Good luck to Mr. Bass, New US Ambassador to Turkey who arrives in Ankara…

New US Ambassador to Turkey arrives in Ankara

Ambassador John Bass has described Turkey and the U.S. as ‘long-time friends and strategic partners’

In other news:

Ankara does not see the decision to exhibit a historic rug as amounting to ‘taking sides with Armenian arguments’
Separatist group’s growing popularity puts Iraqi Kurdistan government in an awkward position.
Turkish Prime Minister Davutoğlu has told Al-Jazeera Arabic that ‘safe zones’ against ISIL on Syria’s border with Turkey should protect ‘areas with populations over a certain density,’ marking a large region from the Mediterranean to Iraq’s border

On the margins: secular human rights in Turkey

In Turkey, Muslim groups have used the “human rights” framework to protect their religious practices, such as wearing headscarves in universities and workplaces. But what happens when the “rights” demanded by dominant religious groups contradict the rights and demands of others? Türkçe

What does Kobane mean for the international community?

There is still time to quell IS in Syria but the world must be prepared to act immediately, before it is too late.

Hundreds rallied in Istanbul after the news that ISIS militants had entered the Syrian-Kurdish town of Kobane, at the lack of response from the Turkish government. Görkem Keser/Demotix. All rights reserved.

The Syrian crisis has caused the exile of millions of citizens. But only 60,000 of them took refuge in the European Union.

 

The Turkish army bombed positions of the Kurdish PKK party in south-east Turkey on Monday night, according to observers. Relations between the two sides had worsened recently over Ankara’s reluctance to join the fight against the IS. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is more afraid of the Kurdish nationalists growing stronger than of the IS, commentators write, and fear the end of the peace process between Ankara and the PKK.

 

A senior deputy of Turkey’s ruling party has ‘harshly criticized’ President Erdoğan and the AKP over the Kurdish peace bid. ‘It is very hard to understand why the government decided to attack the PKK. President Erdoğan is focused on increasing his votes, not to solve the Kurdish problem,’ he reportedly told the BBC Turkish on condition of anonymity

One administration’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter. Just ask the PKK.

The militant Kurdish independence group, known formally as the Kurdistan Workers Party,suffered strikes from Turkish fighter jets against its positions in southeastern Turkey — even as PKK-linked forces battle Islamic State militants in and around the Syrian town of Kobani.

Turkey, whose conflict with the PKK stretches back three decades, was reportedly retaliating after shells struck a Turkish military base. Deadly riots have also broken out recently in Kurdish areas of Turkey, fueled by perceptions that the Turkish government has been colluding to undermine Kurdish factions fighting in Syria.

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