President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey has pledged to raise a “pious generation” of young Turkish nationalists who will uphold traditional Islamic values. However, political analysts believe that capturing the support of young people will be his greatest problem ahead of the 2023 elections
Last weekend, there was a ceasefire in the battle for Nagorno-Karabakh, a breakaway region inside of Azerbaijan yet controlled and inhabited by ethnic Armenians. It lasted for only hours, or maybe even minutes. Fierce national pride is growing on both sides as towns and cities are attacked and civilians run for cover
Turkey is seeking to save its vital tourism sector amid the coronavirus pandemic, but the easing of restrictions as part of the government’s return to normalcy is leading to a surge in infections
The memorandum was collected and published by the Human Rights Department of the Justice and Development Party (in Turkish: Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi – AKP), the conservative Islamist political formation founded by Erdogan in 2001. The dossier collects and exposes all the improvements that according to the AKP, have been registered in Turkey in the real condition of non-Muslim faith communities for the past 18 years, that is, since Erdogan’s Party came to power. Among other things, the dossier, relaunched by the Turkish press, refers to the support offered by government policies to schools and educational institutions headed by Christian minorities and the Jewish community, whose students were exempted from the Islamic religion exam required in order to be admitted to higher study courses.
According to the anonymous sources cited, the Turkish President gave a mandate to those present to “Start working” in search of a formula that would make this change possible, taking into account that any restoration of the use of Agyasofya as an Islamic place of worship could take place without closing the building for tourist visits, “just like the Sultanahmet mosque (the Blue Mosque, ed)”. Erdogan urged his interlocutors to carry out the project cautiously, taking into account the fact that the status of Agyasofya represents a ‘sensitive’ topic, on which, however, “Only our great nation can decide”.
For years, international observers, western governments, and opposition politicians in Turkey have warned of the country’s slide to what one commentator called “an elected autocracy” under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Now,as coronavirus infections and deaths drop,the government has tightened already stringent controls on social media. Critics say the pandemic is accelerating Turkey’s descent from democratic freedoms
Turkey continues to deploy troops near its southern border with Syria for what appears to be an imminent attack against U.S.-backed Kurdish forces that Ankara views as terrorists. Locals say such an attack could throw the already-volatile region into further instability