Türkiye (20 Viewers)

[Turk_Bianconero]

Turkey’s military chief: Up to 270 PKK terrorists killed

Turkish Chief of General Staff Gen. Necdet Özel has said the number of terrorists killed by the Turkish military in a massive offensive launched against the terrorist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) since August has reached about 270 with Turkish troops killing 15 more terrorists in the Kazan Valley region near Çukurca in Hakkari province on Monday.

Soldiers earlier killed 100 terrorists in the same region in military operations that began hours after 24 soldiers were killed in Çukurca by the PKK in simultaneous attacks last Wednesday, marking the highest death toll of a single attack on the military since the 1990s. Sources say 15 more terrorists were killed in the Kazan Valley on Monday and that the military had seized 11 Kalashnikov rifles as well as a rocket launcher and several hand grenades.

Chief of General Staff Gen. Özel told NTV news in a written interview that the Turkish military is continuing to intensively shell and bomb PKK targets in Iraq with fighter jets since Aug. 17 and that up to 270 PKK terrorists have been killed during the offensive and more than 210 have been injured. Özel added that much of the organization's infrastructure has been destroyed and that terrorists have started taking shelter in safer areas. He also said the number of terrorists fleeing PKK camps has greatly increased after the air bombing campaign.

Turkey's top commanders, Özel, and four force commanders who rushed to Hakkari in the aftermath the PKK attack are still in the region to oversee the anti-PKK offensive and have no plans to return to Ankara until the offensive is successfully completed. Özel is personally commanding the air-backed ground offensive that was launched against the PKK along the border and in northern Iraq.

The military also said operations include commandos, Special Forces and paramilitary Special Forces. They are being reinforced by F-16 and F-4 warplanes, Super Cobra helicopter gunships and surveillance drones.

Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç said over the weekend that the top commanders “pledged not to return home before accomplishing the anti-PKK operation.” Clashes with the PKK have killed tens of thousands of people since the organization took up arms to fight for autonomy in the country's predominantly Kurdish Southeast in 1984.
Özel urges speedy trials for Sledgehammer suspects

Commenting on the Sledgehammer probe, Özel said the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) are closely monitoring the investigation and developments related to the probe while avoiding behaviors that could be interpreted as intervention in the judicial process. He recalled “a concern” that is frequently voiced among various state circles and by the public regarding long

detention periods.

In Turkey most inmates spend a great deal of time in prison without ever having been convicted due to lengthy trials and appeals in courts as well as legal regulations that allow for lengthy detention periods before possible conviction. According to Turkish law, an inmate is considered to be under arrest until a verdict is approved by the Supreme Court of Appeals.

Only after the approval of the Supreme Court of Appeals, which combines the functions of a court of cassation and an appeals court, does the inmate under arrest become convicted. Contrary to regulations in most European countries, in Turkey during the period between the local court's verdict being issued and the approval of the Supreme Court of Appeals the defendant is also under arrest.

The Turkish judiciary has come under fire from both the Turkish opposition and the West as the trials of jailed Sledgehammer suspects has taken years. Özel says he is saddened as other TSK members are by active duty and retired TSK personnel being in prison, but he said it would be inappropriate to comment on this while the trials continue.

In Turkey a case can take around five years on average and there are many cases that have been pending for decades. This situation creates many problems with regard to human rights, especially if a suspect is eventually found innocent after a long period under arrest.

As of early 2011, there were approximately 57,000 inmates in prisons awaiting a verdict or approval from the Supreme Court of Appeals.

However, the chief of General Staff urged a speedy trial of Sledgehammer suspects and said it should be remembered that freedom of movement is a condition for life. According to the Sledgehammer documents, the desired result of the plan was to increase pressure on the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government for failing to provide security for its citizens. The attacks were to eventually lead to a military coup.

The plan was drawn up in 2003 and discussed in a seminar held at the General Staff's Selimiye barracks in March of that year. The General Staff has denied that the Sledgehammer plot was the subject of a seminar, saying they have no record of any such incident, and it defended itself by claiming the Sledgehammer plan was merely a war game.

Currently, there are nearly 200 retired and active-duty members of the TSK who are under arrest on charges of involvement in the Sledgehammer plan. All of the suspects are accused of a failed attempt to destroy Parliament and to overthrow the government. Such a charge calls for a jail sentence of up to 20 years in prison.

Turkey's former Chief of General Staff Gen. Işık Koşaner resigned this August in protest of the detention of Sledgehammer suspects several days ahead of a key meeting of the Supreme Military Council (YA&#350. Özel avoided commenting on the resignations and said it is too early to talk about next year's YAŞ meeting.
'Koşaner's voice recording a self-criticism for me’

Özel also spoke about a voice recording that allegedly features Koşaner speaking about the shortcomings and negligence of the TSK in the fight against terrorism. He assessed the release of the recording as a means of “intra-institutional self-criticism,” but slammed those who he said have no information or education on matters in the voice recording and who are commenting on the recording.

One of the two recordings, initially posted online on dailymotion.com, shocked the country, as Koşaner is allegedly heard to be explaining the reason behind Turkey's failure in the fight against terrorism. Turkey has been fighting Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) terrorism since 1984. Thousands of soldiers have been killed in clashes with the PKK in the nearly 30-year-long war.

In the recording, addressing a group of military officers, Koşaner is allegedly heard saying that the situation is “shameful,” as the military fails to effectively use unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to prevent terrorist attacks, plants mines randomly, lacks discipline in its hierarchy and even has cases of soldiers killed by other soldiers due to insufficient training.
It is up to government to talk to PKK

Özel said he has no information with respect to the recently exposed talks between the outlawed PKK and the National Intelligence Organization (MİT) and that he cannot confirm the validity of such talks. The talks were recently exposed when a secret voice recording of negotiations between the MİT and members of the PKK in Oslo was leaked.

The almost 50-minute voice recording revealed that MİT Undersecretary Hakan Fidan attended the meeting as the “special envoy of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.” At the time, Fidan was serving as the deputy undersecretary of the Prime Ministry and had not yet been appointed head of MİT.

Deputy Undersecretary Afet Güneş represented the intelligence organization at the meeting. Senior PKK leaders Mustafa Karasu, Sabit Ok and Zübeyr Aydar met with government representatives under the mediation of a representative from an unknown “coordinator country.”

Özel said the duty of the TSK is to fight terrorists based on orders given by those in authority, adding that it is up to the Turkish government and Parliament to conduct non-security related activities for solving the terrorism problem.

Özel also said there are no plans to dissolve Turkey's Aegean Army, ruled out any channel of communication between the Turkish and Israeli army, avoided commenting on a debate over putting the TSK under the control of the Defense Ministry, slammed Greek Cypriots for unilaterally drilling for hydrocarbons in the Eastern Mediterranean and said the Turkish military is closely monitoring developments in Syria.

 

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[Turk_Bianconero]

Mother saves dozens of lives in Bingöl suicide bombing

A woman who jumped into a suicide bomber in order to protect her children in an attack that killed two and injured 21 in Bingöl on Saturday saved the lives of dozens of people, experts say.

The attack is believed to have been carried out by the terrorist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has not denied responsibility.

The attack occurred near a Justice and Development Party (AK Party) office in the predominantly Kurdish city at 1:20 p.m. on Saturday. Details surrounding the attack began to surface Sunday, with witnesses stating that a woman who has been identified as Hatice Belgin threw herself onto the female suicide bomber, who was trying to detonate explosives strapped to her body, in order to protect her children. Belgin had been shopping in the area with her three children. Her sacrifice saved many lives, Development Minister Cevdet Yılmaz said.

Yılmaz visited Belgin's children -- Veysel (16), Ceylan (14) and Hazal (11) -- at Bingöl State Hospital on Sunday. Doctors report that Veysel remains in critical condition. After being briefed on the explosion by Governor Mustafa Hakan Güvençer, Yılmaz announced in a statement to the press that experts are still investigating the specifics of the attack. “It is possible the woman who died saved the lives of many others. Perhaps she rammed into the suicide bomber, or something else happened. These will all be known once the investigation is complete. Currently, we are guessing that this woman was shopping for the Eid al-Adha with her children. It looks like she saved the lives of many others but lost her own.”

Belgin's body was returned to Bingöl after a post-mortem examination at the Malatya Council of Forensic Medicine. She was buried at Şeyh Ahmet Cemetery following a funeral at Fatih Mosque in Bingöl's Yeşilyurt neighborhood. Minister Yılmaz, Governor Güvençer and Bingöl Mayor Serdar Atalay attended the funeral. They also visited Belgin's relatives to offer their condolences.

Yılmaz and his aides also visited the family of Mehmet Çibuk, the other person killed in the attack.
A message from the BDP

The pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) fell short of outright condemning Sunday's attack but its co-chairpersons, Selahattin Demirtaş and Gültan Kışanak, released a message expressing their sympathies to the families of the victims. “We have never condoned any acts of violence directed at ending human lives, and we never will,” said the written statement. They also called for a through investigation into the attack.

The PKK has been increasingly targeting civilians. It killed four young women in September riding in a van as it drove by a police academy. However, the PKK later issued a statement that the civilian deaths were an accident and the bomb was intended for a police car.

In Diyarbakır on Saturday, police used water cannons to disperse stone-throwing youths who were protesting that the bodies of 24 PKK militants killed in a military operation more than a week ago were still being held in a morgue in nearby Malatya province.

The Turkish military killed a total of 49 after mounting a hunt for militants along the border with northern Iraq after 24 Turkish soldiers were killed in simultaneous attacks on posts in Hakkari, Turkey's most southeasterly province.

In Hakkari on Saturday, soldiers shot a mule packed with explosives they suspect was sent towards them by militants. Their shots detonated the explosives on the animal.

There were reports on Sunday of Turkish fighter jets taking off from a military airbase in Diyarbakır and bombing parts of northern Iraq where the PKK has camps.

 

[Turk_Bianconero]

PKK ordered singer Tatlıses’ shooting, indictment claims

An indictment concerning the near-fatal drive-by shooting of singer İbrahim Tatlıses in March of this year says the attack was ordered by the terrorist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

The indictment, prepared by İstanbul Specially Authorized Prosecutor Muammer Akkaş, was forwarded to the İstanbul 17th High Criminal Court on Thursday. The document mentions 12 suspects, nine of whom are currently under arrest. The prime suspect in the case is Abdullah Uçmak, who is accused of having solicited Ersin Altun, the suspected hitman, to stage an attack that left Tatlıses seriously injured. The prosecution has established that Altun had been trained in the PKK’s Makhmour camp in northern Iraq.

Possible PKK involvement in the shooting had been suspected since the first day after the attack. An email message from Ruşen Mahmutoğlu, a PKK-affiliated lawyer, was found on Uçmak’s computer, accusing Tatlıses, himself a Kurd, of standing too close to the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) politically. In fact, Tatlıses had agreed to run as a nominee for the AK Party in the general elections, but the AK Party decided not to nominate him as his health situation remained unclear after the attack. There was also a second attempt on the singer’s life while he was undergoing treatment at Maslak’s Acıbadem Hospital.

Tatlıses -- who received several bullets to the head and had to undergo at least two brain operations -- returned last week from Germany, where he had traveled to receive physical therapy after a two-week stay at a hospital in İstanbul. No statement on his health was released after his return, but his doctors in Turkey had said prior to his departure that the singer had shown an amazing recovery, although it was too early to say whether partial paralysis of his left side would be permanent.

 

[ReBeL]

PKK ordered singer Tatlıses’ shooting, indictment claims

An indictment concerning the near-fatal drive-by shooting of singer İbrahim Tatlıses in March of this year says the attack was ordered by the terrorist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

The indictment, prepared by İstanbul Specially Authorized Prosecutor Muammer Akkaş, was forwarded to the İstanbul 17th High Criminal Court on Thursday. The document mentions 12 suspects, nine of whom are currently under arrest. The prime suspect in the case is Abdullah Uçmak, who is accused of having solicited Ersin Altun, the suspected hitman, to stage an attack that left Tatlıses seriously injured. The prosecution has established that Altun had been trained in the PKK’s Makhmour camp in northern Iraq.

Possible PKK involvement in the shooting had been suspected since the first day after the attack. An email message from Ruşen Mahmutoğlu, a PKK-affiliated lawyer, was found on Uçmak’s computer, accusing Tatlıses, himself a Kurd, of standing too close to the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) politically. In fact, Tatlıses had agreed to run as a nominee for the AK Party in the general elections, but the AK Party decided not to nominate him as his health situation remained unclear after the attack. There was also a second attempt on the singer’s life while he was undergoing treatment at Maslak’s Acıbadem Hospital.

Tatlıses -- who received several bullets to the head and had to undergo at least two brain operations -- returned last week from Germany, where he had traveled to receive physical therapy after a two-week stay at a hospital in İstanbul. No statement on his health was released after his return, but his doctors in Turkey had said prior to his departure that the singer had shown an amazing recovery, although it was too early to say whether partial paralysis of his left side would be permanent.

 

[Turk_Bianconero]

Fresh quake in Turkey's Van kills at least 7, dozens trapped

Rescue workers have pulled out 25 survivors from the rubble of three buildings, collapsed by an earthquake in eastern Turkey, the country's disaster management authority said Thursday. At least seven were killed and dozens of others trapped.

Deputy Prime Minister Beşir Atalay said Wednesday's quake toppled 25 buildings in the city of Van but only three of them were occupied since the others have been evacuated after suffering damages in last month's powerful temblor. The magnitude-5.7 quake was a grim replay of the previous magnitude-7.2 earthquake that hit Oct. 23, killing more than 600 people.

Rescue workers speeded up their search for survivors by daylight on Thursday, trying to open tunnels into the debris, CNN-Turk television reported. The workers used the glare of high-powered lights to work throughout the night despite several aftershocks.

Atalay said Thursday that the rescue work was concentrating at the site of two collapsed hotels and one apartment building. The disaster management authority said 23 survivors were pulled out along with the bodies of seven people.

One of the collapsed buildings was the Bayram Hotel, Van's best-known hotel. It was at least 40 years old, and had been renovated last year.

Some of the guests were journalists who were covering the aftermath of the previous temblor, which left thousands homeless and led a number of countries to send tents, blankets and other supplies to assist Turkey in the aid effort.

Turkey's Doğan news agency said two of its reporters were missing.

Some foreign rescue workers who scrambled to help the survivors of the previous quake were also staying at the same hotel.

Japan's Association for Aid and Relief said one of its staff members, Miyuki Konnai, who rushed to Turkey to help the victims of the previous quake, was pulled out alive from the rubble of the Bayram Hotel but another staffer, Atsushi Miyazaki, was missing.

"We spoke with her briefly, she is in a hospital at the moment," Ikuko Natori told The Associated Press by telephone from Tokyo, Japan, in reference to the 32-year-old Konnai. "She had a slight injury but it is not life threatening."

Natori, however, said they were not able to reach Miyazaki, 41, yet.

"We tried calling him on his mobile, it rings but he is not answering," said Natori.

Özgur Güneş, a cameraman for Turkey's Cihan news agency, told Haber Turk television that some trapped journalists had sent text messages to colleagues asking to be rescued.

He had left the hotel before the quake, but rushed back to collect his camera after it struck, only to find that the building toppled.

"There was dust everywhere and the hotel was flattened," he said. He told Sky Turk television that the building had some small cracks before the quake, but that he and other guests were told that there was no structural damage.

The exact number of people at the Bayram Hotel was not known but dozens are believed to be trapped, authorities said. CNN-Turk television said a number of people were also said to be waiting at an office of an inter-city bus firm under the hotel when the quake hit.

Hotel owner Aslan Bayram told NTV television that the hotel had 27 guests, about half of whom were inside when the quake hit. But he said he did not know how many customers may have been in a shop selling desserts at the entrance of the building.

Mustafa Bilici, a ruling party lawmaker, said one person died after throwing himself out of a building in panic.

Atalay said among the toppled buildings were a school and a number of mudbrick homes.

The government dispatched hundreds of rescue teams from across the country aboard military and civilian planes, NTV television said. Schools in the region are closed until Dec. 5.

The Turkish Red Crescent immediately dispatched 15,000 tents as well as some 300 rescue workers, the state-run TRT television said. There was no damage in the town of Edremit, the quake's epicenter.

The US Geological Survey said the earthquake measured 5.7 and that its epicenter was 16 kilometers (9 miles) south of Van. It struck at 9:23 p.m. (1923 GMT, 2:23 p.m. EST).

 

[AngelaL]

Two quakes in the same area! May they RIP. Glad you're not in that area, Turk! Has anyone heard from Cigdem?

 

[Martin]

Two quakes in the same area! May they RIP. Glad you're not in that area, Turk! Has anyone heard from Cigdem?

Yes, yesterday in the DP thread.

 

[Sheik Yerbouti]

And she tweets more often than post here.

 

[AngelaL]

Yes, yesterday in the DP thread.

And she tweets more often than post here.

Thanks guys!

 

[Turk_Bianconero]

Passenger ferry hijacked by PKK assailants in northwest Turkey

Assailants claiming to have a bomb hijacked a passenger ferry carrying more than 20 people in northwest Turkey, a Turkish minister said.

Transportation Minister Binali Yıldırım said there were four or five assailants on the “Kartepe” ferry, which was hijacked when it was travelling between İzmit and Gölcük in the Gulf of İzmit when it was hijacked around 5.45 pm (1545 GMT). The assailants said they were acting on behalf of a wing of the terrorist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) but did not make any demand yet, Yıldırım told private broadcaster NTV.

Earlier reports said the assailants wanted access to media.

İbrahim Karaosmanoğlu, the mayor of Kocaeli, which is located on the Gulf of İzmit, said one assailant had told the crew he was from the PKK.

"The person hijacking the ferry said he was a member of the PKK and wanted to draw attention to it in the media," Karaosmanoğlu told broadcasters.

There were 19 passengers and 6 crew on the ferry, according to Yıldırım, who said the authorities were able to contact captain of the ship. The terrorist who is with the captain says he carries a bomb, the minister also said.

Coastguard vessels are trecking the ferry as it zig-zags its way across the Sea of Marmara, east of İstanbul, Yıldırım said.

Whether the ferry has a destination is not clear. “We do not know what the destination would be. Right now, it is drawing zig-zags,” Yıldırım said.

Abdullah Öcalan, the jailed leader of the PKK, is held in a prison in an island off İstanbul.

The pro-PKK Fırat news agency, without citing sources, said the ferry was allegedly heading toward the heavily guarded prison island of İmralı, where Öcalan is serving life in prison.

Other ferry services in the Sea of Marmara were suspended as a precaution.

Yıldırım, who canceled a visit to the eastern province of Erzurum after the hijacking, said the ferry currently has enough fuel to travel 100-120 miles at full speed.

He said he was only able to receive limited information from the ferry but he had not received any communication to suggest any of the passengers had been harmed.

 

[Preet]

Mother saves dozens of lives in Bingöl suicide bombing

A woman who jumped into a suicide bomber in order to protect her children in an attack that killed two and injured 21 in Bingöl on Saturday saved the lives of dozens of people, experts say.

The attack is believed to have been carried out by the terrorist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has not denied responsibility.

The attack occurred near a Justice and Development Party (AK Party) office in the predominantly Kurdish city at 1:20 p.m. on Saturday. Details surrounding the attack began to surface Sunday, with witnesses stating that a woman who has been identified as Hatice Belgin threw herself onto the female suicide bomber, who was trying to detonate explosives strapped to her body, in order to protect her children. Belgin had been shopping in the area with her three children. Her sacrifice saved many lives, Development Minister Cevdet Yılmaz said.

Yılmaz visited Belgin's children -- Veysel (16), Ceylan (14) and Hazal (11) -- at Bingöl State Hospital on Sunday. Doctors report that Veysel remains in critical condition. After being briefed on the explosion by Governor Mustafa Hakan Güvençer, Yılmaz announced in a statement to the press that experts are still investigating the specifics of the attack. “It is possible the woman who died saved the lives of many others. Perhaps she rammed into the suicide bomber, or something else happened. These will all be known once the investigation is complete. Currently, we are guessing that this woman was shopping for the Eid al-Adha with her children. It looks like she saved the lives of many others but lost her own.”

Belgin's body was returned to Bingöl after a post-mortem examination at the Malatya Council of Forensic Medicine. She was buried at Şeyh Ahmet Cemetery following a funeral at Fatih Mosque in Bingöl's Yeşilyurt neighborhood. Minister Yılmaz, Governor Güvençer and Bingöl Mayor Serdar Atalay attended the funeral. They also visited Belgin's relatives to offer their condolences.

Yılmaz and his aides also visited the family of Mehmet Çibuk, the other person killed in the attack.
A message from the BDP

The pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) fell short of outright condemning Sunday's attack but its co-chairpersons, Selahattin Demirtaş and Gültan Kışanak, released a message expressing their sympathies to the families of the victims. “We have never condoned any acts of violence directed at ending human lives, and we never will,” said the written statement. They also called for a through investigation into the attack.

The PKK has been increasingly targeting civilians. It killed four young women in September riding in a van as it drove by a police academy. However, the PKK later issued a statement that the civilian deaths were an accident and the bomb was intended for a police car.

In Diyarbakır on Saturday, police used water cannons to disperse stone-throwing youths who were protesting that the bodies of 24 PKK militants killed in a military operation more than a week ago were still being held in a morgue in nearby Malatya province.

The Turkish military killed a total of 49 after mounting a hunt for militants along the border with northern Iraq after 24 Turkish soldiers were killed in simultaneous attacks on posts in Hakkari, Turkey's most southeasterly province.

In Hakkari on Saturday, soldiers shot a mule packed with explosives they suspect was sent towards them by militants. Their shots detonated the explosives on the animal.

There were reports on Sunday of Turkish fighter jets taking off from a military airbase in Diyarbakır and bombing parts of northern Iraq where the PKK has camps.

omg what a brave & courageous woman. R.I.P.

 

[Turk_Bianconero]

Pro-Assad protesters storm Turkish diplomatic missions, burn Turkish flag

A crowd of around a thousand attacked the Turkish embassy in Damascus on Saturday evening, throwing stones and bottles before Syrian police intervened to break up the protest, Turkey's state-run Anatolian news agency said on Sunday.

Attacks were also staged against Turkey's consulate in Aleppo and its honorary consulate in Latakia, the agency reported Turkish embassy officials in Damascus as saying.

The attacks took place hours after the Arab League suspended Syria for failing to carry out a promise to halt its armed crackdown on eight-month-old pro-democracy demonstrations and open a dialogue with its opponents.

On Saturday evening, residents in Syria said crowds armed with sticks and knives attacked the Saudi Arabian embassy in Damascus and the French and Turkish consulates in Latakia after the Arab League suspended Syria.

They said hundreds of men shouting slogans in support of President Bashar al-Assad beat a guard and broke into the Saudi embassy in Abu Rummaneh, three blocks away from Assad's offices in one of the most heavily policed areas of the capital.

Outside the Turkish embassy, protesters chanted anti-Turkey slogans, tried to climb the walls and force the gates open. Syrian police intervened using teargas to break up the protest as the demonstrators threw stones and bottles, Anatolian said.

After cultivating ties with Assad and Syria for several years, Turkey has this year robustly condemned the repression of peaceful protests, fearing Syrian violence could spill over the border if it develops a stronger ethnic or sectarian dimension.

Syrian opposition figures have met in Istanbul to forge a united front, the Syrian National Council. Turkey has also given sanctuary to Syrian military officers who have defected.

In Aleppo, demonstrators entered the consulate garden and tried to lower the Turkish flag but were prevented from doing so by consulate officials.

A group of some 5,000 gathered outside the Turkish honorary consulate in Latakia, 330 km (210 miles) north of Damascus on the Mediterranean coast, and broke windows. The officials said a Turkish flag was burned at this protest, Anatolian said.

No officials at the Turkish diplomatic missions were injured in the protests, it added.

Diplomatic sources said Turkey is evacuating most of its diplomatic personnel from its embassy in Damascus and consulate in Aleppo due to security reasons, private Cihan news agency reported. The report added the Foreign Ministry does not currently plan to recall the ambassador to Ankara.

Turkey issues diplomatic note to Syria over mission attacks

The Turkish government has delivered a diplomatic note to the Syrian government concerning attacks by pro-regime Syrian protesters on its missions in the neighboring country in the wake of the Arab League's decision to suspend Damascus.

The Syrian charge d'affaires was summoned to the Turkish Foreign Ministry on Sunday and the note was delivered to him.

A crowd of around a thousand pro-Assad protestors attacked the Turkish embassy in Damascus on Saturday evening, throwing stones and bottles before Syrian police intervened to break up the protest.

Attacks were also staged against Turkey's consulate in Aleppo and its honorary consulate in Latakia, the Anatolia news agency reported Turkish embassy officials in Damascus as saying.

Turkish Foreign Ministry also issued a travel warning to Syria on Sunday and asked citizens to avoid non-essential trips.

 

[Turk_Bianconero]

Germans ask 'how' as neo-Nazi crimes unfold

A 2000 firebomb targeting Russian Jewish immigrants at a Duesseldorf railway station. A 2004 nailbombing in a Cologne immigrant neighborhood. A 2008 fire in a Ludwigshafen apartment building that killed nine Turkish immigrants, including five children.

All unsolved crimes, and all now reopened as the possible work of a small band of neo-Nazis who allegedly killed and terrorized minorities for a decade, undetected by Germany's thousands of security authorities nationwide before they finally tripped up this month.

Chancellor Angela Merkel has vowed a thorough investigation of the group's crimes, calling them "a disgrace, shameful for Germany."

Yet many questions remain. Key among them is whether the group is responsible for deadly hate crimes beyond the 10 deaths for which they are blamed, and whether there are other members or sympathizers still at large. More broadly, the nation is asking how such a group could have been allowed to carry out these crimes undetected for so long.

The case has provoked widespread criticism that in an effort to focus on leftist and Islamic terrorism, authorities have been blind to the threat of the right.

"If this had happened in Turkey, if eight or nine Germans had been killed with the same weapon and if the murderers were not found, all European nations would be up in arms, they would declare Turkey to be a barbarian country not fit to live in," Elif Kubasik, whose husband Mehmet was killed in April 2006 in a slaying linked to the group, told Turkey's Sabah daily.

Other families of the nine known minority victims have come forward with tales of how police suspected organized crime, drugs or interethnic rivalries - anything but far-right violence. Aside from one Greek, all of these victims were of Turkish origin, and the group took responsibility for their deaths in a homemade video. The group is also believed have carried out the 2007 shooting death of a German police officer.

Authorities are now scrambling to determine whether the group was linked to other violent crimes targeting immigrants.

In the amateur DVD, the group also appeared to take credit for a 2004 bombing in the Muelheim district of Cologne, home to many Turks, in which 22 people were injured. The interior minister at the time, Otto Schily, said that attack was likely the work of "not terrorists but the criminal underworld."

Investigators are also taking a new look at a July 27, 2000, explosion at a rail station in Duesseldorf that injured 10 recent immigrants from the former Soviet Union, six of them Jewish. They have also reopened the investigation of a blaze in 2008 in the southern city of Ludwigshafen, in which five children and four adults - all ethnic Turks - died.

"We have a growing scandal," Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger told the Sueddeutsche Zeitung on Friday. "Thirty-two state police and domestic security offices have not been able to stop a series of far-right extremist murders."

Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger and Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich held a crisis meeting Friday with representatives of the law enforcement agencies to try to figure out what went wrong, and where.

Although the emphasis is on solving the crimes, they also discussed the possible restructuring of Germany's complex web of police and security agencies - a decentralized system set up in a post-World War II attempt to avoid the repeat of the Nazis' absolute consolidation of power.

"Federal prosecutors have to focus on the crime and its perpetrators," Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger said Thursday. "Politicians have to answer the question of whether the security structures in Germany can work effectively and efficiently and what changes might be needed."

The story began to unfold on Nov. 4 with a brazen daylight bank heist in the central city of Eisenach, when two masked men wearing hooded sweat shirts reportedly made off with ?70,000 ($94,360) and police tracked them to a parked mobile home.

As authorities closed in, the mobile home caught fire. After dousing the flames, they found the bodies of two men inside - Uwe Boehnhardt, 34, and Uwe Mundlos, 38 - both had been shot in the upper body in an apparent suicide committed before setting the vehicle ablaze.

Several hours later, another fire broke out in an apartment 180 kilometers (110 miles) to the east in Zwickau. The two blazes seemed unrelated, until a pair of pistols were found that linked the two and blew the entire case up, leading authorities to tie the group to the killings of the nine minority victims and the policewoman.

The policewoman's service weapon was among the charred ruins inside the mobile home. At the burned-out apartment, police found a Czech-made 7.65mm Ceska pistol, known by authorities to be the weapon used in the slaying of the minority victims.

Copies of a self-made propaganda DVD also found among the wreckage tipped police off to the group's name, the Nationalist Socialist Underground - a clear reference to the full name of the Nazis - the "National Socialist" party - and their extreme nationalist hatred. The video features pictures of the victims from the Ceska-linked killings, and included a cartoon image of the Pink Panther standing next to a sign proclaiming "Germany Tour: 9 Turks shot." The minority victims were all small businessmen, shot at close range in execution-style killings between 2000 and 2006.

Days after the two fires, 36-year-old Beate Zschaepe turned herself in to police. She has since been charged with membership in a terrorist organization for allegedly co-founding the group with Boehnhardt and Mundlos and for starting the fire in an attempt to destroy evidence.

Though the same pistol was used in all of the killings of the minorities, police could find no other leads and they remained unresolved for years.

Mehmet Kubasik was shot in the head at his greengrocer's shop in the western city of Dortmund in April 2006. Authorities now believe he was the group's eighth victim.

Yet German authorities refused to believe that the crime could have been attributed by neo-Nazis, Kubasik's widow told the Sabah daily in her native Turkey, where she was spending the religious Eid holiday last week.

"Because it could not associate itself with racism, the German government looked the other way for years. They inspected even the dust on the curtains in my home, they even suspected me, but they never considered racism," Kubasik said.

Such actions are emerging as what one expert has said was a clear tendency among authorities to trivialize the threat of right wing extremists over the last 20 years.

"The danger was not taken seriously by many of the top politicians who carry the responsibility in this country, and partially denied," said Hajo Funke, a professor at Berlin's Freie University who is among Germany's leading experts on the far-right scene.

Federal prosecutors took over the investigation on Nov. 11 under German anti-terrorism laws, looking at the group as a domestic terrorist organization.

In addition to Zschaepe, who so far has refused to make any statement to police, authorities have also arrested a man identified only as 37-year-old Holger G., and charged him with supporting a terror organization.

 

[Turk_Bianconero]

Now it is official. Mossad are killing Turkish engineers.

'ASELSAN engineer’s death not suicide’

A recent report on the cause of death of an engineer working for defense contractor ASELSAN who was found dead in his car on Aug. 7, 2006, and was declared to have committed suicide claims that the cause of death was not suicide.

The report, which was sent to the Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor's Office on Saturday following an examination of all the evidence related to the case indicates that the death of Hüseyin Başbilen was not a suicide, but a murder disguised as suicide.

The report says Başbilen tried to get out of his car, but because he was severely injured, he was unable open the door. While he was trying to extricate himself, he died from serious cuts sustained to his neck and wrist.

Based on a fingerprint examination taken at the scene of the incident, the report concluded that there had been other people in his car at the time of his death and claims that the position of a bag that was originally thought to be Başbilen's left on the backseat indicates that the bag was left there by someone else, not by Başbilen.

Başbilen's father, Vehbi Başbilen, who denied his son would have committed suicide, saying he had got married just two months prior to his death and that he had no psychological problems, requested that the Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor's Office conduct a deeper investigation into his son's death.

Upon Vehbi Başbilen's request, the case was reopened. Documents and evidence related to the case were examined further, and the Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor's Office requested that a report be drafted on the suspicious death of the engineer after the examination of the evidence.

Mechanical engineer Hüseyin Başbilen, 31, known for his contributions to important projects at ASELSAN, a defense contractor that produces technology for the Turkish military, was found dead inside a car on Pursaklar-Ayancık Street in Ankara on Aug. 7, 2006 with serious cuts to his neck and wrist. The original autopsy concluded that he had committed suicide. Loss of blood from a 20-centimeter-deep cut on the left side of his neck and another eight-centimeter cut on his wrist was cited as the cause of death.

 

[ßöмßäяðîëя]

So is Turkey the next North Korea, or what?

 

[Turk_Bianconero]

So is Turkey the next North Korea, or what?

I don't get it. If you mean nuclear weapons, it's not the case. israel loves to sell their defective stuff for much more than its worth and they don't want situation to change.

 

[JBF]

So is Turkey the next North Korea, or what?

Yeah cause Turkey is a Communist country with nuclear weapons, starving people, devided land and a dictator in charge.

Faux news doing its toll I guess..

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[swag]

So is Turkey the next North Korea, or what?

Asian Turkey is best Turkey.

 

[Fred]

I personally prefer chicken.

 

[JBF]

Lamb>Turkey>>>Chicken

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