Ukraine and Turkey have jointly proposed elevating the level of defense cooperation between the two. A Ukrainian delegation recently traveled to Ankara to put plans together.
The Turkish government announced it had captured 350 migrants attempting to cross the Mediterranean Sea from the port region of Mersin to Italy or the greater EU.
The Turkey government lashed out at the Russian government after they acknowledged the 1915 massacre of Armenians as genocide.
Turkey, Armenia hold dueling WW1 centennials over genocide and Gallipoli; Turkey commemorates the 100th anniversary of Anzac day and the Battle of Gallipoli; Turkey debates its role in the Armenian genocide; The politics of genocide and rape — in Turkey and elsewhere
LOS ANGELES, California — Between 50,000 to 100,000 Armenians took to the streets of Little Armenia on the centennial anniversary of the day that marked the start of the Armenian genocide 100 years ago.
Syrian-born Mohamad Saeed Kodaimati stands accused of lying to federal officials upon return from over two years in Syria and Turkey. He claimed he had no involvement in any fighting, never fired his weapon at anyone, did not know any members of the Islamic terror group ISIL, never claimed to be involved with Al-Nusrah, and never worked in a Sharia court.
On April 24, 1915 the Ottoman Turkish leaders ordered the arrest of hundreds of notable Armenians in Istanbul and launched the systematic annihilation of Armenian as well as Assyrian Christians within the empire’s borders and throughout the Middle East. This day would become known as “Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day,” and a century later is the center of a persistent geopolitical controversy.
The hundredth anniversary of the Armenian genocide caused many world leaders to blink, notably President Barack Obama, who abandoned his old campaign promises–and fiery criticism of the Bush administration–by refusing to acknowledge it. Much of this moral cowardice emanates from Western politicians who wish to curry favor with the Turkish government. The Turks have been trying to erase the genocide from history, shortly after they gave up trying to erase the Armenians from history.
This week the world is marking the gruesome 100th anniversary of events that took lives of some 1.5 million of Turkey’s Armenians. The Ottoman Empire was falling apart, fighting as one of the Axis powers in WW1, fearful of its Christian minorities and their possibly joining the Allied effort led by Czarist Russia to liberate them.
As if on safari, the hunters proudly display their dead prey. But the circa 1915 photograph depicts an undeniable horror. The hunters flank a dozen or so human bodies, laid out upon a dirt mound. The distinctive hunters’ uniforms identify them as Turkish soldiers of the Ottoman Empire; their victims are Armenian Christians.
LOS ANGELES, California — Friday will mark the centennial of the start of the Armenian genocide, in which nearly 1.5 million Armenians were massacred at the hands of the Turkish Ottoman Empire. A host of businesses will be closing in the area in observance of the anniversary. A march through Los Angeles has also been planned.
On the eve of the commemoration of the 1915 Armenian genocide by the Ottoman Empire, a Turkish professor is suggesting that Turkish forces had nothing to do with the slaughter of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians, and that the Armenians disguised themselves as Turks to kill their own people.
On April 24, 1915 the Turkish genocide of Assyrians, Greeks and Armenians began very simply, without pomp and circumstance. “We have made a clean sweep of the Armenians and Assyrians of Azerbaijan.” Those were the words of Djevdet Bey, the governor of Van Province in Ottoman Turkey, who on April 24, 1915 lead 20,000 Turkish soldiers and 10,000 Kurdish irregulars in the opening act of the genocide of Assyrians, Armenians and Pontic Greeks. In three short years, 750,000 Assyrians (75%) would be killed, 1.5 million Armenians and 500,000 Greeks.
Palestinian factions ‘unity’ talks in crisis, near collapse; ISIS and Yemen force yet another realignment of the Mideast
Hurriyet Daily News has an odd little story from the Uskudar district of Istanbul, where the mayor has constructed a miniature replica of Mecca, Islam’s holy city. It is essentially a theme park of Mohammed’s life and times, with replicas of “the Kaaba, Prophet Mohammad’s house, the Hira cave, the Sevr cave, the Muallaq Stone, the Zamzam well and an elephant statue.”
President Obama will once again avoid using the word “genocide” at a ceremony to designed to memorialize more than a million Armenians murdered by the Ottaman Turks 100 years ago. During his 2008 campaign, then-Senator Obama repeatedly promised he would label the massacre a genocide as president.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, on a visit to a Muslim center in Maryland, claimed that President Barack Obama had agreed to the construction of a Turkish-funded mosque in the state, and may even attend the opening himself. The White House has denied that any such opening is on the President’s schedule.
The Christian population of Turkey is evaporating rapidly. The nation, a NATO member since 1952, has experienced a reduction in its Christian population from 20% 100 years ago to only 0.2% today. The latest blow in the community occurred at the Hagia Sophia during Easter holy week.
Temel Kotil, the CEO of Turkish Airlines, made headlines this week by recommending marriage as the best way to avoid future murder-suicide plane crashes, like the one co-pilot Andreas Lubitz carried out aboard a Germanwings airliner.
Russia’s Chechnya becomes biggest contributor of jihadists to ISIS; Chechen youth from Georgia’s Pansiki Gorge joining ISIS in droves
The Armenian genocide is a very sensitive subject with Turkey, as it prefers to think of that horrendous century-old bloodbath as a military clash with the Ottoman Empire, which the Armenians lost very badly–badly enough to kill about 1.5 million of the 2 million Christian Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire at the time, to be specific.
A senior advisor to the Prime Minister of Turkey was declared “retired” today after having called the death of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians at the hands of Ottoman Turks in 1915 a “genocide” and praising Pope Francis for condemning those who deny the genocide took place.
A mysterious gun attack at the headquarters of the Ayışığı (Moonlight) Association in Turkey has left two dead, with law enforcement and local sources claiming the violence is a result of tensions between the Ayışığı group, accused of terrorist recruiting, and a local drug cartel whose members claim the group attacked for selling drugs to minors.
Access to the Vatican website, www.vatican.va, was blocked twice in the space of 24 hours this week following Pope Francis’s comments Sunday regarding the Armenian genocide.
Turkish authorities broke ground on Tuesday on the Akkuyu nuclear power plant, a project spearheaded by Russian developers that the Turkish government claims is indispensable to the nation’s energy independence.
