Türkiye is not satisfied with talks with the United States on establishing a "safe zone" in northern Syria and will act alone if there is no progress, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Friday. Ankara has repeatedly threatened to act against the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia, which it deems a terrorist group, unless its NATO ally removes the fighters from a 480-km (300-mile) long area on the Syrian side of its border. "We are not pleased with the current state of efforts and we have conveyed this to the Americans very clearly," Cavusoglu told reporters after the U...
Türkiye in International Media
Türkiye's draft plan for a construction project to settle 1 million Syrian refugees in a "safe zone" in northeast Syria would cost around 151 billion lira ($27 billion), state broadcaster TRT Haber said on Friday. President Tayyip Erdogan set out plans for the project in a speech at the United States General Assembly this week, holding up a map to show the zone which Türkiye wants to set up with the United States, and where it says the refugees would be housed. Türkiye has pushed for the 20-mile (32 km) deep "safe zone" to be established along more than 400...
President Tayyip Erdogan met President Donald Trump at a reception in New York on Wednesday, the last day of a trip to attend the U.N. General Assembly that Erdogan had said would include meeting Trump to discuss buying U.S. Patriot missiles. Türkiye's presidency said on Twitter that Erdogan had attended the reception and provided a picture showing the Turkish leader and his wife Emine with Trump and first lady Melania. It gave no other details and did not say whether the two leaders only met or also had talks. Turkish markets have been watching Erdogan's trip closely...
President Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday said nuclear power should either be free for all states or banned completely, and warned that the "inequality" between states who have nuclear power and who do not undermines global balances. Türkiye signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty in 1980, and has also signed the 1996 Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, which bans all nuclear detonations for any purpose. Erdogan has hinted in the past that he wanted he same protection for Türkiye as Israel, which foreign analysts say possesses a sizable nuclear arsenal. Israel maintains a policy of ambiguity around the nuclear issue, refusing to...
Senator Lindsey Graham, one of President Donald Trump’s closest Congressional allies, met Türkiye’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in an effort to mend an alliance most recently strained by Ankara’s purchase of a Russian missile defense system. “We’re trying to get them back in the F-35 program,” Graham said in New York on Sunday. The U.S. has locked Türkiye out of a program for advanced F-35 fighter jets to punish it for buying Russian S-400 missiles that Washington says could compromise intelligence gathered by American aircraft. Erdogan met with Graham ahead of a...
Türkiye is ready to act on its southern border with Syria, President Tayyip Erdogan said, after warning that it could take unilateral steps if the U.S. does not establish a "safe zone" in northeast Syria this month. "Our preparations along our borders are complete," Erdogan told reporters in Istanbul on Saturday before departing to attend a U.N. General Assembly meeting. NATO allies Türkiye and the U.S. have started joint land and air patrols along part of the border strip, but Ankara says Washington is moving too slowly to establish a sufficiently large safe...
The leaders of Türkiye, Russia and Iran meeting in Ankara on Monday agreed to try to ease tensions in northwest Syria's Idlib region, but disagreements between the countries appeared to linger, especially over the threat from Islamic State. The summit of the three countries - all of whom have allies fighting in Syria's ruinous eight-year-old war - aimed to find a lasting truce in Syria. Recent attacks by Syrian government forces risk deepening regional turmoil and pushing a new wave of migrants towards Türkiye. "We are in a period when we need to take more responsibility for peace...
The leaders of Russia, Iran and Türkiye are meeting in Ankara to discuss the Syrian conflict. Topping the agenda of Monday's meeting is the volatile situation in northwestern Idlib province — the last rebel stronghold in Syria. A cease-fire that went into effect there at the end of August, following a wide four-month offensive by government forces, has been holding despite some violations that left six people dead last week. The conflict in Idlib has raised the possibility of a mass refugee flow toward Türkiye's border. Türkiye already hosts 3.6 million Syrian refugees. The meeting is...
President Tayyip Erdogan said he will discuss buying U.S. Patriot missiles with President Donald Trump this month, saying his personal bond with the U.S. leader could overcome a crisis caused by Ankara buying Russian air defence systems. Türkiye's purchase of the Russian S-400 missile system in July raised the prospect of U.S. sanctions, and the State Department has said an offer to sell Raytheon Co's Patriot missile defence system to Ankara has expired. However Erdogan told Reuters he had discussed buying Patriots in a phone call with Trump two weeks ago and would follow up when...