News Scan – March 26th: UN urges Turkey, Syria to refrain from further military actions

UN urges Turkey, Syria to refrain from further military actions

The United Nations urged Turkey and Syria to avoid taking steps that could increase tensions along the Turkish-Syrian border, saying abrupt acts may aggravate the situation after Turkey downed a Syrian warplane that violated Turkish airspace on Sunday.

“… the Secretary-General and his senior advisers are in close contact with both Syrian and Turkish officials to urge both sides to ascertain facts, refrain from additional military actions and de-escalate. Precipitous acts may aggravate the situation, which is not in the interest of any side,” Farhan Haq, deputy spokesperson for UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, said at a press conference on Monday.

On Sunday, the Turkish military shot down a Syrian aircraft after it violated Turkish airspace on the Turkish-Syrian border near Yayladağı, a district in southern Hatay. According to a Sunday statement by the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK), two Syrian MiG-23 warplanes were warned four times when they began flying close to Turkish airspace. After the warnings, when one of the Syrian aircraft flew 1.5 kilometers westward into Turkish airspace, a Turkish F-16 fighter jet fired a missile at the Syrian warplane, in line with Turkey’s rules of engagement.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan made the first official announcement of the strike and said “A Syrian plane violated our airspace. Our F-16s took off and hit this plane. Why? Because, if you violate my airspace, our slap will be hard,” he said. He later congratulated the General Staff, the Turkish military and the air forces

TODAYS ZAMAN

Tweets decrease almost 50 pct after nearly a week of Twitter ban

The number of tweets sent from Turkey and in Turkish has shown a sharp decrease since Twitter was blocked late March 21. The drop particularly came after the government moved to extend the ban on DNS options, URL shorteners and VPN providers used to circumvent the blocked access to the website.

The restrictions implemented by the authorities and the fine-tuning of the ban for implementing a total blackout, with the blessing of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, seem to have given concrete results as the ban enters its sixth day.

According to statistics provided by the opinion research company semiocast, published by Hürriyet, the number of tweets sent from Turkey in fact dropped a third in 24 hours, from 1.2 million to 750,000.

The traffic dropped to 550-600,000 on the second day after many DNS sources were blocked. It then dropped slightly again on March 24, less than half of the number before the ban, after Turkey’s telecommunications authority started to implement IP-based blocks of access to the social media network

HURRIYET DAILY NEWS

Twitter ban ‘deeply troubling’ retweets US Turkey Embassy

US’ Turkey Embassy retweeted a tweet of its Ambassador to the UN, Samantha Power, in which she criticised the shutdown as ‘deeply troubling’…

United States’ Ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, criticised the shutdown of Twitter in Turkey via her Twitter account. “Deeply troubling that #Turkey blocked Twitter. Shutting down free access to info inconsistent w/democracy—support citizens’ call to unblock,” tweeted Ambassador Samantha Power and her tweet was retweeted via the Twitter account of US’ Turkey Embassy on Saturday night.

DHA

AK Party promises more despotism if it wins big in local polls

The existing political indications and remarks made by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan suggest that the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) may get more despotic under a discourse of “advanced democracy” if it wins a big victory in the March 30 local elections.

It is evident to almost everyone who is closely following the political and social developments in Turkey that the March 30 elections are more than merely municipal elections and that they will have a series of widespread impacts on political parties, their leaders, their members and the people. The big question is what the AK Party, which has drawn the ire of many domestic and foreign observers and normal citizens due to a number of controversial and anti-democratic practices it has instituted recently, will do after the elections.

One of the first deeds of the party, doubtlessly acting on an order to come from the prime minister, will probably be to ban access to Facebook and YouTube, of which he had dropped hints earlier this month. In a live televised interview on March 6, Erdoğan said the government would consider shutting down popular video-sharing website YouTube and social media network Facebook. The prime minister, who is fighting a corruption and bribery scandal that has already rattled his AK Party government, thinks a ban on these sites will stop the social media leaks that have embarrassed the government.

Observers are concerned that a possible YouTube and Facebook ban to follow the Twitter ban would make Turkey a country like China, Iran or North Korea, where social media are strictly controlled by the state.

TODAYS ZAMAN

Sun Chemical to invest in new plant in Turkey

US-based ink producer Sun Chemical Corp. is planning to build a new plant in the Aliaga Organized Industrial Zone in Turkey’s Aegean province of Izmir, according to a statement on the company’s web site.

With construction scheduled to begin in the second quarter of 2014 and completed in the second half of 2015, the company’s third plant in Turkey will strengthen Sun Chemical’s presence in the growing markets of Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) as well as in Turkey’s domestic market.

The plant will produce liquid inks for packaging applications, a market which is forecasted to grow by 2-3 percent annually for the next several years in the EMEA region. Turkey’s well-developed transportation links, highly skilled labor force and strong demand for liquid inks are the main reasons behind Sun Chemical’s decision to invest in the country.

Owned by Japan’s DIC Corporation, Sun Chemical is the world’s largest producer of printing inks and pigments, employing 21,000 people globally. Having acquired Turkish ink producer CBS Inktas in 2004, Sun Chemical currently has two operational plants in Turkey.

INVEST.GOV.TR

26.03.2014

This is a news-scan from major Turkish papers and internet sites. However, we do not verify above stories neither do we vouch for their accuracy.