It is a known fact nowadays that Turkey and the United States disaccord in regards several major foreign policy issues and have been experiencing sort of tension between administrations, from time to time. Now, on top of this unfavorable situation the most recent critical comments from the U.S. Ambasssador regarding the undemocratic nature of the Turkish judicial system has caused great disturbance in gover ...

A very interesting development has been reported in regards to the practices of the current government in Turkey. It has been on the agenda for a while that the Turkish government has been receiving criticism from some western sources that the rule of law and protect political freedoms in Turkey does not comply with the standards accepted in the western world. To be in parallel to this argument some leading ...

Turkey which received a real strong applause from western democracies for a long time - until a short while ago - has been attracting criticism for a while  from some major unbiased sources in those countries. This criticism is mainly targeted at the pressure exerted on the press, institutions and citizens by the current administration - and the head of government, in specific. One of the harshest articles ...

Female victims of domestic violence and their children will receive new identities under the Witness Protection Law, but rights activists say the new measure will be useless unless police actually implement the law However, the main problem with legislation on domestic violence is that police do not follow judicial orders to implement the law, a rights activist says. As Turkey continues to be shocked by the ...

An Istanbul court dashed hopes yesterday that two arrested main opposition deputies would be freed following a judicial reform package, but the MPs could still win their release within a week. Relatives, journalists and citizens gathered in Istanbul’s Silivri district yesterday for a hearing into the Ergenekon coup plot case with the expectation that Republican People’s Party (CHP) lawmakers Mustafa Balbay ...

Obama and Erdoğan discuss Syria US President Barack Obama and Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan met at the G20 summit Tuesday to discuss the need for a political transition in Syria. Erdoğan has become a key ally for Obama in the three years since he took office and the two men have met and spoken by telephone frequently to discuss various Middle East crises. "They discussed the importance of mov ...

It is amazing to see that a country with heavy debts to IMF only several years ago, can now be shown as a model economy with a couple of billion dollars of debts left and a growing economy despite the merciless global crisis prevailing all over the world. In Turkish PM’s own words this country is indeed referred to as secure island now and the interesting thing is it has more political dilemmas to work out ...

Turkey's ninth president and former Prime Minister Süleyman Demirel has reportedly told a parliamentary commission tasked with investigating past coups that he regrets the 1960 military coup and that Turkey would be different if that coup hadn't happened. Ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) İstanbul deputy Nimet Baş, who is also presiding over the Parliamentary Commission to Investigate Coups an ...

Democracy and a free press are like twins for sustainable growth, said Doğan Holding Chairwoman Begümhan Doğan Faralyalı at the second annual meeting of the Center for Global Dialogue and Cooperation (CGDC) in Vienna. Former U.S. President Bill Clinton is also attending the event, which will end tomorrow. Speaking at the “Democracy and Economic Power” session of the conference, which was chaired by Hans Dem ...

According to RSF report, Turkey is one of the top-five countries ranked in "the countries with the most journalists in jail”. According to Reporters Without Borders Organization (RSF) data, 21 journalists, Internet users and citizen journalists are killed in the first 4 months of 2012 and 161 journalists are imprisoned.RSF stated that the most journalists' murders took place in Syria and Somali; 4 journalis ...

The main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) petitioned the Constitutional Court to suspend and scrap a controversial law that will profoundly overhaul Turkey’s education system and introduce the Quran as an elective course. The party asked the court to cancel the law on procedural grounds, saying it reserved its right also for an application over the legislation’s content. The petition argued that t ...

President Gül weighs into the debate over imprisoned deputies, expressing his desire to see them released pending trial to assume their parliamentary seats President Abdullah Gül called for a solution to the problem of jailed lawmakers that would secure their release while the trials continue, after parliamentary opposition parties agreed on a legal amendment on the issue. “I’d like to see all elected deput ...

Several high-ranking retired soldiers, including former Deputy Chief of General Staff Gen. Çevik Bir, were detained yesterday as part of a probe into the “post-modern coup,” in the latest crackdown on active duty and retired members of the Turkish Armed Forces suspected of involvement in past coups. Police raided 31 addresses in Istanbul, Ankara, Çanakkale, Eskişehir and Niğde as a part of an investigation ...

Turkish government, (AK PARTİ currently) has always claimed to have adopted the target of establishing advanced democracy in Turkey, based on many statements made by PM Erdoğan and his deputies. The giant program on the way to advanced democracy has covered many different measures so far, to include coup investigations, wide arresting operations carried out by the police and ending up with detainments of ma ...

CHP leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu cements his grip within the main opposition. Main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) Chairman Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu cemented his victory over the intra-party opposition yesterday and announced “a new road map” for his party highlighting “democracy, freedom and human rights” like European social-democrat movements. “The CHP is drawing a new road map focusing on the problems ...

A very creative article by Nuray Mert, one of the most objective and courageous journalists who has always avoided taking sides, on the contrary to most journalists (and papers) in Turkey today. She tries to put us in the picture about how well Turkey has been doing on its journey to "ADVANCED" democracy (as referred by Erdoğan) and the function efficiency of the community to adopt and adapt this system. Sh ...

The main opposition Republican People’s Party’s (CHP) extraordinary convention has opened amid tensions as a leading dissident lawmaker said the gathering had failed to reach the required quorum. According to Deputy Chairman Erdoğan Toprak, 839 of the 1,200 party delegates signed the attendance book in the Ankara Arena, well above the simple majority required for the convention to go ahead.  But as Chairman ...

As it looks so far, Turkey has successfully survived the European crisis at a time when many economies in the EU have failed. Whether we are pleased with all practices of the present administration or not, it would be fair to say this has mostly been due to political stability and the strong leadership of the politicians in power, and PM Erdoğan to have the biggest praise, certainly. The government has disp ...

Kurds should not lay down arms, deputy says Kurds should not lay down their arms because weapons are the community’s “insurance policy,” Diyarbakır independent deputy Leyla Zana has said. “The armed conflict forced everyone to choose a side. I would never argue for the laying down of arms,” she was quoted as saying. “Weapons are the insurance policy for Kurds, and they will remain so as long as the [Kurdish ...

Ankara is hit by a new political earthquake, as a prosecutor looks to try the CHP’s leader for ‘influencing a fair trial’ The public prosecutor in Istanbul’s Silivri district is seeking the revocation of the main opposition leader’s parliamentary immunity so that he can face charges of “attempting to influence a fair trial” and “insulting public servants on duty.”  Public Prosecutor Ali İşgören sent an offi ...

After 9 years of blood and tears in Iraq the United States troops have left this country. They came to bring democracy whereas in the end they only brought death and misery. The region has been in a turmoil since the Americans started the invasion of Iraq and to the contrary of hopes and expectations the only accomplishment in the region was the plans made about "how oil resources should be shared between e ...

Human rights workers, lawyers and politicians say Turkey has been taking backwards steps on human rights issues since 2005. Police violence, arbitrary detentions and long prison periods are the major issues Turkey’s Human Rights Foundation recent report says more than 4,000 were detained and 1,833 were arrested in the Kurdish Communities Union (KCK) case in 2011. On the occasion of world Human Rights Week, ...

Turkey needs reforms urgently to secure fair representation, Emine Ülker Tarhan, deputy group chair of the Republican People’s Party, says before announcing the main opposition party’s proposal to lower the election threshold to 5 percent. The draft is the first in a series of bills that make up the ‘democracy package’ Turkey’s main opposition party has announced it will submit a series of reform proposals ...