Less than a day after a nationalist politician broke away from an electoral alliance in a dispute over candidacy for the May presidential election, she got a rebuke from the mayors she proposed for nomination. — Only less than a day after IYI Party leader Meral Aksener split from the notoriously dysfunctional opposition alliance in a dispute over nominating the joint candidate for the upcoming presidential election in May, the names in her mind for nomination offered a stinging rebuke to the veteran nationalist politician. In…

In the chaos that followed an apocalyptic earthquake in Turkey and Syria, Turkish vigilantes deliver mob justice to some suspected looters and Syrians. — At least four people were reportedly killed after an angry mob pulled out the passengers of a pick-up truck loaded with materials believed to be pilfered from the quake-hit city of Antakya in southern Turkey on Saturday. The unhinged crowd brutally rounded up four “suspected looters” while the police sought…

More than 1,300 people were killed after an earthquake of magnitude 7.8 hit southern Turkey and northern Syria early Monday. — More than 1,300 were killed and thousands were injured as a 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck southern Turkey and northern Syria in the early hours of Monday, international media reported. The United States Geological Survey warned of significant casualties. The massive quake was felt across the Eastern Mediterranean, including Syria, Lebanon…

What was once believed to be a game changer during the critical moments of the Turkish coup, Erdogan’s FaceTime call would be a staged one. — When the putschist troops commandeered tanks and occupied key positions in Ankara and Istanbul in an ill-fated attempt to remove Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government from power on the night of July 15 in 2016, President Erdogan did something unexpected: he connected to an anchorwoman on CNN’s Turkish offshoot via a…

Although belated, the glimmer of hope and a hint of justice emerges for some Turkish trainees who were wrongfully convicted in mass trials after the 2016 coup. — Turkey’s Supreme Court of Appeals ordered the release of more than 66 Turkish Air Force Academy trainees, who were serving life in prison over alleged involvement in an abortive coup in 2016, overturning a verdict by a lower court in Istanbul.

Russian President Putin sealed the end of the post-Cold War order in the world by announcing a military invasion of Ukraine. The liberal ‘end of history’ proves to be a delusion and a myth. — After months of military buildup on three sides of the Ukrainian border and a flurry of Munich-like diplomatic shuttle by the war-weary Western heads of states to arrest an impending reality, President Vladimir Putin announced the much-anticipated Russian military action against Ukraine.

Turkish society remains divided over how to react to victims of two suicides. One is idolized as a martyr, the other is treated as a footnote. — Only days apart, the Turkish public was rattled by the news of two suicides involving one college student, Enes Kara (20), a promising medical student, and Bahadir Odabasi (16), son of a purged teacher who has been behind bars for years, last week. While they joined the growing assembly of…

The economic crisis in Turkey is paving way for the emergence of anti-immigrant politicians in the mold of Geert Wilders. Syrians have become victims of hate speech. — Flanked by a phone-holding assistant to capture his every move, a Turkish politician barged into a jewelry store in the western province of Izmir on Wednesday last week, interrogating the owner (a Syrian) on the spot at camera-point. After asking the owner for his identification and store license, Umit Ozdag…

An Afghan mother’s heroic death to protect her children during a blizzard represents the death of humanity and the global failure of handling the issue of refugees in a more humane way. — The residents of the Avzek village in the Ozalp district of Turkey’s eastern Van province on the border with Iran were startled by an unanticipated visit from two young Afghan boys who were seemingly lost in the wilderness in the midst of a bone-chilling blizzard as the hours progressed to…