Ferrari’s Felipe Massa won the Turkish Grand Prix from pole position for the third year in a row on Sunday after tyre concerns slowed Lewis Hamilton’s challenge. The Brazilian took the chequered flag 3,7 seconds ahead of the 23-year-old McLaren driver, who ran most of the race on the harder tyres and had to make three pit stops compared with his rival’s two.
Double world champion Fernando Alonso was upbeat about his Renault team’s prospects after a strong performance in Friday’s practice for Sunday’s Turkish Grand Prix. The Spanish former world champion was fourth in the morning and ninth in the afternoon, despite not being happy with his car’s balance.
For centuries, Istanbul lured intrepid shoppers with colourful jewellery and carpets which tumbled from shops in the ancient alleyways of the Grand Bazaar. Today, the city’s affluent young middle-class is embracing a different kind of shopping experience in giant glass-and-chrome malls.
Police battled demonstrators in Istanbul as tens of thousands of workers rallied on World Labour Day on Thursday while soaring food prices brought large crowds on to the streets of some Asian capitals. In Istanbul, police used pepper gas and water cannon to disperse workers outside Turkey’s main left-wing labour confederation.
Turkey’s top court decided on Monday to put the Islamist-rooted ruling party on trial for alleged anti-secular activity, in a case that could threaten national stability and Ankara’s bid to join the European Union. The judges of the Constitutional Court agreed to accept the indictment against the Justice and Development Party filed by the country’s top prosecutor.
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/ 29 February 2008
All Turkish troops involved in a major ground offensive against Kurdish rebels inside northern Iraq have withdrawn to Turkey, Iraq’s foreign minister said on Friday. Turkey sent thousands of troops into remote, mountainous northern Iraq on February 21 to crush rebels of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party.
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/ 28 February 2008
United States President George Bush urged Nato ally Turkey on Thursday to end its offensive against Kurdish PKK rebels in northern Iraq quickly, but Washington said it would not threaten to withdraw intelligence help. The United States fears prolonging the Turkish operation, which began on February 21, will undermine stability in the region.
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/ 28 February 2008
The Turkish army will remain in northern Iraq ”as long as necessary”, Turkish Defence Minister Vecdi Gonul said on Thursday, refusing to give a timetable for a troop withdrawal. ”Turkey will remain in northern Iraq as long as necessary,” Gonul told reporters after talks with United States Defence Secretary Robert Gates.
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/ 22 February 2008
Turkish troops have crossed into northern Iraq in their hunt for Kurdish PKK guerrillas, the military said on Friday, but the United States and the European Union urged Ankara to keep the campaign limited. The White House said the US had been informed in advance of the incursion and urged Turkey to limit the operation to ”precise targeting” of the PKK rebels.
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/ 15 February 2008
Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk has faced criminal charges and even death threats in his native Turkey, yet he refuses to be disillusioned.
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/ 9 February 2008
Turkish lawmakers were set to lift a ban on Islamic headscarves at universities on Saturday, as tens of thousands of people took to the streets to protest the move as a threat to secularism. In separate votes, an overwhelming majority of lawmakers approved two constitutional amendments that would together lift the on-campus ban.
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/ 3 February 2008
About 125 000 flag-waving Turks, mostly women, denounced the Islamic-rooted government on Saturday over its plans to lift a decades-old ban on Islamic head scarves in universities — a move the foreign minister said would expand Turkish freedoms.
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/ 31 January 2008
At least 19 people were killed and 69 were injured on Thursday when an explosion ripped through an Istanbul building that housed workshops including an illegal fireworks factory. Television footage showed debris from the building strewn through the streets of the industrial district of Davutpasa.
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/ 10 December 2007
At least 51 people drowned off the Turkish coast in one of three incidents that left at least 90 other hopeful migrants to Europe missing or presumed dead, officials said on Monday. As many as 85 people may have been aboard a 15m boat that capsized on Saturday in the Aegean Sea off the western Turkish town of Seferihisar, near Izmir.
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/ 10 December 2007
Thirty-one illegal immigrants drowned when their boat sank on the weekend in the Aegean Sea off western Turkey while trying to reach Greece, a local official said on Monday. An earlier death toll had stood at 20 people. Six other immigrants were rescued overnight off the town of Seferihisar near the city of Izmir.
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/ 1 December 2007
Turkey’s army said it entered northern Iraq on Saturday to tackle up a group of up to 60 Kurdish rebels, a day after Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan’s Cabinet authorised a cross-border operation against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). It was not clear whether the incursion was a major operation by Nato member Turkey aimed at destroying bases of the PKK.
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/ 30 November 2007
Turkey’s prime minister said on Friday his Cabinet had authorised the armed forces to conduct a cross-border operation against Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq, but analysts said major action did not appear imminent. Tayyip Erdogan’s comments seemed chiefly designed to keep up pressure on United States and Iraqi forces to honour pledges to tackle the rebels.
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/ 30 November 2007
A Turkish domestic airliner crashed in the mountains in south-west Turkey on Friday, killing all 57 people on board, officials said. The death toll, previously reported as 56, rose to 57 as a baby on the plane had not been counted, Turkish Pilots’ Association chairperson Tuna Gurel told a news conference.
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/ 30 November 2007
A Turkish airliner crashed near the town of Isparta in central Turkey on Friday, killing all 56 people on board, officials said. ”Rescue teams have reached the wreckage … There are no survivors,” the chief executive of the AtlasJet airline, Tuncay Doganer, told a televised news conference.
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/ 4 November 2007
Eight Turkish soldiers, kidnapped last month in an ambush by Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants, were released in northern Iraq, a PKK official said on Sunday. The release of the soldiers came a day after the Iraqi government vowed to hunt down Kurdish guerrilla leaders responsible for cross-border raids into Turkey.
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/ 3 November 2007
Turkey stepped up pressure on the United States to help curb attacks by Kurdish rebels from northern Iraq as a conference on Saturday of Iraq’s neighbours and major powers sought to lower cross-border tensions. The ”neighbours’ conference”, hosted by Turkey, was meant to focus on security inside Iraq but instead it is overshadowed by tensions between Turkey and Iraq.
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/ 2 November 2007
Turkey wants action and not words in dealing with Kurdish rebels based in northern Iraq, Foreign Minister Ali Babacan said on Friday during a joint press conference with United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. ”We are where words have come to an end and action must begin,” Babacan said following talks with Rice on the threat posed by fighters of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party.
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/ 1 November 2007
Turkey on Thursday stepped up pressure on northern Iraq, imposing economic sanctions over the safe haven Kurdish rebels enjoy, as Washington said it was supplying Ankara with intelligence on the separatists’ positions. "We have prepared a list of economic measures targeting the financial resources of the terrorist organisation," Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan said.
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/ 31 October 2007
The Turkish army on Wednesday said it killed 15 Kurdish separatists near the Iraqi border, as ministers discussed possible economic sanctions against Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish government. The latest fighting took place in the Cudi Mountains in Sirnak province, where helicopters and artillery have been pounding Kurdish rebels since Monday.
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/ 30 October 2007
The Turkish army pounded Kurdish rebels near the Iraqi border on Tuesday as Ankara warned that ties with Washington would suffer as long as the separatists enjoyed sanctuary in northern Iraq. Cobra helicopters fired missiles at rebel positions on the Cudi Mountains, which border Iraq, where fighting continued for a second day.
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/ 29 October 2007
Helicopter gunships went into action against rebel Kurds in eastern Turkey on Monday while the government flexed its military muscle with massive national day parades and flypasts in major cities. Turkey has massed up to 100 000 troops, backed by tanks, artillery, war planes and combat helicopters, along the Iraqi border.
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/ 28 October 2007
Turkish soldiers killed 20 Kurdish guerrillas on Sunday in a major military operation against separatist rebels in eastern Turkey, army sources said. The operation involving 8Â 000 troops backed up from the air was launched in the central-eastern province of Tunceli. The sources gave no word on army casualties.
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/ 27 October 2007
Turkish military planes scoured the Iraqi border for Kurdish rebel camps on Saturday, army sources said, after diplomatic talks in Ankara to avert a major cross-border operation into northern Iraq failed. Turkish-Iraqi talks collapsed late on Friday after Ankara rejected proposals by the Iraqi defence minister for tackling Kurdish guerrillas based in northern Iraq.
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/ 27 October 2007
Turkey on Friday rejected Iraqi proposals to stop Kurdish rebels making cross-border attacks as too little, too late and said it remained in a "constant state of alert". A visit for crisis talks to Ankara by a high-ranking Iraqi delegation led by its defence and national security ministers was "a positive effort", the Turkish Foreign Ministry said.
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/ 26 October 2007
Turkish helicopters ferried more troops to the border with Iraq on Friday as diplomatic efforts got under way in Ankara to avert a major offensive against Kurdish guerrillas based in northern Iraq. Turkey has massed up to 100 000 troops along the mountainous border before a possible cross-border operation to crush about 3 000 guerrillas of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party.
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/ 25 October 2007
President Abdullah Gul warned Kurdish rebels on Thursday that Turkey’s patience is running out after Turkish forces said they repelled a guerrilla attack near the Iraqi border. Ankara has massed up to 100 000 troops along the mountainous border before a possible cross-border operation.
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/ 24 October 2007
Turkish warplanes and troops attacked Kurdish rebels inside Iraq this week, security sources said on Wednesday, but Ankara wants to hold back from any major incursion for now and give diplomacy a chance. Turkey moved more troops to the mountainous border, keeping up pressure on Baghdad to honour promises to crack down on the rebels.