Author: Daily Sabah

Senior officials, his family, supporters and politicians paid tribute on Thursday to Turgut Özal, Türkiye’s eighth president, who died on April 17, 1993. Özal, credited with major reforms in the 1980s, died at the age of 65, reportedly from a heart attack, though the mystery over the exact cause of his demise prevails amid claims of his family that the president might have been poisoned. On the occasion of the anniversary of his death, Vice President Cevdet Yılmaz was among the names visiting the president’s grave in Istanbul, near the grave of Prime Minister Adnan Menderes, another legendary politician who…

Ankara is amused by Greek threats to “react within five minutes” against Türkiye, according to its Defense Ministry. Greece’s army chief, Dimitrios Houpis, made headlines earlier this month when he said at an economic forum that the Greek armed forces were “prepared to react within five minutes” to Türkiye, accusing the latter of what he called “revisionist tactics” regarding the maritime boundaries. NATO allies Greece and Türkiye have long-standing disputes over boundaries in the Aegean Sea and Eastern Mediterranean that have brought them close to war several times in recent decades. “You cannot expect us to respond to statements that…

“We will preserve our will to realize the terror-free Türkiye initiative with resolve and sensitivity,” President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said as he addressed prospective recruits of the Turkish army on Thursday. “Terror-free” Türkiye refers to an initiative launched last year by Devlet Bahçeli, leader of the government’s ally, the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP). The initiative led to the PKK terrorist group’s jailed leader, Abdullah Öcalan, calling on the group to lay down arms and dissolve in February. The PKK has killed thousands since the 1980s across Türkiye, and despite counterterrorism campaigns, it has remained a major terrorism threat for years.…

Since Dec. 9, more than 175,000 Syrians returned to their country, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya announced on Wednesday. The number increased the figure of Syrian refugees returning to Türkiye’s southern neighbor between 2017 and 2025 to 915,515 people. Yerlikaya said the total number of Syrian refugees in Türkiye was more than 2.7 million. Overall, around 400,000 Syrians have returned from neighboring countries since Assad’s fall, according to the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR. The agency also says more than 1 million Syrians displaced within their country by the conflict have also returned to their homes. Türkiye encourages the return of Syrians…

The first hearing of a lawsuit to annul the Republican People’s Party’s (CHP) 2023 ordinary congress, which could result in the appointment of a government trustee, is set to begin in Ankara on Thursday, Turkish media reported. The lawsuit, filed by a former CHP mayor and other delegates, seeks to cancel the party’s 38th Ordinary Congress held on Nov. 4-5, 2023, in which Chairperson Özgür Özel allegedly “bought” supporters to oust his predecessor, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, in an intraparty election held at the congress. The CHP in its response to the court dismissed the allegations that delegates were made to vote…

The climate that has emerged in Türkiye for peace is a historic opportunity to strengthen regional stability, according to Nechirvan Barzani, the president of Iraq’s Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG). “We see the developments taking place for facilitating peace,” Barzani told reporters at a forum in Sulaymaniyah in northern Iraq on Wednesday. He was referring to the recent “terror-free Türkiye initiative” launched last year by government ally Devlet Bahçeli, who called on PKK terrorists to lay down arms. “We would like to reiterate that we welcome this process and provide all the support we can for its success. This is an…

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan will travel to Italy on April 29 to meet with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and attend a business forum, according to a Turkish business association. Erdoğan and Meloni will chair the fourth Türkiye-Italy Intergovernmental Summit and attend the Italy-Türkiye Business Forum in Rome on the same day, the Foreign Economic Relations Board (DEIK) said in an announcement on its website. The visit has yet to be confirmed by the Turkish Presidency. Rumors surfaced several times in recent weeks about a possible Erdoğan trip to Italy, but none were confirmed. DEIK alleged the two leaders will address…

A global network that served child abuse images to hundreds of thousands of members in the dark web, known as the internet’s dark side, was dismantled following months of intense efforts by cybercrime experts in the U.S. The operation led to the arrest of eight individuals, and 1.2 million videos were seized. The leader of the gang, identified as “John De Vil,” turned out to be Mehmet Berk Bozüyük, a married father of two from Adana, southern Türkiye. The site, which could be accessed via special internet servers for $100, provided access to the illegal internet network known as the…

Turkish authorities captured 89 suspects linked to the Daesh terrorist group in countrywide operations, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya announced Wednesday. The operations were conducted in Antalya, Batman, Denizli, Elazığ, Eskişehir, Gaziantep, Hatay, Istanbul, Kahramanmaraş, Kırıkkale, Kilis, Malatya, Osmaniye, Sakarya, Şanlıurfa, Van and Yozgat provinces. The suspects are charged with membership in the terrorist group, Yerlikaya said. “We uninterruptedly continue our operations against terrorist organizations to ensure the peace and stability of our people,” he added. Turkish authorities have intensely targeted Daesh cells with operations dubbed “Gürz,” detaining at least 943 suspects in 2024 alone. Since the 2019 collapse of the…

Deputy Parliament Speaker Sırrı Süreyya Önder is in intensive care after a lengthy surgery in the aftermath of a heart attack on Tuesday, officials said on Wednesday. Önder was hospitalized in Istanbul and his People’s Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) announced that the lawmaker suffered from a rupture in his aorta after a heart attack in his residence. Officials of the hospital said Önder was still at vital risk after a surgery that lasted for about 12 hours. The lawmaker announced his health problems last year, citing suffering from a brain clot and subsequent diagnosis of a tumor in…