish army is aimed at influencing the upcoming decision of the Supreme Military Council (YAŞ), high-ranking military officers believe, according to daily Cumhuriyet.

Turkey has strongly criticized a U.S. House committee bill that directs the State Department to monitor the return of property confiscated from Christians in Turkey and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.

I am trying to draw a lesson from this. I can see the difference. I cannot decide which is good and which is bad. Look at this picture:

Turkish Economy Minister Nihat Zeybekci has warned Turkey may pull out of a customs agreement with the European Union if the bloc finalizes Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) talks without Ankara.

The prevention of a headscarf-wearing female lawyer from representing her client at a local court in Ankara violated her rights, Turkey’s Constitutional Court has ruled.

Chief of General Staff Gen. Necdet Özel visited President Haşim Kılıç of the Constitutional Court on June 24.

Sources said the meeting was scheduled before the delivery of the top Court’s ruling concerning the Balyoz coup case convicts.

Still, Özel expressed his “extreme pleasure” over the ruling during his meeting with Kılıç, the same sources said.