This makes sense when considering the EU is, as a part of its “action plan” with Turkey, set to receive “visa liberalisation” with European Member States by 2016.
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Other Kurds pay $300 to $600 for rides from Istanbul to the 80-mile Turkish-Greek border, then they cross into Greece in small boats.
Those peace talks, the work of two years, went up in flames after the Suruc bombing. Factions between Turkish nationalists and ethnic Kurds have deepened, leading to vandalism and violence. One of the bombers has been identified in the press as Yunus Emre Alagoz, the brother of the suicide bomber responsible for the earlier Suruc attack.
In an interview with CNN worldwide, the head of the pro-Kurdish opposition party, Selahattin Demirtas, accused the government of turning a “blind eye” to ISIS’ activities.
Those subject to arrest include any member of a proscribed organization (three to five years of heavy imprisonment), anyone who aids members of such as organization (one to five years of imprisonment), and any one who propagandizes in behalf of such an organization.
The October. 10 double suicide attack in the heart of the Turkish capital, Ankara, which killed more than 100 people at a peace rally, is the most potent example of how Syria’s war is affecting Turkey’s citizens and its politics. But they were allowed to continue serving-up their deadly brew.
Several families say they approached authorities expressing concern their relatives were embracing radical Islam and may have gone to Syria.
Accusations of government incompetence – and even collusion leveled by a few pro-Kurdish leaders – hurt the party’s standing among swing voters.
“The prime minister’s office building is there, all of the important institutions are in that very center and there are intelligence officers who are protecting them”, she said. In July, he intervened in coalition talks between the AKP and the main opposition party, Republican Peoples Party (CHP), leading to their collapse. This leaves Turkey with no functioning government, potentially violent political conflict and two – to put it mildly – bad neighbours, namely the Assad regime and Isis. “Even one Kurd out of Turkey is considered a good thing”, said our source.
The combative president’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) appears to be regaining the approval of nationalist voters in the run-up to next month’s crucial parliamentary elections – thanks mainly to tough nationalist talk, including bruising rhetorical attacks on the West, and the government’s counter-terror operations against separatist Kurds.
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The pledge was seen as an attempt to help the pro-Kurdish People s Democracy Party (HDP) boost its score in the polls. This would be a challenge for any country that had just experienced a tragedy and was already riven by political and sectarian strife, but in Turkey’s case there is the added variable of the November 1 redo of June’s election. It is becoming increasingly clear that Mr. Erdogan has become a chief cause of the country’s instability, driving its polarization with his autocratic and increasingly reckless tactics.
