The Kurds’ Commander in Chief explains why his forces are finally ready to partner with Assad and Putin. By Mazloum Abdi. The world first heard of us, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), amid the chaos of our country’s civil war. I serve as our commander in chief. The SDF has 70,000 soldiers who have fought against jihadi extremism, ethnic hatred,…
On Friday 16 February, the maximum penalty requested by the Public Prosecutor of the 26th Istanbul Criminal Court was inflicted on the world-renowned intellectuals Ahmet Altan, Mehmet Altan, Nazlı Ilıcak and four other writers and journalists. It is the aggravated life sentence. They were convicted of “subversion of the constitutional order of the Republic of Turkey, belonging to a terrorist…
The meeting held in the Vatican on 5 February between Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Pope Francis represented a propaganda event useful to improve the heavily deteriorated international image of the Turkish head of state. Erdoğan seized the common view with the Vatican on the very sensitive issue of the status of Jerusalem in order to cast his positive…
The possible reinstatement of capital punishment in Turkey would be the red line not to be crossed. It would spell the end of the EU accession process that has already been frozen. None of the values underlying the construction of Europe can justify the relativisation of human life, accepting a justice that kills. Turkey, as a member of the Council…