Turkey

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan hit back at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Twitter by calling Israel an “apartheid state”

Ottoman Empire

Turkish Youth, WW I’s Gallipoli Battle, and the Secular-Religious Divide

contributors

The Secular Legacy of Kemal Ataturk is increasingly embattled in Erdogan’s Turkey

European Union

European Union: Turkey further than ever on Human Rights, Rule of Law

contributors

Middle East Monitor | – – Turkey will on Tuesday receive the European Commission’s most critical report since it launched its bid to join the European Union over a decade ago, with Brussels warning that years of progress towards membership were being lost, officials said on Saturday. With the exception of cooperation on Syrian refugees, […]

Kurds

A Second Palestine? Neo-Ottoman “Sultan” Erdogan Captures Syria’s Kurdish Enclave of Afrin

contributors

By Dr. Mohammed Nuruzzaman | (Informed Comment) | – – Turkey’s capture of the Kurdish enclave of Afrin in northern Syria has added a new dimension to the highly volatile geopolitical environment in the Middle East. Not only is it a major assault on war-ravaged Syria’s territorial integrity and political sovereignty, the event speaks of […]

Displaced and Refugees

Turkey: Mass Deportations of Syrians to dangerous Areas

contributors

Human Rights Watch | – – EU Should Raise Issue, Pledge Aid at Conference (Brussels) – Turkish security forces have routinely intercepted hundreds, and at times thousands, of asylum seekers at the Turkey-Syria border since at least December 2017 and summarily deported them to the war-ravaged Idlib governorate in Syria, Human Rights Watch said today. […]

Featured

Turkey takes Afrin, pulls down Statue Now-Ruz Revolutionary Kaveh

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Tuesday, March 20, is the spring equinox this year. Iranians, Kurds, Central Asians and many in Pakistan and India celebrate the equinox as the New Year, which after all makes a lot more sense than starting it in the dead of winter. Spring is symbolically the […]

Kurds

Turkey says US & Kurds will Leave Manbij or Else, Prepares for Iraq Incursion

contributors

Middle East Monitor | – – Turkey and the US will oversee the withdrawal of forces allied to the YPG (People’s Protection Units) from the northern Syrian city of Manbij, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu announced today, according to Hurriyet Daily News. Speaking to reporters during a flight to Moscow, Cavusoglu said Turkey and the […]

Kurds

Kurdish Civilians pledge to shield Afrin from Turkish Invasion with their Bodies

contributors

TeleSur | – – The YPG and allied forces, under the umbrella organization the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), control over 60 percent of the Syrian border with Turkey. The Kurdish residents of Afrin have said they would act as human shield to confront a Turkish assault on the local Kurdish militia YPG who rules the […]

Featured

Are Kurds, Shiite Militias and the Baath Gov’t allying against Turkey’s Afrin Op?

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Fundamentalist Salafi militias, some linked to al-Qaeda, and backed by Turkey, have allegedly taken three new villages in the Afrin canton away from the leftist Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG). Over all, the Turks and their allies claim the conquest of 71 villages in northern […]