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Erdogan: Turkish troops in Iraq on PM Abadi’s request

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Turkish president tells Al Jazeera troops have been in northern Iraq since 2014, blames Iraq and Iran of sectarianism.

Turkey says its troops are in Iraq to train Iraqi forces, but Baghdad calls the deployment "an invasion".

Turkey says its troops are in Iraq to train Iraqi forces, but Baghdad calls the deployment “an invasion”.

by Al Jazeera

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said that Turkish troops are in Iraq at the request of Haider al-Abadi, Iraqi prime minister, since 2014.

The arrival of a heavily armed Turkish contingent near the front line close to Mosul has added yet another controversial deployment to a war against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group that has drawn in most of the world’s major powers.

“Turkish soldiers are in Basheeqa camp at the request of Haider al-Abadi in 2014. Now I am asking why he was silent since 2014,” Erdogan said in an interview with Al Jazeera on Wednesday.

Turkey says its troops are in Iraq to train Iraqi forces as Baghdad calls the deployment “an invasion”.

Iraq asked NATO on Tuesday to put pressure on alliance member Turkey to withdraw its troops immediately from northern Iraq after Ankara said it would not deploy any more but refused to pull out those already there.

In the Al Jazeera interview, Erdogan also said that Iraq and Iran’s governments pursue sectarian policies both in Syria and Iraq.

“What will happen to Sunnis? There are Sunni Arabs, Sunni Turkmen and Sunni Kurds? What will happen to their security? They need sense of security,” Erdogan said, criticising the Shia-dominated Iraqi government.

“For a long time mainly due to the regional governance in northern Iraq, people lost their rights.

“They need their rights back. A lot of Arabs in the region have lost their rights. Unfortunately we cannot see fair governance in Iraq. That’s why people there are so worried,” he said.

Erdogan challenges Putin to prove ISIL oil claim

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Turkish president ready to quit if Russian leader can provide evidence Turkey downed warplane to protect oil supplies.

erdogan

by Al Jazeera

Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s president, has said he would be ready to quit office if allegations by his Russian counterpart that Turkey traded oil with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group were proved.

Erdogan’s comments on Monday came after Vladimir Putin accused Turkey of shooting down the Russian Su-24 warplane last week to protect supplies of oil from ISIL to Turkey.

Turkey has already rejected the accusation.

“I will say something very strong here,” Erdogan was quoted as saying by the state-run Anadolu news agency on the sidelines of the UN climate talks near Paris, which Putin is also attending.

“If such a thing is proven, the nobility of our nation would require that I would not stay in office.”

Challenging Putin, who has refused to meet Erdogan after the November 24 incident in Yamadi, in Syria’s Latakia province, Erdogan said: “And I tell Mr Putin: Would you stay in that office? I say this clearly.”

In the interview, Erdogan said: “Let’s remain patient and let’s not act emotionally.”

He maintained that Turkey obtained all its oil and gas imports “through the legal path”.

“We are not dishonest so as to do this kind of exchange with terrorist groups,” he said.

“Everyone needs to know this.”

After the Su-24  was downed by Turkish F-16 fighter jets for alleged violation of Turkish airspace, Putin accused the Turks of being “accomplices of terrorists” and said oil from ISIL territory was being exported through Turkey.

Turkey’s president warns Russia not to ‘play with fire’

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Erdogan condemns reports that Turkish businessmen were detained in Russia as animosity between Cold War rivals grows.

erdogan

by Al Jazeera

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has warned Russia not to “play with fire” after reports emerged that Turkish businessmen had been detained in Russia.

Moscow said it would suspend visa-free travel with Turkey, and its tourism agency head announced on Friday it will ask more than 9,000 Russians currently in Turkey to return home by the end of December.

Relations between the former Cold War antagonists are at their lowest in recent memory after Turkey shot down a Russian fighter jet near the Syrian border on Tuesday. The pilot was machine-gunned dead by rebels on the ground in Syria as he parachuted down.

Russia has threatened economic retaliation – a response Erdogan has dismissed as emotional and indecorous.

“It is playing with fire to go as far as mistreating our citizens who have gone to Russia,” Erdogan told supporters during a speech in Bayburt in northeast Turkey on Friday.

“We really attach a lot of importance to our relations with Russia … We don’t want these relations to suffer harm in any way.”

Erdogan said he wants to speak with Russian President Vladimir Putin at a climate summit in Paris that starts on Monday. Putin has so far refused to talk to Erdogan because Ankara has not yet apologised for the downing of the jet, a Putin aide said.

Erdogan has said Turkey deserves the apology because its airspace was violated.

The nearly five-year-old Syrian civil war has been complicated by Russian air strikes in defence of President Bashar al-Assad. Turkey and regional powers have accused Russia of targeting moderate armed groups fighting Assad.

The frayed relations could also impact two major planned projects – a TurkStream gas pipeline and the Akkuyu nuclear power plant – between the two countries.

Turkey and Russia have also sparred over the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant  (ISIL) group, with each side accusing the other of being soft on “terrorism”.

Erdogan in China amid tension over treatment of Uighurs

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Turkey president to meet Chinese counterpart in bid to improve souring ties over Beijing’s treatment of Uighur minority.

NATO countries are concerned over Turkey's move to secure an air defence system deal with China [Getty Images]

NATO countries are concerned over Turkey’s move to secure an air defence system deal with China [Getty Images]

by Al Jazeera

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has arrived in Beijing to hold talks with his Chinese counterpart and other senior officials amid increased tensions between the two countries over China’s treatment of its Muslim Uighur minority.

Erdogan, who is due to meet Xi Jinping later on Wednesday, has repeatedly accused China of systematic oppression against the Uighurs, who share close linguistic, cultural and religious ties with Turks.

The president has previously accused Beijing of “genocide” in the region, and the gap between Chinese and Turkish views of the Uighurs are likely to complicate the upcoming discussions on improving relations.

The two sides engaged in a row this year over Uighurs who fled China to seek refuge in Thailand, with Turkey offering them shelter against Beijing’s wishes.

Bangkok said this month that it had deported about 100 Uighurs back to China, after sending more than 170 Uighur women and children to Turkey in late June.

China’s state-run China Daily said in a Wednesday editorial that the “Uighur issue … if left unattended, may poison ties and derail cooperation”.

The newspaper suggested that Beijing would pressure Erdogan to stop Turkish officials issuing Uighurs who “illicitly left China” with travel documents.

As tensions over the refugees mounted this month, activists stormed the Thai consulate in Istanbul and burned the Chinese flag outside Beijing’s consulate in the city. China “strongly condemned” the acts.

Missile deal

Turkey entered discussions in 2013 with a Chinese state-run company over an anti-missile system contract worth $3.4bn, raising eyebrows among other NATO members.

A final deal has been elusive, with Erdogan noting “impediments” have emerged after an initial Chinese proposal, but he said the issue will be on the agenda in Beijing.

“Any offer that will enrich this appropriate proposal will be welcomed by us,” he told China’s official news agency Xinhua in an interview published on Tuesday.

“I believe this visit will give more momentum to bilateral relations.”

Boosting Turkish exports to China is also likely to be high on Erdogan’s agenda, with Ankara running a large trade deficit with the world’s second-largest economy, according to official Chinese statistics.

 

Ruling party loses majority in Turkey elections

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Preliminary results suggest AK party won polls, but lost simple majority in parliament due to pro-Kurdish party gains.

HDP supporters has started celebrating the election results in predominantly Kurdish southeastern Turkey [Reuters]

HDP supporters has started celebrating the election results in predominantly Kurdish southeastern Turkey [Reuters]

by Umut Uras, Al Jazeera

The ruling Justice and Development Party (AK party) has won Turkey’s parliamentary polls, but lost its single-party government, according to the preliminary results.

The country’s pro-Kurdish left-wing Peoples’ Democracy Party (HDP) crossed the country’s unusually high 10 percent electoral threshold that affected the distribution of seats and, consequently, the power of the ruling party.

Official results based on 99.9 percent of votes counted gave the AK party 41 percent of Sunday’s votes, while the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) scored 25 percent.

The Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) secured 16.5 percent of the votes, while the HDP won 13 percent.

About 54 million citizens were eligible to vote in the polls, with 86 percent of attendance rate, according to Turkey’s semi-official Anatolia news agency.

According to the official projections, the AK party is set to secure 258 MPs, below the 276 seats necessary to form a single-party government in the 550-seat parliament. The CHP, MHP and HDP are projected to secure 132, 81 and 79 seats respectively.

‘Our march will continue’  

The AK party, which currently has 311 seats in parliament, has ruled the country with a single-majority government for the last 13 years.

“Our nation’s decision is final. Respecting this is a responsibility for all political parties,” Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said in a public address from AK party headquarters in Ankara.

“For long marches, 13 years is a short time. There is much more to do. Our blessed march is to continue… We will evaluate the messages to get from the polls and we will continue walking in our way with further determination,” he said.

“Turkey’s democracy proved itself. The ones who tried to stain our democracy are ashamed now.”

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Davutoglu had campaigned to write a new constitution to bolster the powers of the country’s presidential office. The AK party needed at least 330 seats to unilaterally initiate such a change and take it to a referendum. All the other three main parties are against a presidential system.

The HDP, which was contesting the elections on a liberal platform, was seeking to cross the country’s electoral threshold to make its way to the parliament. The party had independent candidates in the last two polls that significantly decreased the number of the MPs it won through Turkey’s electoral system.

“The ones who are authoritarian and arrogant lost, and the ones who are in love with the liberty and peace in Turkey won in the polls,” Selahattin Demirtas, the co-chairperson of the HDP, said in a televised statement.

“We, the oppressed of Turkey, have beaten a government who used all the state’s facilities against us, to attack us… This is the victory of the oppressed and alienated in Turkey,” he added.

Both HDP and CHP officials said that the debate for a presidential system ended in Turkey.

Haluk Koc, the CHP spokesman, said that the AK party became increasingly authoritarian throughout its 13-year government.

“The country has avoided a one-person dictatorship and a civilian coup,” he said, adding that his party was the key party to form the new government.

‘Voters punished AK party’

Garo Paylan, an HDP candidate from Istanbul who is likely to make his way to the parliament, told Al Jazeera that Turkish voters punished the AK party’s divisive rhetoric.

“The results show that the citizens of Turkey have expressed their support for the HDP’s language that has been calling for all the citizens of Turkey to live together in harmony,” Paylan said.

“We want all political parties in Turkey to see this picture and make their contributions to form a new culture for all citizens of this country to live harmoniously together. We will work in the parliament for a new constitution for all people to respectfully live together,” he told Al Jazeera.

Thousands of Kurds in the country’s predominantly Kurdish southeastern Turkey celebrated the unofficial results, setting off fireworks and waving HDP flags.

The political atmosphere was tense in the region before the polls, with bombings targeting HDP buildings and rallies.

“The election results are a big success for the HDP as it has moved from a Kurdish-oriented party to a party that addresses the whole Turkey. It got votes from liberal voters who previously voted for the AK party and CHP and who wanted to block Erdogan and AK party this time,” Deniz Ulke Aribogan, a professor of political science from Istanbul Bilgi University, told Al Jazeera.

“The results show that Turkish citizens want Erdogan to act in line with his position as a neutral president. They don’t want to see him rallying as if he is the leader of the AK party.”

Erdogan to New York Times: “Who are you? Know your place”

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Protesters are confronted by police during a demonstration at Kizilay square in central Ankara June 16 | Photo: Reuters

Protesters are confronted by police during a demonstration at Kizilay square in central Ankara June 16 | Photo: Reuters

by teleSUR

Erodgan said New York Times would face dire consequences if it criticizes the US administration in the same way it does with Turkey.

Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan slammed the New York Times newspaper on Monday for publishing an editorial on May 22 accusing the president of attacking the media in the country.

“As a newspaper, you [the New York Times] should know your place,” he said in a televised speech in Istanbul. “You are meddling in Turkey’s affairs by writing something like this. By publishing this editorial, you are overstepping the limits of freedom,” he added.

In its editorial, the New York Times claimed that Erdogan had a long history of intimidating and co-opting the Turkish media. “Erdogan appears increasingly hostile to truth-telling. The United States and Turkey’s other NATO allies should be urging him to turn away from this destructive path,” the editorial read.

“Who are you? Can you write such a thing [writing a critical editorial] against the U.S. administration? If you do, [the administration] would immediately do what is necessary,” Erdogan said during a panel organized by a think-tank in Istanbul.

Moreover, this is not the first time that Erdogan has clashed with the New York Times. In September, the Turkish president also criticized the U.S. daily for running a story claiming that Turkey is one of the biggest sources of recruits for the Islamic State group.

Erdogan won't restore Egyptian ties 'until Morsi freed'

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Turkey’s ties with Egypt strained since Abdel Fattah el-Sisi toppled Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi in 2013.

"Mr Morsi is a president elected by 52 percent of the votes. They should give him his freedom," said the Turkish president.

“Mr Morsi is a president elected by 52 percent of the votes. They should give him his freedom,” said the Turkish president.

by Al Jazeera

Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish president, says Egypt should free ousted president Mohamed Morsi from prison and lift death sentences against his supporters before Ankara could consider an improvement in relations with Cairo.

Ties between the two former allies have been strained since then Egyptian army chief Abdel Fattah el-Sisi toppled elected president Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood in 2013 after mass protests against his rule.

Egyptian security forces then mounted a fierce crackdown against the Brotherhood, killing hundreds of its supporters as they protested in Cairo, arresting thousands and putting Morsi and other leaders on trial.

“Mr Morsi is a president elected by 52 percent of the votes. They should give him his freedom,” Erdogan was quoted by Turkish newspapers as telling reporters as he returned from an official visit to Iran.

An official from Erdogan’s office confirmed his comments.

Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood has close ties with Turkey’s ruling AK Party, which Erdogan co-founded and which has emerged as one of the fiercest international critics of Morsi’s removal, calling it an “unacceptable coup” by the army.

Erdogan’s recent visit to Saudi Arabia, and his support of a Saudi-led military operation against Houthi rebels in Yemen in which Egyptian warships have taken part, had triggered speculation about a possible thaw in ties between Ankara and Cairo.

Erdogan won't restore Egyptian ties 'until Morsi freed'

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Turkey’s ties with Egypt strained since Abdel Fattah el-Sisi toppled Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi in 2013.

"Mr Morsi is a president elected by 52 percent of the votes. They should give him his freedom," said the Turkish president

“Mr Morsi is a president elected by 52 percent of the votes. They should give him his freedom,” said the Turkish president

by Al Jazeera

Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish president, says Egypt should free ousted president Mohamed Morsi from prison and lift death sentences against his supporters before Ankara could consider an improvement in relations with Cairo.

Ties between the two former allies have been strained since then Egyptian army chief Abdel Fattah el-Sisi toppled elected president Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood in 2013 after mass protests against his rule.

Egyptian security forces then mounted a fierce crackdown against the Brotherhood, killing hundreds of its supporters as they protested in Cairo, arresting thousands and putting Morsi and other leaders on trial.

“Mr Morsi is a president elected by 52 percent of the votes. They should give him his freedom,” Erdogan was quoted by Turkish newspapers as telling reporters as he returned from an official visit to Iran.

An official from Erdogan’s office confirmed his comments.

Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood has close ties with Turkey’s ruling AK Party, which Erdogan co-founded and which has emerged as one of the fiercest international critics of Morsi’s removal, calling it an “unacceptable coup” by the army.

Erdogan’s recent visit to Saudi Arabia, and his support of a Saudi-led military operation against Houthi rebels in Yemen in which Egyptian warships have taken part, had triggered speculation about a possible thaw in ties between Ankara and Cairo.

Erdogan chides Obama's silence on Chapel Hill killings

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Turkish leader criticises US President for his silence after the killings of three Muslim students in North Carolina.

Students with lit candles attended a vigil on the campus of the University of North Carolina after the Chapel Hill killings [Reuters]

by Al Jazeera

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has criticised US President Barack Obama for his silence after the killings of three young Muslims in North Carolina this week.

Speaking alongside Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto during a state visit to Mexico on Thursday, Erdogan said the silence of Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State John Kerry was “telling” and they should take a position following such acts.

“If you stay silent when faced with an incident like this, and don’t make a statement, the world will stay silent towards you,” Erdogan said, in the latest sign relations between him and the White House have become strained.

The three Muslims were shot dead on Tuesday near the University of North Carolina campus in an incident police said was possibly a hate crime.

Police investigation

The White House said on Wednesday it would await the results of the police investigation before commenting.

Newlywed Deah Barakat, 23, a University of North Carolina dental student, his wife Yusor Mohammad, 21, and her sister, Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha, 19, a student at North Carolina State University, were gunned down on Tuesday in a condominium about three kilometres from the UNC campus in Chapel Hill.

Police charged the couple’s neighbour, Craig Stephen Hicks, 46, with murder.

Investigators said initial findings indicated a dispute over parking prompted the shooting but they were looking into whether Hicks was motivated by hatred towards the victims because they were Muslim.

Turkey, a European Union candidate nation and member of the NATO military alliance, is a key US ally in the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

But Erdogan has become increasingly outspoken about what he sees as rising Islamophobia in the West.

Last year, Erdogan said his relations with Obama had become strained and that he no longer spoke directly with him as he was disappointed by a lack of US action over the war in neighbouring Syria.

Erdogan said he instead spoke with Biden over issues such as Iraq.

Despite working together to combat ISIL, differences have arisen between the US and Turkey over how best to tackle the rebels.

Turkey has been an opponent of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, backing rebels fighting to oust him and allowing the political opposition to organise on Turkish soil.

It long lobbied for international intervention in the war.

Turkey arrests 15 more officers over alleged coup plot

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Recep Tayyip Erdogan

by Al-Akhbar

Turkish authorities arrested police officers on Wednesday in new nationwide raids over an alleged plot to overthrow the Islamic-rooted government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The operation, which targeted 15 police officers in seven different Turkish provinces, came after an Istanbul prosecutor issued arrest warrants for 17 officers, four of whom are senior police officers.

Apart from wiretapping, the police officers have been accused of forging official documents and violating privacy of individuals.

The sweeps were the sixth such in a sequence of coordinated raids aimed at cracking down on what Erdogan has described as a “parallel state” within the security forces loyal to his former ally turned foe, the US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen.

The probe is linked to last year’s stunning corruption allegations against Erdogan and his inner circle that were based on wiretapped telephone conversations.

The Erdogan-led authorities have since sacked hundreds of police and prosecutors believed to be linked to Gulen and introducing curbs on the judiciary and the Internet.

(Anadolu, Al-Akhbar)

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