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“We understand Turkey’s security concerns very well,” Hossein Amir-Abdollahian told reporters after talks in Ankara with his Turkish counterpart Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu.

“We understand that… maybe a special operation might be needed,” he added. “Turkey’s security concerns must be tackled fully and permanently.”

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has warned over the past few weeks that he may soon launch a new offensive in Syria against Kurdish fighters waging an insurgency against the Turkish state.

These include the US-backed Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), which formed a crucial part of an international coalition against the Islamic State jihadist group.

Both Washington and Moscow have called for restraint from Turkey.

But Erdoğan has said he expects Turkey’s allies to “understand and respect” the proposed military campaign.

He said on Monday that the offensive would begin “as soon as our preparations are finished”.

Iran is a major ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and an important trading partner for Turkey.

The two sides’ relations were rocked earlier this month by the arrest of eight people Turkey alleges worked for an Iranian assassination team scoping out Israeli targets in Istanbul.

The two ministers did not directly address the arrests in their prepared remarks.

Turkey has launched a string of offensives in Syria since 2016 targeting Kurdish militias as well as Islamic State group jihadists and forces loyal to Assad.

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The former leader of the UK’s Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, who currently serves as a member of the British parliament, has described an ongoing post-coup crackdown on free speech and government critics in Turkey as “utterly wrong,” calling on the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) to take action on the rights violations stemming from the crackdown.

Corbyn answered Turkish Minute’s questions after giving a speech in support of hundreds of victims of Turkey’s post-coup crackdown as well as activists, joined by EU parliamentarians, who gathered in front of the court in Strasbourg on Friday to protest rights violations in Turkey and ask the ECtHR to take swift action against them.

The top European human rights reviewing body is accused by victims of human rights violations in Turkey that culminated after an abortive putsch in 2016, when the government launched a crackdown on non-loyalist citizens under the pretext of an anti-coup fight, of not expeditiously processing applications from the victims or of issuing rulings in favor of the Turkish government in some cases.

“I’ve been a representative of many Turkish and Kurdish people in my constituency for a very long time. I’m also a friend of the unions, the trade unions, in Turkey. The crackdown on free speech, the crackdown on unions, the crackdown on professionals, the crackdown on journalists is utterly wrong. And the European Court of Human Rights ought to act. Turkey is a signatory to the European Convention on Human Rights and should adhere to it,” Corbyn said, responding to a question about his views on Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s post-coup crackdown.

Corbyn addressed the crowd gathered in front of the ECtHR building in Strasbourg, and called on people to unite in the face of oppression.

“Human rights know no borders,” Corbyn said.

Answering a question about his thoughts on the protest, Corbyn said: “I want human rights for all. That means the right to know, the right to free speech, the right to assembly and the rights of journalists to be able to work without being threatened with imprisonment. And I concluded my speech with a call for the freedom for Julian Assange, because of everything he’s done to try and bring about peace in the world. To me, this is about universal human rights. And I’m pleased to have been here today.”

Corbyn said Turkey’s Western allies prioritize a military relationship with Turkey and thus are very cautious about addressing the rights violations in the country.

“If human rights are to mean anything, they have to be universal, and you have to implement human rights law, whatever the consequences in every country,” he said.

Corbyn also talked about a decision by the UK government, announced in December, to lift a ban on the sale of military equipment to Turkey that was put in place after Ankara’s successive military operations against Syrian Kurds, and said the move was a mistake.

Ismail Demir, Turkey’s chief defense industry officer, announced in May that the UK had completely lifted all the restrictions on the export of defense products to Turkey that were brought in following Ankara’s 2019 offensive on northeast Syria.

“I think it was a mistake to lift the arms ban. But I also think that we need to have much more control over the arms trade around the world. The arms trade is often the driver of conflict, not the solver of conflicts,” Corbyn said.

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The İstanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office recently ordered the detention of 20 lawyers, accusing them of ties to the movement based on payphone call records and affiliation with Bank Asya, which was closed by the government following a 2016 coup attempt due to its links to the Gülen movement and other associations connected to the group.

Seventeen of them were detained in operations simultaneously carried out in İstanbul, Ankara and Bursa provinces on Friday, Bold Medya said, adding that the police also seized their computers, mobile phones and books, claiming they were terrorism-related documents.

The Turkish government accuses the faith-based Gülen movement of masterminding the coup attempt on July 15, 2016 and labels it a “terrorist organization,” although the movement strongly denies involvement in the coup attempt or any terrorist activity.

The so-called “payphone investigations” are based on call records. The prosecutors assume that a member of the Gülen movement used the same payphone to call all his contacts consecutively. Based on that assumption, when an alleged member of the movement is found in call records, it is assumed that other numbers called right before or after that call also belong to people with Gülen links.

Turkey’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) government launched a war on the Gülen movement after the corruption investigations of December 17-25, 2013 that implicated then-prime minister and current president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s family members and inner circle.

Dismissing the investigations as a Gülenist coup and conspiracy, the AKP government designated the movement as a terrorist organization and began to target its members. The government intensified the crackdown following the coup attempt.

Following the abortive putsch, the Turkish government declared a state of emergency and carried out a massive purge of state institutions under the pretext of an anti-coup fight. More than 130,000 public servants, including 4,156 judges and prosecutors, as well as 29,444 members of the armed forces were summarily removed from their jobs for alleged membership in or relationships with “terrorist organizations” by emergency decree-laws subject to neither judicial nor parliamentary scrutiny.

A total of 319,587 people have been detained and 99,962 arrested in operations against supporters of the Gülen movement since the coup attempt, Turkey’s Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu said in November.

In addition to the thousands who were jailed, scores of other Gülen movement followers had to flee Turkey to avoid the government crackdown.

TurkishMinute

Thousands of victims of a purge carried out by the government in the aftermath of a failed coup in Turkey in 2016 as well as activists and EU parliamentarians are expected to gather in front of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in Strasbourg on Friday to protest rights violations in Turkey and ask the ECtHR to take swift action against them.

The ECtHR is accused by the victims of human rights violations in Turkey that culminated after a failed coup in 2016, when the government launched a crackdown on non-loyalist citizens under the pretext of an anti-coup fight, of not expeditiously processing applications from the victims or of issuing rulings in favor of the Turkish government in some cases.

Friday’s protest is being organized by the Peaceful Actions Platform, an umbrella organization consisting of 24 civil society groups. The protest will be aired live by MC EU TV and the Peaceful Actions Platform YouTube channel.

Yasemin Aydın, coordinator of the platform, told Bold Medya in an interview that the ECtHR is turning a blind eye to the human rights violations taking place in Turkey under the rule of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and just idly watching the violations happening every day.

Aydın accused the ECtHR of remaining silent regarding the rights violations faced by followers of the Gülen movement, in particular, accused by the Turkish government of masterminding the failed coup on July, 15 2016.

The Gülen movement, inspired by the views of Turkish cleric Fethullah Gülen, is accused by the Turkish government and Erdoğan of masterminding the coup attempt and is labeled a “terrorist organization,” although the movement denies involvement in the coup attempt or any terrorist activity.

“The number of victims has reached into the hundreds of thousands. Such rights violations are regarded as crimes against humanity by United Nations working groups. But the ECtHR is silent,” Aydın said, adding that the goal of the protest is to ask the rights court the reason for its silence.

Some European parliamentarians such as Rampi Roberto (Italy) and Thorhildur Sunna Aevarsdottir (Iceland), both members of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), will also extend their support to the protestors and will deliver speeches. Members of the European Parliament Marie Arena (Belgium), Costas Mavrides (Greece) and Pierrette Herzberger Fofona (Germany), PACE members Catarina Rocha Ferreria (Portugal), Hannah Bardell (UK), former Turkish soccer player Hakan Şükür and former NBA player Enes Kanter will take part in the protest via video messages.

Şükür and Kanter, who are both outside Turkey, are among the victims of the crackdown on the Gülen movement due to their affiliation with the group and face prison sentences on bogus terrorism charges.

Following the abortive putsch, the Turkish government declared a state of emergency and carried out a massive purge of state institutions under the pretext of an anti-coup fight. More than 130,000 public servants, including 4,156 judges and prosecutors, as well as 29,444 members of the armed forces were summarily removed from their jobs for alleged membership in or relationships with “terrorist organizations” by emergency decree-laws subject to neither judicial nor parliamentary scrutiny.

A total of 319,587 people have been detained and 99,962 arrested in operations against supporters of the Gülen movement since the coup attempt, Turkey’s Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu said in November.

In addition to the thousands who were jailed, scores of other Gülen movement followers had to flee Turkey to avoid the government crackdown.

Some of these people had to take illegal and risky journeys in dinghies to Greece because their passports had been revoked by the government.

TurkishMinute

A wildfire in southwestern Turkey was largely contained on Wednesday, Forestry Minister Vahit Kirişçi said, after scenes of burning woodland reminded Turks of blazes last year that devastated tens of thousands of hectares across the region, Reuters reported.

Aerial footage from forestry authorities earlier showed smoke billowing as fire spread through a forest in the sparsely populated area, fanned by strong winds.

Firefighters battled to extinguish the wildfire from air and land, officials said. The cause of the fire, which began around 8 pm (1700 GMT) on Tuesday, remained unclear.

The Turkish government and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan attracted widespread criticism over their poor response and inadequate preparedness for large-scale wildfires that ravaged the country’s southern and western coasts last summer, claiming the lives of eight people and thousands of animals, also destroying large swathes of forestland.

The harsh criticism by opposition figures and the public targeting Turkish authorities centered around Erdoğan’s inaction and the small number of firefighting planes actively used to respond to fires.

TurkishMinute

Respondents in only eight member states had a positive view of Turkey, with the highest level of 56 percent seen in Latvia.

The results of the survey, commissioned by the European Parliament (EP), were recently released in a report titled “EP Spring 2022 Survey: Rallying around the European flag | Democracy as anchor point in times of crisis.”

According to the survey, which asks about EU citizens’ views of China, Russia, the US, the UK, India and Turkey, 65 percent of Europeans have the most positive image of the United Kingdom, followed by the US (58 percent), India (38 percent), Turkey (28 percent), China (22 percent) and Russia (10 percent).

India enjoys a better image than Turkey, which has a small percentage of positive views, especially in Sweden (12 percent), Cyprus (9 percent) and Greece (4 percent), the report said, adding that a majority of respondents have a positive view of Turkey in eight member states, with the highest levels seen in Latvia (56 percent), Romania (55 percent), Croatia and Lithuania (both 52 percent).

The socio-demographic analysis further showed that the younger the respondent, the more likely they are to have a positive view of Turkey — with 38 percent of 15-24 year-olds viewing Turkey favorably compared to 22 percent of those aged 55 and older.

Students (36 percent) and manual laborers (33 percent) are the most likely to have a positive view of Turkey, particularly compared to retirees (21 percent), the report said, adding that respondents with a positive view of the EU (31 percent) are slightly more likely to also have a positive view of Turkey than those with a neutral (26 percent) or negative (23 percent) perception of it.

The survey results further revealed that there is also a small difference between respondents who do not follow the news related to the war in Ukraine (31 percent) compared to those who do follow such news (27 percent).

Meanwhile, when asked whether they had a positive or a negative view of Turkey, 60 percent of respondents said they had a negative view and some 12 percent answered, “I don’t know.”

TurkishMinute

There were conflicting reports about the exact number of military cadets who would be released from prison. Some reports said it was 71 while others said 66 or 67 cadets would be released from prison following the top court’s decision.

A large crowd of people including family members gathered at İstanbul’s notorious Silivri Prison on Tuesday night where most political prisoners are jailed to welcome the released cadets.

The air force cadets said on the night of the coup attempt, which claimed the lives of 251 people and was suppressed overnight, they were taken to İstanbul in buses from Yalova and that they did not know they were part of a coup attempt.

Among the former cadets released on Tuesday night was Furkan Çetinkaya, 26. Çetinkaya’s mother, Melek, has become famous due to her campaign for the release of the military cadets whom she said were jailed on bogus charges. The woman, who has staged numerous street protests for the release of the cadets, has been detained numerous times and even jailed for two months in 2020 on charges of disseminating terrorist propaganda and praising a criminal.

“I will continue to fight until I get all my sons in prison back,” tweeted Melek Çetinkaya after a posting a photo of herself with her son Furkan following his release from prison.

A platform defending the rights of jailed military cadets, the Military Cadets Committee, tweeted on Wednesday that they were experiencing bittersweet joy due to the release of some of the jailed military cadets on Tuesday night.

“As we said at the beginning, we will be here until the last cadet is released from jail. We will continue to fight against injustice. Nobody should doubt it,” the platform tweeted.

Furkan and the other cadets were initially handed down aggravated life sentences by the court on charges of violating the constitution, but their sentences were later reduced to life in prison for good behavior during the trial.

During their trial, the cadets denied taking part in the coup attempt and said they were only acting on orders from their superiors, who told them there was a terrorist attack.

The cadets said the only surprising thing on July 15, 2016 was an unplanned morning visit by then-Air Forces Commander Gen. Abidin Ünal to their training camp in Yalova.

Turkish media reported claims that during a speech to cadets in Yalova on July 15, Ünal underlined the importance of carrying out the orders of their commanders.

Columnist Ahmet Nesin wrote on the Artıgerçek news website that during his unplanned visit Ünal told the commander of the camp to cancel all training activities in the afternoon: “He told the commander ‘Don’t tire the boys out; they’ll get tired this evening’.”

A total of 259 military cadets were detained on coup charges on July 16, 2016 and were arrested four days later. The cadets were indicted a year after they were put in pretrial detention, and their trial was concluded in 2018. One hundred seventy-eight of the cadets were given life sentences on charges of attempting to overturn the constitutional order and attempting to overthrow the government and parliament by use of force as well as membership in a terrorist organization.

Immediately after the abortive putsch, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government along with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan pinned the blame on the faith-based Gülen movement. The movement strongly denies any involvement.

TurkishMinute

An Ankara court has blocked access to online news stories on 257 websites that in March covered the dismissal of five prosecutors by Turkey’s Council of Judges and Prosecutors (HSK) over their alleged affiliation with the Gülen movement, a faith-based group accused by Ankara of masterminding an attempted coup in 2016, the ANKA news agency reported on Tuesday.

According to ANKA, one of the prosecutors, who was later reinstated, demanded that the Ankara Nallıhan High Criminal Court block access to the news stories since the “hurtful and traumatic” content relating to private life that can be accessed at any time “harmed” his honor and dignity and “adversely affected” his business and social life, a demand rejected by the court on June 2.

The prosecutor then appealed the decision on June 10, and the Ankara Batı 2nd Penal Court agreed to his demand, blocking access to news stories on 257 websites, including those of the state-run TRT and the pro-government Anadolu news agency.

The court saiid in the decision that the applicant’s request was accepted since the news reports about him “lost their value of reality and actuality” after he was reinstated on May 12.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been targeting followers of the Gülen movement, inspired by US-based Turkish Muslim cleric Fethullah Gülen, since the corruption investigations of December 17-25, 2013, which implicated then-Prime Minister Erdoğan, his family members, and his inner circle.

Dismissing the investigations as a Gülenist coup and conspiracy against his government, Erdoğan designated the movement as a terrorist organization and began to target its members. He intensified the crackdown on the movement following an abortive putsch on July 15, 2016 that he accused Gülen of masterminding. Gülen and the movement strongly deny involvement in the coup attempt or any terrorist activity.

Following the abortive putsch, the Turkish government declared a state of emergency and carried out a massive purge of state institutions under the pretext of an anti-coup fight. More than 130,000 public servants, including 4,156 judges and prosecutors, as well as 29,444 members of the armed forces were summarily removed from their jobs for alleged membership in or relationships with “terrorist organizations” by emergency decree-laws subject to neither judicial nor parliamentary scrutiny.

A total of 319,587 people have been detained and 99,962 arrested in operations against supporters of the Gülen movement since the coup attempt, Turkey’s Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu said in November.

In addition to the thousands who were jailed, scores of other Gülen movement followers had to flee Turkey to avoid the government crackdown.

TurkishMinute

The meeting in İstanbul would be preceded by a visit to Moscow by a Turkish defense delegation this week, NTV television and CNN Turk cited Turkish presidential sources as saying.

Millions of tons of wheat and other grains are currently stuck in Ukrainian ports, either blockaded or occupied by Russian forces, and vessels face the danger of mines.

According to the Turkish foreign ministry, the UN has submitted a plan to facilitate exports that would see safe corridors set up around known mines.

The plan would not require lengthy and complex demining operations, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said last week.

The initiative has been backed by the European Union but received a cautious response from Kyiv, which is looking for ways to export the grain by land, without talking to the Russians.

Çavuşoğlu this month hosted his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Ankara to discuss the issue, but without conclusive results.

The Turkish reports did not specify who would attend next week’s meeting.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan discussed grain deliveries with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday.

Turkey is “exerting joint efforts with the United Nations for the export of Ukrainian grain via the Black Sea in a bid to avert a global food crisis,” Erdoğan’s office said on Tuesday.

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The femicide case, closely followed by women’s rights groups, concerns the brutal killing of 27-year-old university student Pınar Gültekin, who went missing in Turkey’s southwestern Aegean province of Muğla on July 16, 2020. Five days later, the woman was found dead in a forest.

Forensic investigations revealed that Gültekin was strangled and then set on fire by her ex-boyfriend, Cemal Metin Avcı, who confessed to the murder.

The Muğla 3rd High Criminal Court, which heard the trial concerning the murder of Gültekin, who was among at least 300 women killed in Turkey in 2020, according to the We Will Stop Femicide Platform, first handed down an aggravated life sentence to Avcı on charges of premeditated murder. But the court later ruled to reduce his sentence to 23 years based on Article 29 of the Turkish Penal Code (TCK), which is often used to reduce sentences for men accused of such crimes on the grounds that the victim provoked the murder with her actions.

Turkish courts are often accused of interpreting laws leniently in cases of gender-based violence. They also reduce sentences for men based on “good conduct” in the courtroom, which is at the discretion of the judge.

Avcı’s family members who faced up to five years in prison for aiding and abetting, helping to cover his tracks and concealing evidence of the crime, have been acquitted of the charges.

The court’s decision led to outrage among Gültekin’s family members and the women rights groups following the trial.

Lawyer Rezan Epözdemir, who represented the slain woman’s family, said “Justice and law have died in Muğla today” after the announcement of the court’s decision.

“She was set alight and then buried. All the evidence [related to the murder] was destroyed. The court gave credit to a fictional defense that nobody believed and let the [defendant] benefit from supposed provocation,” said Epözdemir.

Gültekin’s mother Şefika said her daughter suffered a horrific death and that she will never find the sentence given to the killer adequate.

The gruesome murder took place as the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) was considering withdrawing from the İstanbul Convention.

Despite opposition from the international community and women’s rights groups, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan issued a decree in March 2021 that pulled the country out of the international treaty, which requires governments to adopt legislation prosecuting perpetrators of domestic violence and similar abuse as well as marital rape and female genital mutilation.

The Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence, better known as the Istanbul Convention, is an international accord designed to protect women’s rights and prevent domestic violence in societies and was opened to the signature of member countries of the Council of Europe in 2011.

Femicides and violence against women are serious problems in Turkey, where women are killed, raped or beaten every day. Many critics say the main reason behind the situation is the policies of the AKP government, which protects violent and abusive men by granting them impunity.

According to the We Will Stop Femicide Platform, 280 women were murdered in Turkey in 2021.

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