Tag Archives: Turkey

U.S. forces to monitor situation along Syria-Turkey border: YPG commander

A member of U.S forces rides on a military vehicle in the town of Darbasiya next to the Turkish border, Syria April 28, 2017. REUTERS/Rodi Said

DARBASIYA, Syria (Reuters) – A commander of the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia said on Friday U.S. forces would begin monitoring the situation along the Syria-Turkey frontier after cross-border fire between the Turkish military and YPG this week.

The monitoring had not yet begun, but the forces would report to senior U.S. commanders, Sharvan Kobani told Reuters after meeting U.S. military officials in the town of Darbasiya next to the Turkish border.

The officials had toured Darbasiya which was hit by Turkish artillery fire earlier in the week.

Turkish warplanes carried out air strikes against Kurdish militants in northeastern Syria and Iraq’s Sinjar region on Tuesday in an unprecedented bombardment of groups linked to the PKK, which is fighting an insurgency against Ankara in Turkey’s southeast.

Those attacks killed nearly 30 YPG fighters and officials, a monitoring group reported.

Since Tuesday the YPG and Turkish forces have traded artillery fire along the Syria-Turkey border.

Turkey’s bombardment of YPG positions complicates the U.S.-backed fight against Islamic State in Syria, where the YPG has been a crucial partner on the ground for Washington.

The YPG is a key component of the Syria Democratic Forces (SDF), a U.S.-backed alliance of Arab and Kurdish fighting groups involved in a campaign to drive Islamic State out of its Syria stronghold, Raqqa.

U.S. NATO ally Turkey views the YPG and other PKK-affiliated groups as terrorists.

Pentagon spokesman Captain Jeff Davis said on Friday U.S. troops were deployed along the border.

“We continue to urge all the parties involved to focus on the common enemy which is ISIS (Islamic State),” he told reporters.

Hundreds of U.S. troops are deployed on the ground in Syria to support the Raqqa offensive.

(Reporting by Rodi Said; additional reporting by Idrees Ali in Washington; Writing by John Davison; Editing by Ralph Boulton)

Turkish opposition lawmaker appeals to European court over referendum

Supporters of Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan wave national flags as they wait for his arrival at the Presidential Palace in Ankara, Turkey, April 17, 2017. REUTERS/Umit Bektas

ANKARA (Reuters) – A lawmaker from Turkey’s main opposition CHP said on Friday he had submitted an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights demanding the annulment of a referendum that granted President Tayyip Erdogan sweeping executive powers.

Musa Cam, a lawmaker for the Republican People’s Party (CHP)from the coastal city of Izmir, told Reuters he submitted an individual appeal independently from the one the party is expected to make to the European Court.

In his application, seen by Reuters, Cam said the decision by Turkey’s High Electoral Board (YSK) to allow unstamped ballots in the referendum had caused the outcome to be “illegitimate and not representative of the people’s will”.

Final results released by the YSK on Thursday showed 51.4 percent support for the “Yes” vote to approve the biggest changes to Turkey’s political system in its modern history.

The results, which matched the preliminary figures released in the hours after polling closed on April 16, were released despite calls by the CHP to delay a final announcement while they appealed the vote. The YSK and a Turkish court, the council of state, have rejected or declined to hear the CHP appeals.

Erdogan and the “Yes” camp have said appeals were an attempt to undermine the results of the vote, adding only the YSK had jurisdiction on the matter.

The package of 18 amendments passed in the referendum gives the president the authority to draft the budget, declare a state of emergency and issue decrees overseeing ministries without parliamentary approval.

With the changes, Erdogan will also immediately be eligible to resume membership of a political party.

Erdogan told Reuters on Tuesday that he would rejoin Turkey’s ruling AK Party once the full results came out, and a senior official said he would be named as a candidate to lead it at an extraordinary congress on May 21.

(This version of the article corrects surname of lawmaker)

(Reporting by Gulsen Solaker and Tuvan Gumrukcu)

EU Ankara negotiator calls for suspension of Turkey accession talks

European Union (L) and Turkish flags fly outside a hotel in Istanbul, Turkey May 4, 2016. REUTERS/Murad Sezer/File Photo

By Gabriela Baczynska

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The European Union should formally suspend Turkey’s long-stalled talks on membership if it adopts constitutional changes backed at a referendum last week, a leading member of the EU parliament responsible for dealings with Ankara said on Wednesday.

Kati Piri said ahead of a plenary debate on the matter that if President Tayyip Erdogan implemented his new charter, giving him even more powers, Turkey would close the door on membership.

Erdogan said on Tuesday that Turkey would not wait forever to join the bloc, just a day after the EU executive’s top official for membership talks asked Europe’s foreign ministers to consider other types of ties with Turkey when they meet on Friday.

Ties between EU states and their NATO ally Turkey soured in the aftermath of a failed coup last July as the bloc was taken aback by Erdogan’s sweeping security crackdown that followed.

Austria has long called for aborting Turkey’s EU bid altogether but other EU states have been more cautious, highlighting that the bloc depends on Ankara to keep a lid on the flow of refugees from the Middle East.

Erdogan’s accusations around this month’s constitutional vote that Germany and the Netherlands act like Nazis have taken the relationship to new lows.

Piri, a Dutch center-left European lawmaker, said, “As Turkey with such a constitution cannot become a member of the EU, it also doesn’t make sense to continue the discussion on integration with the current government,”

“The EU should officially suspend the accession talks if the constitutional changes are implemented unchanged,” she told reporters, after the legislature last year passed a non-binding resolution calling for such a move.

Piri said any suspension should only come if and when the “authoritarian constitution” is enacted, which would happen after Turkey holds the next election, now due in late 2019.

She said Erdogan could bring them forward to swiftly assume more powers, though the Turkish leader said that was not on the agenda now.

Piri stressed, however, the process should be suspended rather than ended altogether: “I don’t want to take that perspective away from the Turkish population.”

“Turkey should remain a candidate country but we’re negotiating with the government. It’s become clear over the last two years that this government doesn’t want to meet criteria.”

She said she expected the EU’s foreign ministers this Friday would ask the bloc’s executive for a formal assessment of where Turkey stands on fulfilling these. Based on that, EU leaders could make further decisions when they next meet in June.

One tangible effect of suspending the process would be freezing the annual payments of some 600 million euros ($650 million) of EU pre-accession funds to Turkey.

Like Hahn, Piri said Brussels could instead step up talks on enhancing the customs union which Turkey already has with the EU, a process she said could take the next two to three years.

“Clear political benchmarks” on the rule of law and human rights should be part of the process, she said, hoping it would give Europeans leverage to persuade Turkey to reverse policies which the bloc says are undermining democracy there.

Piri said, however, that while the process could be launched, it cannot be finalised without a deal in separate talks on reuniting Cyprus, an island long split between an EU state backed by Greece, and their rivals supported by Ankara.

(Editing by Louise Ireland)

Turkish warplanes kill six Kurdish militants in northern Iraq: army

A U.S. military commander (R) walks with a commander (C) from the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) as they inspect the damage at YPG headquarters after it was hit by Turkish airstrikes in Mount Karachok near Malikiya, Syria. REUTERS/ Rodi Said

ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkish warplanes hit Kurdish militant targets in northern Iraq on Wednesday and killed six militants, the military said, in a second day of cross-border raids.

A military statement said the air strikes targeted the Zap region, the Turkish name for a river which flows across the Turkish-Iraqi border and is known as Zab in Iraq.

The air strikes hit “two hiding places and one shelter, and killed six separatist terrorist organisation militants who were understood to be preparing an attack,” the statement said.

The raids were part of a widening campaign against the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) which has also hit other Kurdish fighters inside Iraq – apparently by accident.

On Tuesday, Turkish planes bombed Kurdish targets in Iraq’s Sinjar region and northeast Syria, killing about 70 militants inside the two neighbouring states, according to a Turkish military statement.

The United States expressed “deep concern” over those air strikes and said they were not authorized by the U.S.-led coalition fighting Islamic State.

Five members of the Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga forces, which are also deployed in Sinjar, were killed. Kurdish authorities who run their own autonomous region in north Iraq enjoy good relation with Turkey and, like Ankara, oppose the presence of a PKK affiliate in Sinjar.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday told Reuters that he would not allow Sinjar to become a PKK base, adding that Ankara informed its partners including the United States, Russia and Iraqi Kurdish authorities ahead of the operation.

On Wednesday, Turkish foreign ministry spokesman Huseyin Muftuoglu said the parties were informed through both military and diplomatic channels.

Turkey had passed on information to the United States and Russian military attaches in Ankara, Muftuoglu said, and Turkish army chief Hulusi Akar also held a telephone conversation with his U.S. and Russian counterparts.

The Combined Air Operations Center in Qatar, responsible for providing command and air control in regions including Iraq and Syria, was also informed in advance, Muftuoglu said.

Designated a terrorist group by Turkey, the United States and the European Union, the PKK has waged a three-decade insurgency against the Turkish state for Kurdish autonomy. More than 40,000 people have been killed in the conflict, most of them Kurds.

The army also reported on Wednesday cross-border mortar fire from two areas inside Syria — one believed to be under the control of Syrian government forces and the other by Kurdish YPG militants. It said there were no casualties, and it retaliated.

(Reporting by Ece Toksabay and Tuvan Gumrukcu in Ankara and Humeyra Pamuk in Istanbul; Editing by Dominic Evans and Angus MacSwan)

Turkey says detains 1,000 ‘secret imams’ in police purge

Suspected supporters of the U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen are escorted by plainclothes police officers as they arrive at the police headquarters in Kayseri, Turkey, April 25, 2017. Olcay Duzgun/Dogan News Agency/via REUTERS

By Ece Toksabay

ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkish authorities arrested more than 1,000 people on Wednesday they said had secretly infiltrated police forces across the country on behalf of a U.S.-based cleric blamed by the government for a failed coup attempt last July.

The nationwide sweep was one of the largest operations in months against suspected supporters of the cleric, Fethullah Gulen, a former ally of President Tayyip Erdogan who is now accused by the government of trying to topple him by force.

Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said the overnight crackdown targeted a Gulen network “that infiltrated our police force, called ‘secret imams’.

“One thousand and nine secret imams have been detained so far in 72 provinces, and the operation is ongoing,” he told reporters in Ankara.

In the aftermath of the failed July coup, authorities arrested 40,000 people and sacked or suspended 120,000 from a wide range of professions including soldiers, police, teachers and public servants, over alleged links with terrorist groups.

The latest detentions came 10 days after voters narrowly backed plans to expand Erdogan’s already wide powers in a referendum which opposition parties and European election observers said was marred by irregularities.

The referendum bitterly divided Turkey. Erdogan’s critics fear further drift into authoritarianism, with a leader they see as bent on eroding modern Turkey’s democracy and secular foundations.

Erdogan argues that strengthening the presidency will avert instability associated with coalition governments, at a time when Turkey faces multiple challenges including security threats from Islamist and Kurdish militants.

“In Turkey, there was an attempted coup with a goal of toppling the government and destroying the state,” he told Reuters in an interview late on Tuesday.

“We are trying to cleanse members of FETO inside the armed forces, inside the judiciary and inside the police,” he said, using an acronym for the label, Gulenist Terrorist Organisation, which the government has given to Gulen’s supporters.

The president compared the struggle against Gulen with the state’s battle against Islamic State and Kurdish PKK militants, who are designated terrorist organizations by Turkey, the European Union and the United States.

“We are going to keep up the fight in terms of democracy, fundamental rights and liberties, but at the same time we are going to keep up the fight against PKK, FETO and other terrorist organizations such as Daesh (Islamic State),” he said. “We will continue down this path in a very committed fashion.”

Mass detentions immediately after the attempted coup were supported by many Turks, who agreed with Erdogan when he blamed Gulen for orchestrating the putsch which killed 240 people, mostly civilians. But criticism mounted as the arrests widened.

Many relatives of those detained or sacked since July say they have nothing to do with the armed attempt to overthrow the government, and are victims of a purge designed to solidify Erdogan’s control.

(Editing by Dominic Evans and Angus MacSwan)

U.S. says raised deep concerns with Turkey over air strikes

Fighters from the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) inspect the damage at their headquarters after it was hit by Turkish airstrikes in Mount Karachok near Malikiya, Syria April 25, 2017. REUTERS/ Rodi Said

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States on Tuesday expressed “deep concern” over Turkish air strikes against Kurdish fighters in Syria and Iraq and said they were not authorized by the U.S.-led coalition fighting Islamic State.

The raids in Iraq’s Sinjar region and northeast Syria killed at least 20 in a campaign against groups linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has waged a three-decade insurgency against Turkey for Kurdish autonomy.

Turkey is part of the U.S.-led military coalition fighting militants in Syria.

Ankara has strongly opposed Washington’s support for Syrian Kurdish YPG fighters who are part of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which have been closing in on the Islamic State bastion of Raqqa.

“We have expressed those concerns with the government of Turkey directly,” State Department spokesman Mark Toner told reporters on a conference call.

“These air strikes were not approved by the coalition and led to the unfortunate loss of life of our partner forces in the fight against” Islamic State, he said.

Toner said while the United States recognized Turkey’s concerns with the PKK, the cross-border raids harmed the coalition’s efforts to fight Islamic State.

“We recognize their concerns about the PKK but these kinds of actions frankly harm the coalition’s efforts to go after ISIS and frankly harm our partners on the ground who are conducting that fight,” he added.

(Reporting by Lesley Wroughton and Yeganeh Torbati; Editing by Paul Simao)

Erdogan says Turkey could reconsider its position on Europe

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan attends an interview with Reuters at the Presidential Palace in Ankara, Turkey, April 25, 2017. REUTERS/Umit Bektas

By Samia Nakhoul, Nick Tattersall and Orhan Coskun

ANKARA (Reuters) – President Tayyip Erdogan told Reuters on Tuesday that Turkey would reconsider its position on joining the European Union if it was kept waiting much longer and if the current hostile mentality of some member states persists.

Erdogan said a decision on Tuesday by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), a leading human rights body, to put Turkey on a watch list was “entirely political” and Ankara did not recognize the move.

He said he was ready to take the question of EU accession to a referendum and that Turkey could not wait indefinitely after 54 years at the door.

“In Europe, things have become very serious in terms of the extent of Islamophobia. The EU is closing its doors on Turkey and Turkey is not closing its doors on anybody,” Erdogan said in an interview at the presidential palace in Ankara.

“If they are not acting sincerely we have to find a way out. Why should we wait any longer? We are talking about 54 years,” he said.

“The UK asked her people and they voted for Brexit … They have peace of mind, they are walking towards a new future, and the same thing was conducted by Norway … and the same thing can be applied for Turkey too.”

It is a critical week for Turkish-EU relations. EU lawmakers will debate ties on Wednesday, while the bloc’s foreign ministers will discuss the issue on Friday and EU leaders are expected to exchange views at a meeting on Brexit on Saturday.

Erdogan said he would be closely watching.

“I am very curious as to how the EU is going to act vis-a-vis this last (PACE) resolution,” he said, criticizing EU member states that have called for an end to accession talks.

He said Turkey was still committed to negotiations.

“There is not a single thing that we are not ready to do, the minute they ask for it. Whatever they wish, we do. But still they are keeping us at the door,” he said.

Erdogan pointed to the French presidential election, in which far-right leader Marine Le Pen has threatened to take France out of the European Union, and said the bloc was “on the verge of dissolution, of breaking up.”

“One or two countries cannot keep the EU alive. You need a country like Turkey, a different country symbolizing a different faith, this would make them very strong,” he said.

“But the EU member states don’t seem to realize this fact. They are finding it very difficult to absorb a Muslim country like Turkey.”

(Reporting by Samia Nakhoul, Nick Tattersall and Orhan Coskun; Writing by Nick Tattersall and Tuvan Gumrukcu; Editing by David Dolan and Dominic Evans)

Turkey’s Erdogan to meet U.S. President Trump on May 16-17

FILE PHOTO: Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan speaks during a news conference in Istanbul, Turkey, late April 16, 2017. REUTERS/Murad Sezer/File Photo

ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Thursday he would meet his U.S. counterpart Donald Trump in Washington on May 16-17, in their first meeting since Trump took office in January.

Ties between the United States and Turkey have deteriorated sharply since a failed military coup in July and disagreements over U.S. support for a Kurdish militia group fighting Islamic State in Syria. Turkey sees the group as an extension of the outlawed PKK, which has waged a three-decade insurgency for Kurdish autonomy in southeastern Turkey.

Ankara is also pressing for the extradition of Fethullah Gulen, a Muslim cleric living in the United States who is accused by Erdogan of engineering the failed coup.

However, Erdogan sees prospects for improvement in ties between the NATO allies under Trump. The two leaders have talked on the telephone three times since Trump took office in late January, including a call on Monday after Erdogan secured a narrow win in a referendum on constitutional changes to give the president sweeping new powers.

Speaking in an interview with broadcaster A Haber, Erdogan said challenging the results of the referendum was beyond the remit of Turkey’s Constitutional Court and the European Court of Human Rights, after Turkey’s main opposition vowed to take legal action against what it said were irregularities.

“This is nothing but an attempt to make an election with 86 percent participation into a controversial matter,” he said.

Under the changes, the president will appoint the cabinet and vice-presidents and select and remove senior civil servants without parliamentary approval. Erdogan will also be allowed to reassume leadership in the AK Party he co-founded, where under the existing order he is nominally committed to party neutrality.

(Reporting by Ece Toksabay and Tuvan Gumrukcu; Editing by Isabel Coles)

Turkey’s election board rejects appeals to annul referendum

Turkey's Prime Minister Binali Yildirim addresses members of parliament from his ruling AK Party (AKP) during a meeting at the Turkish parliament in Ankara, Turkey, April 18, 2017. REUTERS/Umit Bektas

By Tuvan Gumrukcu, Ece Toksabay and Tulay Karadeniz

ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkey’s electoral authority on Wednesday rejected appeals to annul a referendum granting President Tayyip Erdogan wide new powers, but the main opposition CHP party said it would maintain its legal challenge to the result.

Sunday’s referendum narrowly backed the largest overhaul of Turkey’s political system since the founding of the republic nearly a century ago, giving Erdogan sweeping authority over the NATO member-state.

But the tight result of a highly charged campaign laid bare divisions, while European observers and the head of Turkey’s bar associations union said a decision to count unstamped votes broke electoral law.

The High Electoral Board said it had assessed appeals from the CHP and two other parties at a seven-hour meeting, and rejected them by 10 to one.

In response, CHP Deputy Chairman Bulent Tezcan said his party was considering taking its appeal to Turkey’s Constitutional Court or the European Court of Human Rights.

“This is a serious legitimacy crisis. We will employ all legal ways available,” Tezcan said.

Separately, Istanbul police detained 19 suspects on charges of attempted provocation for organizing protests against the referendum, Dogan News Agency reported.

A defiant Erdogan has dismissed the complaints, saying the vote had finally put an end to debate over the powerful presidency he has long sought.

On Wednesday, the ruling AK Party set out plans for Erdogan to gradually resume leadership of the party, a step toward implementing the changes approved in Sunday’s plebiscite.

Turkey’s president has been required to remain above party politics, but that condition was removed in one of the referendum’s 18 amendments.

Prime Minister and AKP leader Binali Yildirim said Erdogan could rejoin the party he founded in 2001 once official results – expected before the end of the month – were announced.

But he said the AKP would not hold a party congress until 2018, indicating Erdogan would not officially become its leader until then, despite widespread expectations that it would happen almost immediately.

“UNFAIR REFERENDUM”

The pro-Kurdish opposition HDP, which had appealed along with the CHP for the referendum to be annulled, said the late decision by the electoral board to allow unstamped ballots meant it was impossible to determine how many invalid or fake votes may have been counted.

HDP deputy chairman Mithat Sancar said the vote was also undermined by the fact that the campaign was held under emergency rule while the party’s co-leaders were under arrest, that its candidates for polling station monitors had been rejected, and the “Yes” campaign had benefited from state resources.

“This referendum will forever remain controversial,” he told reporters. “You cannot build a change in the political system on such a controversial and unfair referendum.”

Metin Feyzioglu, head of the Union of Turkish Bar Associations, said the decision to count unstamped ballots, without keeping any record of them, removed the main safeguard against voting fraud.

“What makes any country a democracy is the security of the ballot boxes,” Feyzioglu told Reuters. ” … If your ballots are unsafe, that means that regime is not a democracy.”

Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said a critical report by European observers on the referendum contained several mistakes, which he believed were deliberate.

Observers from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the Council of Europe said Sunday’s referendum had been an uneven contest.

“The OSCE’s report has no reliability as their observations lack objectivity and are extremely partial,” Cavusoglu told a news conference in Ankara.

(Additional reporting by Yesim Dikmen; Writing by Daren Butler and Dominic Evans; Editing by David Dolan and Kevin Liffey)