Turkish president visits Kurdish area

ISTANBUL – The Turkish President Abdullah Gül is paying a visit to Diyarbakir, the biggest city in the southern southeast of the country, on the last two days of the year. It’s hoped that Gül can ease the rising tensions over the Kurdish question. He will also appear live on Kurdish language state-owned TV station TRT6, and is expected to …

Walk to the fallen soldiers

After one and a half hours of walking silently in the snow, the group arrives at a mass grave. The grave is old, the group is young: 45 boy and girl scouts are here to pay their respects to Ottoman soldiers who froze to death in the Battle of Sarikamis, fought in December 1914 and January 1915. ‘There is not …

Crunch

‘In this hall’ – and the muscled guy switches on the lights – ‘you can follow crunch classes, or yoga, or pilates, or aerobics.’ I don’t want aerobics, yoga or pilates, and what the hell is crunch? Something with muscles, I understand. I ask where the swimming pool is. ‘There is no pool, but we are the biggest sports centre …

Congress defines future Turkish opposition party

ISTANBUL – Turkey’s biggest opposition party, the CHP, is getting ready for a historical party congress tomorrow in the capital, Ankara. Will party leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu get the chance to modernize the party and thus make it ready for the general elections in June, or will the ‘old gang’ remain in charge behind the scenes? The hope of leftist Turks …

Coup plot court case begins in Turkey

ISTANBUL – In the Turkish city of Istanbul the ‘Balyoz’ (Sledgehammer) court case has begun. ‘Balyoz’ is an alleged coup plot against the APK government. No less than 196 military personnel (many of them retired) are on trial. It’s the first court case ever in Turkey against officers suspected of planning a military coup.

The coup plot was revealed by daily …

About Ahmet Kaya and a young woman

The whole evening, actually the whole Kurdish question came together in one young woman last night. I saw and heard her during a break in the commemoration night for Ahmet Kayak, a Kurdish singer who died ten years ago in exile in Paris. She was being interviewed on camera about what Ahmet Kaya meant for her. The journalist wanted her …

Egged

Throwing eggs: Turkish students are good at it and getting better. This week they brought down an ‘egg rain’ on AKP MP Burhan Kuzu, member of a parliamentary commission that advises on constitutional change. He came to the Political Science Faculty of Ankara University, and was welcomed by the ‘Egg Throwing Collective’. Dozens of eggs landed on him. Well, on …

What Turkish politicians can learn from WikiLeaks

Turkish politicians are very honest. You will, for example, never see CHP leader Kilicdaroglu warmly shake hands with Prime Minister Erdogan and tell him that the AKP government has made such a great contribution to the self-confident positioning of Turkey on the world diplomatic stage. And Prime Minister Erdogan would in return never thank Kilicdaroglu for trying to make the …

Turkish Armenians want election of Patriarch

ISTANBUL – Representatives of the Armenian community in Turkey have initiated a court case against the Turkish state to enforce elections for a new Patriarch, according to several Turkish newspapers on Thursday.

The court case is bringing to a climax a battle that started in 2008, when it became clear that Patriarch Mesrop II was no longer able to perform his …