President Tayyip Erdogan will visit the United States on Nov. 13 at the invitation of U.S. President Donald Trump, a White House spokesman said on Tuesday. Trump said Erdogan was visiting as his "guest" in a series of tweets earlier on Tuesday defending his decision this week to withdraw U.S. forces from northern Syria in a move critics said opens the way for Turkish attack on U.S.-allied Kurds. (Reporting by Makini Brice and Susan Heavey)
Türkiye in International Media
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says Türkiye wants to continue helping the Balkan countries solve their long-standing problems through dialogue and cooperation. Erdogan said Monday in Belgrade that Türkiye will continue to play a "constructive role" in boosting stability in the Balkans where it maintains historic influence stemming from the centuries-long Ottoman rule. Erdogan is on a two-day visit to Serbia during which Türkiye, Serbia and Bosnia will inaugurate the start of work on a key regional highway linking Belgrade and Bosnia's capital Sarajevo. Türkiye has close relations with the Bosniaks —who are mainly...
President Tayyip Erdogan and U.S. President Donald Trump discussed Türkiye's plans to establish a "safe zone" east of the Euphrates River in Syria in a phone call on Sunday, but the White House said U.S. forces would not be involved. The Turkish presidency said after the call that Erdogan and Trump had agreed to meet in Washington next month, following an invitation by the U.S. president. The call came a day after Erdogan said a military incursion into northeastern Syria was imminent, after Ankara accused Washington of stalling efforts to establish a "safe zone" there together. ...
Türkiye will mount a military operation in northeast Syria, it said on Saturday, after accusing Washington of not doing enough to expel Syrian Kurdish fighters from its border. The air and ground operation east of the Euphrates river in Syria could start at any time, President Tayyip Erdogan said. The U.S.-backed force which controls the region, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) led by the Kurdish YPG militia, said it wanted stability but vowed to respond to any attack. "We will not hesitate to turn any unprovoked attack by Türkiye into an all-out war on...
President Tayyip Erdogan said on Saturday that Türkiye ey will carry out a military air and ground operation east of the Euphrates in Syria, where Ankara and Washington have yet to establish a planned 'safe zone'. "We've made our preparations, we've made our operation plans, given the necessary instructions," Erdogan said, adding that Türkiye would carry out air and ground actions and these could start "as soon as today or tomorrow". The United States has agreed to jointly establish a safe zone on the Syrian border, but Ankara has said it is not satisfied with progress...
Türkiye’s state-run news agency says top Turkish and Greek ministers have met to discuss migration policies amid a spike in migrant arrivals in Greece over the summer. Anadolu Agency said Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu met with Giorgos Koumoutsakos, Greece’s migration minister, on Thursday in Ankara. Soylu is scheduled to hold a separate meeting with his French and German counterparts to discuss a 2016 European Union-Türkiye migration agreement and ways of assisting Greece cope with the increased arrivals. The meetings follow threats by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that Türkiye could “open the gates” and...
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan expressed his readiness to act alone in northeast Syria and retake areas from American-backed Kurdish forces, saying that efforts to defuse the threat they pose to Türkiye have failed. “We may suddenly arrive one night,” Erdogan told reporters after a speech to parliament in Ankara on Tuesday, referring to a possible cross-border offensive in northeast Syria. “We have tried every means, with great patience, to solve this problem together with our allies.” Erdogan spoke a day after Türkiye vowed to take further steps to protect its national security and create a buffer...
By Laura Pitel Türkiye has set an ambitious growth target of 5 per cent for next year, although some analysts have questioned what they said were contradictory projections in the government’s new economic plan. Berat Albayrak, the country’s Treasury and finance minister, promised a return to the fast-paced economic growth of previous years from 2020 onwards, after a slump that followed last summer’s plunge in the value of the Turkish lira. Mr Albayrak lowered his growth forecast for 2019 to 0.5 per cent, which most analysts said was far more realistic than the previous target of 2.3 per cent. However,...
Days ahead of the anniversary of the grisly slaying of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Monday that his country will press ahead with efforts to shed light on the killing. In a Washington Post op-ed, Erdogan described the journalist's killing by a Saudi hit squad as "arguably the most influential and controversial incident of the 21st century" and blamed the murder on a "shadow state within the kingdom's government — not the Saudi state or people." The Turkish leader wrote: "We will keep asking the same questions... Where are Khashoggi's remains? Who signed the Saudi journalist's...