Uludere two weeks later – a sweep up
On 28 December 35 civilians died in an air strike of the Turkish army. The victims came from the villages of Gülyazi and Ortasu, in the district Uludere in the southeastern province of Sirnak.
In two weeks time, I wrote seven stories about it. Some of them are based on what I saw and heard in Gülyazi, where I went …
Uludere investigation, or: the potholes in our minds
Intense days it have been, totally taken up by the news around the killing of 35 civilians by the Turkish air forces. Chilling details, like: 28 of the 35 deceased had the same last name, and 17 of 35 were under the age of 18. The group of smugglers always took the same route, one of the survivors told an …
Is President Gül going to step down next year, at the end of August, and will he be succeeded by a President chosen directly by the people? Keep dreaming, I would say to opposition leaders Kilicdaroglu and Bahceli, who ‘demand’ this scenario. The opposition has nothing to demand here, as they are too small in parliament and have no power. …
What’s it worth, this apology that Prime Minister Erdogan made yesterday for the Dersim massacres? He said it, he actually said that he apologizes on the state’s behalf for what happened in 1937 and 1938. A novelty in Turkish politics. But at the same time it is not a novelty at all. It is not the first time people’s pains …
We’re counting around eighty deaths this last week. In the early hours of Wednesday the PKK killed 24 Turkish soldiers, on Tuesday five soldiers died, and now the Turkish army is hunting down the perpetrators and has, they claim, killed around fifty of them. It is totally obvious that this will only lead to more deaths. But politicians don’t seem …
Turkey’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Davutoglu, still defines the foreign policy of his country as ‘Zero problems with the neighbours’. But even though this approach quite well described Turkey’s international relations for the last couple of years (which you can read about in the article I published last year), by now it’s more of a state …
Karayilan caught! Blunder, or strategy?
Saturday the news came in: Murat Karayilan has been arrested in Iran! That’s what you could really call ‘breaking news’: Karayilan is the leader in the field of the PKK, so the second man after jailed leader Abdullah Öcalan, and high on the ‘most wanted’ list of the Turkish state. But soon it turned out the news wasn’t true, or …
It’s almost August, and thats always the month of the military council in which, among other things, is decided about military promotions. That was always sort of a formality: the military decided who would be in charge where, and the President approved. But things have changed. The military somehow has to come to terms with the fact that Turkey is …
The ‘oath crisis’ in parliament is still not over. Ever since both CHP and BDP refused to take the oath to be inaugurated in parliament, there is a lot of good will talk going on between different parties, but for now, it all leads totally nowhere. It’s been almost three weeks now, and no (for the …
Last night, (an advisor of) president Gül said the Syrian refugees in Turkey are not refugees, but guests in Turkey, and that they can come and go as they please. I just couldn’t believe my ears. The last thing Turkey does to refugees coming in, is treating them as guests. Yes, for now, Turkey is building the Syrians a (plastic) …
Recent Comments