Tag: Turkey

ISLAMABAD - Pakistan, Afghanistan and Turkey have launched a week-long tripartite military exercise at Tuzla in Turkey, said an ISPR statement issued here on Friday. "The three countries decided to hold joint exercises at the conclusion of the 5th Trilateral Summit in December 2010," the statement added.
The joint exercise involves military operations in urban terrain (MOUT) against terrorists. The events include basic and battle order training, MOUT demonstration by the Turkish

DIYARBAKIR - An Iranian airplane was forced to land at an airport in southeast Turkey late on Tuesday on suspicion that it may have been carrying arms to Syria, officials at Diyarbakir airport said. A Turkish foreign ministry official in Ankara confirmed that the plane had been asked to make a "technical landing", but declined to say why.
"The plane was coming from Iran and going to Syria. It was a cargo plane," the official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the

CAIRO - Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has told Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi he should name a president with popular support as a way to end his country's crisis, an Arab television network reported on Monday. Erdogan told Al Arabiya television in an interview he expected Gaddafi to take "positive steps in this direction". "We want a halt to the fighting by both of the sides, both in the east and west of Libya," Erdogan said. Gaddafi has been Libya's leader for four decades

ANKARA - A cold wave that hit Turkey on Wednesday brought heavy snowfalls that paralysed traffic and shut schools in the capital and disrupted road and air travel in other cities. Ankara was buried in 50 centimetres (20 inches) of snow which fell for a second day, snarling traffic despite a major clearance operation.
Schools were closed and residents had difficulty making the journey to work with road and rail links between Ankara and several nearby towns cut off.
The

ANKARA - Turkey on Thursday rejected US criticism over media freedom in the country following the detention of four opposition journalists in a probe of alleged coup plots. "Press freedom in Turkey is greater than press freedom in America... There is no problem in Turkey in this sense," Interior Minister Besir Atalay said, according to Anatolia news agency.
Monday's detentions fuelled accusations that a probe into alleged plots to topple the ruling Islamist-rooted Justice and

TEHRAN - Iran and Turkey are determined to boost their political and economic ties, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told a joint press conference Monday with his visiting Turkish counterpart, Abdullah Gul.
"This cooperation (...) will rapidly bring our region to the political, cultural and economic fore," which is "in the interest of peace and stability" in the region, Ahmadinejad said. President Gul said there were "no obstacles to the development of cooperation between

CAIRO - The US, Turkey, India and Iraq on Sunday started organising the evacuation of their nationals from Egypt as an angry anti-government revolt raged into a sixth day amid increasing lawlessness and mass jail breaks.
"The US embassy in Cairo informs US citizens in Egypt who wish to depart that the department of state is making arrangements to provide transportation to safehaven locations in Europe," an embassy statement said, as other countries issued travel warnings and

KARACHI - The Turkish authorities have assured Pakistan of an impartial enquiry before determining its verdict on the imposition anti-dumping duty on Pakistan's textile exports. It has also been clarified that Ankara is still in a probing phase and that the final decision might take as long as eight to nine months.
The pledge was made when a Pakistani business delegation, led by Advisor to Chief Minister Sindh on Investment Muhammad Zubair Motiwala met MNA and Chairman

KARACHI - Pakistan is mulling using diplomatic channels to protect its exports of woven fabric which are likely to suffer a major blow in Turkey which intends to levy anti-dumping duty on garments and fabrics imports to protect its domestic manufacturers. As Pakistan has garnered a significant share in Turkish imports, particularly in the markets of Denim and Gray Cloth, the fresh move would impact strongly on Islamabad's exports to the foreign country, sources have said.
The

BERLIN - The US secret services used Turkey as a base to transport "terrorism" suspects as part of its extraordinary rendition programme, German daily Die Welt reported on Monday citing a WikiLeaks cable. Some 24 CIA flights landed at Incirlik airport in southern Turkey between 2002 and 2006 with the knowledge of the Turkish military, according to a cable from the US embassy in Ankara dated June 8, 2006, the paper said. "The Turkish military has since 2002 allowed us to use Incirlik

ANKARA - Turkey is in preliminary talks with France for the construction of a nuclear power plant but Japan has the priority, Anatolia news agency quoted Turkey's energy minister as saying on Friday.
France has expressed interest in building the plant and French energy companies Areva, EDF and GDF Suez have submitted certain proposals, Taner Yildiz said, without elaborating.
"We are evaluating this on the condition that talks with Japan have the priority," he said, according

LAHORE - In order to overcome current power crisis, a 150 megawatt power plant will be installed in Punjab with technical support from Turkey, Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif announced after his return from his official visits to Turkey and the United kingdom.
Talking to journalists at the Allama Iqbal International Airport, the chief minister said that the Punjab government signed multiple agreements with the Turkish government in various fields like environment, education and

LAHORE - The All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (APTMA) Chairman Gohar Ejaz, while giving an SOS call to the government, expressed fears that the Punjab industry would wipe out if due facilitation in energy supply, cut in interest rates and a duty-free market access was not ensured at the earliest.
He said this while speaking at the Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry on Saturday. The APTMA chairman claimed that the industry possessed the potential to create two million

ISTANBUL: Afghanistan, Pakistan and Turkey will hold joint military exercises next year as part of Ankara's efforts to bring its two neighbours closer.
"As a result of the work that our armed forces have done so far, a joint exercise will be held in April 2011," Turkish President Abdullah Gul said in televised remarks.
Gul was speaking after trilateral talks with his counterparts Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan and President Asif Ali Zardari in Istanbul.
It was the fifth

ISTANBUL: Nearly 200 Turkish military officers, including three top retired commanders, went on trial on Thursday charged with plotting to destabilise the government in a case likely to increase strains with the secularist armed forces.
Amid tight security the officers filed into a courtroom near Istanbul to answer accusations over an alleged 2003 conspiracy against Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's AK Party government that was aimed at setting the scene for military intervention.

ISLAMABAD: A US diplomatic cable, released by WikiLeaks, quoted the Turkish Ambassador to Pakistan Soysal saying that Turkey was proving to be the first Muslim country to assist Pakistan with humanitarian crisis during the floods, perplexed that Saudi Arabia had not paid anything till then.
"The GOT would encourage a strong statement of support by the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) summit and was hoping other members would kick in contributions," a diplomatic cable

ANKARA: The United States has cautioned Turkey over business links with Iran and charged that an Islamist charity aided Hamas, according to a cable revealed by WikiLeaks Tuesday.
The dispatch covered a series of meetings that David Cohen, the US Treasury assistant secretary for financial crimes, held in Ankara in October 2009. Cohen "cautioned government and banking officials about doing business with Iranian banks" and passed information "on Iranian mis-use of the Turkish