Turkey

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Matthew Weaver of the Guardian reports retired MIT linguist Noam Chomsky’s reply to a personal attack by Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan. Erdogan criticized Chomsky and other international scholars who signed a petition against the Turkish government’s current vendetta against Kurdish-Turkish citizens in the country’s southeast. Erdogan […]

Islamic State of Iraq and Syria

Istanbul explosion: overview of this year’s surge in terror attacks in Turkey

contributors

France 24 | (Video News Report) | – – “Istanbul explosion: overview of this year’s surge in violence and terror attacks in Turkey. As no claim of responsibility has been issued for the blast in Istanbul, three main suspects have been unveiled: the Islamic state group, eager to take revenge on Turkey for its harder […]

Russia

Putin: Syria’s Al-Assad welcome to Refuge in Russia

contributors

Vladimir Putin | (Der Bild) | – – Excerpt from part II of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s interview in the German publication, Der Bild, on Jan. 12, 2016, according to the Kremlin website. Highlight: Putin admits that Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad has made many errors, and says that if necessary he can have asylum in […]

Authoritarianism

Turkish Pres. Erdogan cites Hitler in case for Presidential System

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Turkish president Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday cited Hitler in support of his contention that a presidential system can coexist with a “unitary state,” i.e., with a non-federal government. The United States has a presidential system, but the presidency’s powers are limited because it is a federal […]

Democracy

Rare victory for Freedom of speech in Turkey, as Pianist allowed to quote Omar Khayyam

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – In a rare victory for freedom of speech in Turkey, the country’s Supreme Court of Appeals has completely overturned a lower court ruling that sentenced world-famous pianist Fazil Say to a suspended sentence of 10 months in prison. Say’s crime? To tweet out passages from the […]

Syria

Is its Syria Adventure destabilizing Turkey?

contributors

By Nadir Firat | (Informed Comment) | – – Riza Saka, a lawyer turned TV pundit, declared that “Turkey has nothing to fear” from the shooting down of the Russian SU-24 plane. In one of the most popular political debate shows on Turkish TV, he declared this suggesting that Russia has much to lose if […]

journalism

Human Rights in Turkey: Is Turkish Press Freedom Doomed?

contributors

By Lorena Di Carlo | (Inter Press Service) | – – MADRID (IPS) – The last week of November marked another phase of an ongoing shift in the Turkish Government´s approach to human rights issues – Two important events highlighted the ongoing attack freedom of press is suffering in Turkey. First two prominent Turkish journalists […]

Russia

Flash Point: Could Turkey block Russian access to Mediterrranean?

contributors

By Tony Wesolowsky | ( RFE/ RL) | – – Could Turkey block Russia’s access to one of the world’s most strategic waterways? That question has arisen with mutual relations in a southward spiral since the Turkish air force downed a Russian warplane near the Syrian border on November 24. It arguably took on added […]

Featured

Russo-Turkish Conflict over Syria & Iraq Boils: “Manifestations of impotent Rage”

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The Turkish and Russian government have continued their war of words that followed on the shooting down of an Su-25 bomber on Nov. 24. Issues include a new Turkish accusation that Russian bombing in the north of Latakia province aims at ethnically cleansing the Turkmen populations […]