Keith Haring, Untitled, 1983 VIA
Latest Ergenekon arrests net retired colonel
The police have detained three people, including a retired colonel, in an operation carried out late Thursday as part of the wider Ergenekon investigation. The police initiated a joint operation
In the mean time, it seems that Ergenekon people used cyberwar tools well. A liberal columnist’s (Gülay Göktürk’s) column once was bombarded with 100,000 messages.
Three more detained under Turkey’s Ergenekon operation
Yusuf Alataş: Ergenekon a test of maturity for Turkish judiciary
Attorney Yusuf Alataş, who has taken on many cases involving political figures, has said if the Ergenekon indictment identified all the links of the Ergenekon gang, a shadowy organization that has been indicted for attempts to overthrow the government, virtually all parts of the state would be shown to be involved.
AKP’s local election race destined to seize castles of secularists and Kurds
Traditional castles of secularism will be under siege when the ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP, kicks off its plan to start campaigning early for the local election in March
The conscience of ordinary citizens
I really wonder if there is any anguish in some hearts. I really wonder if thorns pain the consciences of some people. I mean the people who are ordinary — not famous or mentioned in the Ergenekon indictment — but who supported the Ergenekon ideology or participated in some meetings allegedly organized by Ergenekon.
Baykal – Büyükanıt meeting
The farewell visit outgoing Chief of General Staff Gen. Yaşar Büyükanıt paid to Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Deniz Baykal took longer than expected.
What do the people expect from the gov’t?
According to a poll conducted by the MetroPOLL Strategic and Social Research Center, Turkish society is making three important demands on the government: economic reforms, a new and more democratic constitution and EU reforms.
CHP + military = power
We experienced the last example of the alliance between the Republican People’s Party (CHP) and the military with a memorandum released by the General Staff on April 27, 2007 (to warn the ruling Justice and Development Party [AK Party] about approaching presidential elections).
CHP unable to accept that Turkey is a modern and contemporary country
Why is the Republican People’s Party (CHP) pursuing such an aggressive policy? What changed so that nothing remains of the main opposition party that existed three years ago? The positive, constructive CHP is gone, replaced by an aggressive party.
AK Party and people with religious sentiments
That the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) was not closed down was a warning to all groups in Turkey that they should read Turkey’s realities correctly. In particular, it has considerably impacted the religiously conscientious. Before making an assessment on this issue, I would like to recall the developments that paved the path for it.
Erdoğan’s difficult mission
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan took an active role in the crisis between Georgia and Russia when he decided, surprisingly, to pay a 24-hour visit to Moscow and Tbilisi.
Turkey and Iran / U.S.-approved relations – Haaretz – Israel News
Ergenekon ate my homework
The milk in my coffee curdled, a pen leaked in my shirt and the tap in the bathroom is dripping again. Call me paranoid, but I am sure the plot hatched deep within the recesses of the Turkish state to make my life miserable has moved into a higher gear.
Gen. Başbuğ may order trial for Ergenekon-linked officers
Military sources that recently spoke with me, noting that the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK), under new Chief of General Staff Gen. İlker Başbuğ, are to give the green light for the opening of an investigation by a military court against those uniformed men alleged to have been involved in the Ergenekon terrorist organization.
A long dull moment in Turkey?
Some analysts interpreted the decision of the Constitutional Court as heralding a long dull moment for Turkey. A closure case against the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) had the potential to create the biggest political crisis in domestic Turkish politics in recent years.
Who went bankrupt?
Although Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Deniz Baykal has said that "the Ergenekon [a shadowy organization that has been indicted for attempting to overthrow the government] investigation has come to an end," a new wave in the Ergenekon investigation has hit the shore.
Soft
approach: keeping the ball in midfield
This week, I have left the doors open to various ways for the "wounded" Justice and Development Party (AK Party) to deal with politics and its obligations, on how to handle the "loaded" agenda.
Yusuf Kanlı: The imam and the teacher
Leading Turkish sociologist Şerif Mardin had described a while ago the growing tensions and polarization in society as a manifestation that in Turkey “Imam has won over teacher…” Very much like his earlier “peer pressure” warning, that remark of Mardin’s has stirred up some debate in the country.Indeed, the crux of the Islamist/secularist polarization in the country can best be explained with “Has imam won over the teacher” in the Turkish Rpublic? Or to what extend the “imam has won over the teacher”? Or, if “imam has won over the teacher” can we still describe the Turkish Rpublic as a “modernity project” where reason, science, man-made laws ought to have the lead rather than spiritual
Yusuf Kanlı: An olive branch to secularists?
Without underestimating the importance of the prime minister publicly scolding one of his ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP, deputies I have to underline that the euphoria over the AKP disowning the “poisonous idea” of Edibe Sözen introducing an anti-porn bill is very much like the lost-and-found donkey Nasraddin Hodja …One day Nasraddin Hodja loses his donkey. He spends hours searching for it, looks everywhere, but can’t find the donkey. Villagers start making fun of Hodja, saying, “You claim to know everything, that you are a very clever and able man, but you lost your donkey!” Eventually, he finds the donkey grazing on the slopes of a hill outside the village. He turns to
The imam and the teacher – II
The founder of the Turkish Republic had told an education congress, while the War of Liberation was still continuing, that the future of the country would be shaped by teachers who would raise the new generations of Turks with contemporary knowledge, skills and scientific thought.Not only primary education – which was made compulsory and standardized like the secondary education with the “Uniformity in Education Law” – but vocational schools, as well as mass education programs like “Halk Evis” or “People’s Houses,” were established and encouraged to take science and literature to urban Turkey.Alas, as time passed the importance attached
Turkey’s coup that never happened, by Andrew Finkel
Turkey breathed a sigh of relief when the governing AKP narrowly averted closure late last month. But the country’s problems are not over: not least since the Ergenekon trial may expose preparations for a military coup, as well as past assassinations and violence"
Turkey walks tightrope over Iran ties – washingtonpost.com
MOUNTING PKK DEATH TOLL INCREASES PRESSURE ON THE TURKISH GOVERNMENT – Eurasia Daily Monitor
[CROSS READER] Outlawed PKK hostile to Turkey’s normalization process
Nine Turkish soldiers, including a lieutenant colonel, were killed on Monday when their vehicle was struck by an improvised explosive device (IED) planted by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in the Kemah district of the eastern province of Erzincan.
Ergenekon Is Not Fiction
An answer to those, like the misguided pundit Barry Rubin, who claim Ergenekon is a fiction, can be found in a recent declaration signed by three hundred of Turkey’s top intellectuals (professors, jurists, artists, writers and journalists) urging a full investigation of Ergenekon and its links to the state. I’m familiar with many of these names and they are not, as Rubin would like to believe, pawns — or even supporters– of the AKP. They are independent thinkers across the political spectrum. The declaration urges a clean sweep and calls upon all the institutions, whether civil or military, to show the necessary determination to keep the case alive and deepen it to reveal the rest of the connections. (click for article)
Imported armor vs. national armor
Burak BEKDİL
President Gül and rector appointments
Oral ÇALIŞLAR
Is electing rectors democratic?
One aspect that remains overlooked or ignored in discussions over rector appointments is what we understand "democracy" to mean. As you may know, he president chooses one of the rector candidates for a four-year term.
Beşikçi: Solution to Kurdish issue needs analytical deliberations first
This highly regarded 69-year-old man is “the Blonde Professor” of Turkey’s Kurds, since — as Martin van Bruinessen of Utrecht University has very appropriately said — for many years he was the only non-Kurdish person in Turkey to speak out loud and clear in defense of the rights of the Kurds.
PKK ran amok when cornered
Think of a terrorist organization that lives on blood! It feels obliged to carry out attacks. If it did not attack, bomb or shed blood, it would be impossible for it to stay alive and breed militants.
The Left and parliament: An interview with leading Turkish socialist Ufuk Uras.
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