Turkey - Page 68

Contents: Syrian regime drops chlorine-laded barrel bomb on Aleppo market; From 2013: The history of how Syria’s Bashar al-Assad created ISIS

In the combined efforts of six separate rescue operations Monday, Italian Navy patrollers rescued some 500 migrants off the coast of Libya, as well as recovering eight lifeless bodies.

Contents: Turkey sends more tanks into Syria in ‘New Phase’ of military action; Syrian rebels capture 14 villages near Hama in four days; Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian army once again close to collapse

Turkey on Saturday sent more tanks into the northern Syrian village of al-Rai to fight Islamic State extremists, opening a new front after its intervention last month against the group, state media reported.

BERLIN (AFP) – Germany’s foreign minister said Friday that a parliamentary vote on Turkey’s World War I-era massacre of Armenians was non-binding, as media reported Berlin is seeking to heal a bitter spat with the NATO partner.

Turkey, which patched up strained ties with Israel and Russia, aims to normalize relations with Egypt and even rebuild ties in future with Syria, where it has launched a cross-border offensive, the prime minister said on Friday.

The leaders of Germany, France and Italy will discuss the migrant crisis with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan on the sidelines of a meeting of the G20 countries in China next week, Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Thursday.

The co-leader of the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), which controls large swathes of northern Syria, has solicited help from the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Iraq.

The international left is condemning remarks by Turkish Parliamentary Speaker İsmail Kahraman, who accurately described Irish-Argentine communist Ernesto “Che” Guevara as a “killer” no one should admire.

The US Department of State travel warning to Turkey, reissued Tuesday, relies on concrete evidence of imminent large-scale terror attacks to be carried out by Kurdish as well as Islamic militants, an Arab intelligence official told Breitbart Jerusalem.

As the Turkish military continues to strike U.S.-allied Syrian Kurdish targets near the Euphrates River, the White House has confirmed that President Barack Obama will discuss the situation with Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the Group of 20 summit in China next week.

Intensifying clashes in northern Syria between Turkey-backed Free Syrian Army (FSA) rebels, who have received military assistance from America, and the U.S.-allied Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), are a testament to the quagmire of perpetual chaos the Obama administration has worked itself into in the Middle East.

Fighting has erupted in northern Syria between two US allies on opposing sides of a Turkish military offensive — the now Turkey-backed Free Syrian Army (FSA) and the U.S.-allied Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), led by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG).

BERLIN (Reuters) – Germany’s European Commissioner told the Bild newspaper on Tuesday that Turkey would probably not join the European Union while Tayyip Erdogan was president. Turkey began talks about joining the European Union in 2005 but has made little

The Turkish military has begun directly targeting Kurdish Peoples’ Protection Units (YPG) in Syria as part of Operation Euphrates Shield, initially billed as an assault on the Islamic State.

Contents: Turkey’s invasion of Syria continues, bombing Kurdish targets; America may be forced to choose between Turkey and Kurds

Beirut, Lebanon – Turkish shelling and airstrikes killed at least 40 Syrians on Sunday, a monitor said, in the first significant civilian casualties in Turkey’s intensifying campaign in northern Syria.

Contents: Hungary may build a second ‘massive’ fence to block migrants from Serbia; Greece makes contingency plans for 180,000 more migrants; Increasing anger in Turkey threatens the EU-Turkey migrant deal

KARKAMIS, Turkey – Rebels supported by Turkey fought Kurdish-backed forces in north Syria on Saturday, as Ankara ratcheted up its cross-border offensive by saying it had launched air strikes against both Kurdish forces and ISIS. Turkey’s government, which is fighting

Contents: Turkey’s PM declares ‘all-out war’ after new PKK truck bomb attack; After 50 days of violence, unrest in India-controlled Kashmir is unabated

Turkish court on Saturday placed under arrest three former top diplomats, including an advisor to ex-president Abdullah Gul, over links to the failed July 15 coup, state media said.

The Turkish government has confirmed to Foreign Policy that its extradition request for Islamic cleric Fethullah Gulen to the United States did not contain any evidence linking Gulen to the failed coup attempt on July 15.

Turkey has been shelling the United States’s most effective allies in Syria, the Kurdish YPG, and demanding they withdraw east of the Euphrates or face even stronger actions — a threat backed up by Turkish tanks rolling across the Syrian border, to the consternation of Damascus.

Earlier this week, Turkey made a highly publicized demand for the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG and YPJ) to retreat east of the Euphrates after successfully conquering territory from the Islamic State. The YPG agreed, but Turkish troops shelled YPG locations on Friday anyway.

Contents: Turkey’s ‘Operation Euphrates Shield’ turns into full-scale invasion of Syria; US turns on Syrian Kurds as they’re attacked by Turkey; Debka: Israel in military action against ISIS in Egypt’s Sinai

(REUTERS) – A suicide truck bombing at a police headquarters in Turkey’s largely Kurdish southeast killed at least 11 and wounded dozens on Friday, two days after Turkey launched an incursion against Islamic State and Kurdish militia fighters in Syria.

American officials have confirmed that Syrian Kurdish troops have agreed to stay east of Iraq’s Euphrates River, a demand imposed by the Turkish government. The Turks’ public concerns over Syrian Kurdish expansion come as the president of Iraqi Kurdistan, Masoud Barzani, visits Ankara to reaffirm his solidarity with Erdogan.

LOS ANGELES, California — Former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton declared Sunday that the Iranian nuclear deal is the “worst act of appeasement in American history.” Bolton was speaking at the Luxe Hotel on Sunday for the American Freedom Alliance’s conference, titled “Islam and Western Civilization: Can They Coexist?”

Contents: US VP Biden snubbed by Turkey’s angry president Erdogan; North Korea lays land mines to prevent soldiers from defecting; UN Security Council has emergency meeting on North Korea missile tests

Turkey’s demand for the extradition of cleric Fethullah Gulen, which it has denounced as the terrorist mastermind behind July’s thwarted coup attempt, is generating considerable tension with the U.S. government.

TEL AVIV – Israeli warplanes targeted positions of the Iran-backed Hezbollah Shiite militia along the Syria-Lebanon border on Wednesday, reported the Times of Israel, citing Arab media quoted in Hebrew news sites.

JAFFA, Israel – Iran is actively trying to bring Turkey and Syria closer together, according to a report in the international Saudi publication Asharq Al-Awsat, headquartered in London.

Turkey’s operation “Euphrates Shield,” intended to curb the expansion of both the Islamic State and Kurdish militias in Syria, follows rumors spread by Russian officials that Turkey offered them the use of its Incirlik Airbase, also home to U.S. military assets.

Contents: Kurds, Assad forces, US and ISIS converge in Hasaka, alarming Turkey; Turkey launches rebel army to fight both ISIS and Kurds in Syria

The Syrian government condemned Wednesday’s Turkish incursion into the Islamic State group-held border district of Jarabulus as a “flagrant violation” of its sovereignty.

VIENNA (Reuters) – EU Enlargement Commissioner Johannes Hahn has called on Turkey to address the “open question” of whether it was willing to meet the criteria to join the European Union since the uncertainty was straining its relations with the bloc.