Turkey

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Turkey at long last entered the struggle against Daesh (ISIL, ISIS) on Thursday. It gave the US Air Force permission to bomb sites in Syria from Incirlik Air Force Base. (The US has long had use of this base as part of Turkey’s NATO commitments, and […]

Islamic State of Iraq and Syria

Turkish Gov’t Worries about Kurdish, Leftist Mobilization after Bombing, briefly bans Twitter

contributors

BBC | (Video News Report) | – – “In Turkey authorities have blocked access to Twitter in a bid to prevent the broadcast of images of the suicide bomb attack in the border town of Suruc. A state run news agency also said the ban on social media was put in place to stop anti […]

Islamic State of Iraq and Syria

On Edge over Syria, Kurdish issues, Turkey tense after horrific Bombing

contributors

By Cengiz Gunes | (The Conversation) | – – Islamic State appears to have stepped up its war with the Kurds by bombing a meeting of socialist activists as they gathered in the town of Suruç. The incident is not only a terrible blow to the Kurds, but threatens further unrest in Turkey, where a […]

Featured

Terrorist kills 31 at Socialist Rally for Kobane in Turkey

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – According to Alarabiya, on Monday a young woman aged 18 detonated a suicide bomb belt at a socialist youth rally in Suruç, Turkey, just ten miles from the border with Syria. Some three hundred members of the Federation of Socialist Youth Associates were on a summer […]

Children

Wars targeting Children: 20 mn Homeless, 300K Conscripted & now Mass Abductions by ISIL

contributors

By Beatriz Ciordia | (Inter Press Service) | – – UNITED NATIONS (IPS) – Whether in Palestine, Ukraine or Somalia, wars result in millions of children threatened by the brutality of armed conflict. The numbers speak for themselves: more than 300,000 child soldiers are currently exploited in situations of armed conflict and six million children […]

Featured

The Great Wall of Turkey? Ankara imagines DMZ w/ Kurds, ISIL

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – So I am going to tell you a story about Turkey, Syria and the United States. It may or may not be true. Its details may or may not have happened, though there is reason to think they did. It is a story. The point is […]

Featured

Pres. Erdogan sees Syrian Kurds’ advance against ISIL as “danger” to Turkey

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The leftist Kurdish Protection Forces (YPG) and their Arab allies, the Euphrates Volcano, continued their assault on Sunday on Daesh (ISIS, ISIL) positions in northern Raqqa Province in Syria, taking the village of Salouk on the outskirts of Tel Abyad. Tel Abyad lies on the border […]

Democracy

Turkey: How Pres. Erdogan damaged the AKP Brand

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The Justice and Development Party (AKP) decisively lost its majority on Sunday, falling to only about 40 percent of the vote. The other sixty percent were for the most party divided between the old secular Kemalist party, the Republican People’s Party; a Turkish nationalist-chauvinist party; and […]

Democracy

A Turkish Syriza? A radical democratic party and the new politics of the Mideast

contributors

By Omer Tekdemir | ( Your Middle East) Dr Omer Tekdemir analyzes a radical force in Turkish politics, which strives to protect democracy and represent all identities in society. Turkey’s forthcoming election (07 June 2015) carries huge expectations for the HDP (People’s Democracy Party) and its new radical politics that targets a wider, more colorful […]