Turkey

Turkey’s Republican People’s Party (CHP) on Sunday officially nominated Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu as their candidate for the next presidential election.

The Turkish government on Thursday announced 37 people were arrested for “provocative” social media posts related to Wednesday’s arrest of Ekrem Imamoglu, the mayor of Istanbul and chief political rival to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Ekrem Imamoglu, the mayor of Istanbul and chief rival for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the 2028 election, was arrested on Wednesday in a move denounced by opposition leaders as a “coup against the next president.”

Turkish Trade Minister Omer Bolat said on Thursday that his country looks forward to supporting reconstruction in Ukraine with investments and a free trade agreement.

Jihadist terrorist Ahmed al-Sharaa, the president of Syria, signed an agreement on Monday to integrate the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) into the Syrian military – arguably his biggest success since toppling the regime of Bashar Assad in December, as the SDF is one of Syria’s most effective and professional militias.

The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a Kurdish separatist terror group that has been fighting a violent insurgency against the Turkish government since 1984, announced a unilateral ceasefire on Saturday.

Outlawed Kurdish terrorists on Saturday declared a ceasefire with Turkey following a landmark call by jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan asking the group to disband and end more than four decades of armed struggle.

Second high-level meeting between U.S. and Russia has been announced for Thursday, but State Department said Ukraine won’t be on the agenda. 

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan claimed on Monday that his country was interested in becoming a member of the anti-American BRICS coalition but never received an invite and that BRICS had suspended allowing new members at all.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan held a closed-door meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Istanbul on Friday, taking another step toward establishing Turkey as one of Ukraine’s most devoted supporters amid a public feud between Zelensky and President Donald Trump.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Tuesday said he postponed a visit to Saudi Arabia to express his disapproval of the United States and Russia beginning bilateral negotiations to end the war in Ukraine.

Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, the leader of the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) terrorist organization, said during a meeting this week with Islamist Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that he seeks cooperation with Turkey on “all political, economic and security levels” to rebuild his war-torn country.

Ahmed al-Sharaa, the former al-Qaeda boss who became the “transitional” president of Syria after ousting dictator Bashar Assad, is reportedly looking for a joint defense pact with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Turkey welcomed a delegation of high-ranking Hamas terrorists to Ankara on Wednesday to lend support to the jihadist cause.

The jihadi regime ruling Syria after overthrowing the Assad dynasty in December dispatched its foreign minister, Asaad Hassan al-Shaibani, to the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland on Tuesday to seek foreign investment for their war-torn and terrorist-haunted land.

A fire raged through a 12-story hotel at a popular ski resort in northwestern Turkey early Tuesday during a school holiday.

United Nations refugee commissioner Filippo Grandi reported on Saturday that almost 200,000 refugees have returned to Syria since Iran- and Russia-backed dictator Bashar Assad was overthrown by a jihadi insurgency in early December.

Turkey is a “key concern” for observers fearing the erasure of Christian communities of post-Assad dynasty Syria, a leading persecution expert told Breitbart News, describing Islamist President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as someone who sees “himself as a leader destined by Allah to elevate Turkey and Islam’s influence.”

An attempt was made to destroy the final working pipeline carrying Russian gas energy into Europe, Moscow claims.

Leaders in Syrian Kurdistan asked the United States this week to provide protective troops and become more involved in keeping the peace as they face an ongoing campaign by Turkish proxy forces to eradicate them.

Multiple reports from northern Syria on Thursday indicated that the U.S. military is reinforcing its presence in Syrian Kurdistan, or Rojava, potentially building a new base in the city of Kobani.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned Kurdish militias in Syria on Wednesday to either lay down their arms or be “buried.” On the same day, the Turkish military said it killed 21 Kurdish militants in northern Syria and Iraq – including members of the People’s Defense Units (YPG), the leading Syrian Kurdish force allied with the United States against the Islamic State.

Syrian Kurds find themselves in a difficult position after the fall of dictator Bashar Assad, as Islamists seize power in Damascus and Turkey seeks to carve out a slice of Syrian territory along its border.

An explosion killed 11 people and wounded 7 at an explosives factory in northwestern Turkey, prompting an investigation.

Iraqi parliamentarian Habib Al-Halawi, leader of the Al-Sadiqoon parliamentary bloc in Iraq, declared in a recent interview that his forces would kill Americans “like we killed this fly,” while invoking the deaths of key figures as a rallying cry for jihad and martyrdom.

The president of Cyprus Nikos Christodoulides told Breitbart News exclusively on Sunday that he is appointing a new “Special Representative” of his government for religious freedoms to focus on protecting Christians and other religious minorities throughout the Middle East.

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of Turkey repeated a pledge Saturday to conquer Jerusalem during a speech in Mardin, Turkey, raising eyebrows and signaling new tensions in the relationship with Israel.

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan is urging governments to rescind their terrorist designations of Syrian insurgents Hayat Tahrir al-Sham.

Western powers, including the United States, are tentatively opening lines of communication to the new rulers of Syria — an alliance of Islamists led by an al-Qaeda splinter group whose boss is, inconveniently, a designated terrorist with a $10 million U.S. bounty on his head.

President-elect Donald Trump described the collapse of the Bashar Assad regime as the culmination of years of interference by Turkey.

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a Kurdish-led militia allied with America, confirmed on Monday that a short-lived truce with Islamist Turkish proxies in the country had collapsed due to Turkey’s intransigence.

Turkish Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya claimed on Sunday that 7,621 Syrian refugees “returned voluntarily” from Turkey between December 9-13.

A senior official within the Palestinian terrorist organization Hamas admitted to a Saudi media outlet that the October 7 terror attack caused the destruction of the organization because of the ferocity of Israel’s response.

Selcuk Bayraktar, chief technology officer of Turkey’s drone powerhouse Baykar, said on Thursday that Turkish companies now control 65 percent of the worldwide market for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV).

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a Kurdish-led militia in northern Syria that played an instrumental role in toppling the Islamic State “caliphate,” said on Thursday that it was preparing to send a delegation to the Sunni jihadis of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the group currently in charge of the country.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken made a brief visit to Turkey on Friday to meet with Islamist strongman Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his counterpart Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, intended to discuss the collapse of the Assad dynasty in Syria and the ongoing war between Israel and the genocidal jihadists of Hamas.