Western and regional powers boosted Libyan rebels battling Muammar Gaddafi by designating them as the country’s legitimate rulers.
A favourite of royals seeking luxury, writers looking for the muse and undercover spies, Pera Palace has reopened after a major facelift.
Turkey pressured Israel on Monday to accept an international inquiry into a deadly raid on Gaza-bound aid ships.
French businessmen in Turkey are bracing for a vote in their country’s National Assembly this Thursday that could prove disastrous for trade. France’s Socialists have stirred up a very sore point in relations with Turkey over an issue that dates back to World War I, when hundreds of thousands of Armenians perished.
Turkey’s Health Minister, Recep Akdag, on a visit on Monday to the eastern town of Dogubeyazit, home of Turkey’s first bird-flu deaths, was mobbed by residents who accuse the government of neglecting them because they are Kurds. Akdag tried to assure the area’s majority Kurdish population that Ankara has not abandoned them.
Turkish authorities faced strong criticism on Friday for starting up a fast-train service on decade-old tracks, after 36 people perished in one of the country’s worst railway disasters. One of the new fast trains derailed on Thursday evening near the town of Pamukova, its five carriages overturning and crashing into each other.