Free Republic

Prior to the Armenian genocide of 1915, the Turkish southeastern town of Derik used to be an important center for Armenian and Assyrian/Syriac Christians. Today, only one Armenian woman remains: Yursalin Demirci. ... The Armenians of Derik were first subject to massacres and deportations in 1915. The remnant Armenians emigrated from Derik in later years due to various pressures. Because of these reasons, there is no longer an Armenian community in the town. The doors of the Surp (Saint) Kevrok Armenian Church were not opened at Christmas this year. And the church bell no longer rings. “I miss the old...

Not the grain, millet. A system of sectarian courts under the Ottoman Empire, not simply restricted to counseling members of religious groups about personal matters like divorces, but very substantially adjudicating civil matters within the walls of religious communities. Separate groups like Latin, Greek, other Christian, Jewish, administered their own customary law, but all under Sharia as an overlord justice system. Religious subjects ran their own law, as long as non-Muslims gave way on the sidewalk, acknowledged the superiority of Muslims in public life, didn't have better clothes, didn't build higher houses, paid their jizya religious tax.This is the future,...

BERLIN, June 2 (UPI) -- Turkey recalled its ambassador in Berlin after German lawmakers approved a resolution declaring the World War I mass killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks a genocide. Ambassador Huseyin Avni Karslioglu is expected to travel back to Turkey on Thursday, after the German Parliament declared the 1915-16 killings of some 1.5 million Armenians a deliberate act of ethnic cleansing. Germany's ambassador to Turkey has also been summoned. The move comes just hours after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned of "repercussions" from the vote. The German resolution is considered a touchy one for long-term relations between...

German lawmakers' planned vote to recognize the massacre of Armenians by Ottoman forces as genocide, will test the "friendship" between Berlin and Ankara, Turkey said Thursday, according to AFP. The resolution "will amount to a real test of the friendship" between the two nations, Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said. "Some nations that we consider friends, when they are experiencing trouble in domestic policy attempt to divert attention from it," he said at a meeting of his Justice and Development Party (AKP). "This resolution is an example of that." He stopped short of threatening Germany with political and economic retaliation,...

Christians in Turkey have become a tiny minority. The few remaining Christian churches in Anatolia are also on the path to total annihilation. Christians in Turkey have – throughout the centuries -- been turned into a tiny, dwindling minority. The remaining few Christian churches in Anatolia are also on the path to total annihilation. Hagia Sophia in Trabzon: Church-mosque-museum and now mosque again. The Hagia Sophia, Greek for “Holy Wisdom,” was one of the many historic Orthodox churches located in the city of Trabzon. ... The city of Trabzon .. is located in the ancient land of Pontos, in the...

In this major monograph, Maj. Gen. (res.) Yaakov Amidror studies the storms convulsing the Arab Middle East. He looks at the long-term implications of Middle East chaos. Amidror, the Anne and Greg Rosshandler Senior Fellow at the BESA Center, is an important analyst, since he is the immediate past national security advisor to Prime Minister Netanyahu and previously served as chief of the research and analysis division of military intelligence in the IDF.

By the end of the 19th century, it was commonly held that four European powers possessed great foreign services: the Habsburg Monarchy (known after 1867 as Austria-Hungary or the "Double Monarchy"), the Ottoman Empire, the Holy See, and Russia.Retrospectively, it appears that there was much truth about that opinion. Presently, we should take notice that these powers -- now treated by "progressive" discourse as expired, dusty tales no longer relevant to our modern conflicts -- are in fact pivotal instruments in world politics today.Agreed, we can preclude the Habsburg service, arguably the most prestigious of all four in 1914, which...

Erdogan's dreams of empire are perilous for Turkey Norman Stone Ankara is becoming far bolder with its foreign policy. Provoking Russia over Syria may be a step too far, though he aggressiveness of Turkish foreign policy is something new. It goes back to 2009 when, at Davos, President ErdoÄŸan insulted Shimon Peres, then Israel's president, using the Turkish form of "you" that is normally used for dogs, and accusing him of atrocities in Gaza. That went down very well with his home constituency, less well with Turks who think about things, and it also went down well in the Arab...

Turkey should be kicked out of NATO for downing the Russian jet near the Syrian border Tuesday because the country "is trying to establish their own Ottoman Empire again," retired Army Maj. Gen. Paul Vallely told Newsmax TV. "They're moving very much to the Islamic State — and they've been no help in supporting the opposition forces against Assad," Vallely said, referring to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, on "The Steve Malzberg Show" in an interview. "They've been hitting a lot of the Kurds, as you know, up north in Syria and the northern part of Iraq." Despite the downing of...

Turkey’s decision to send fighter jets against Isil positions in Syria and open its Incirlik and Pirinçlik air bases to US jets is a step change in its involvement in the fight against militant jihad. Whether it turns into open war on Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant is another matter. The deal between the reluctant AKP government in Ankara and the United States has been a year in the making, though only announced after Isil effectively declared war by bombing a cultural centre in the Turkish border town of Suruc. Turkey has until now tolerated Isil to some...

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was Tuesday to meet Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu for the first time since the ruling party's failure to hold its parliamentary majority left the country facing a coalition government or snap elections. According to custom, Davutoglu will submit his resignation and Erdogan will ask the premier to form a new government at the meeting at 1400 GMT inside Erdogan's vast new presidential palace in Ankara. But this will be no easy task after the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) lost its parliamentary majority for the first time since it came to power in 2002,...

Sunday’s Turkish elections are not so much about which party will win as they are about President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s dream to expand his authoritarian powers. In order to do that, his conservative party needs to win an absolute majority.The June 7 ballot will be a key test for Erdogan. For the first time since 2002, opinion polls suggest that the president’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) may not get enough backing to form a single-party government. A coalition would likely spoil Erdogan’s ambitious plan to rewrite the constitution and transform Turkey into a presidential, rather than a parliamentary,...

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday stepped up his attacks on foreign media a day ahead of legislative elections, telling the Guardian to “know your limits” and lamenting that “Jewish capital” was behind the New York Times. Erdogan has during the campaign leading up to Sunday’s polls repeatedly criticised foreign media, amid growing concerns over an erosion of freedom of expression in Turkey under his rule. In one of its final pre-election rallies in the eastern province of Ardahan, Erdogan took offence at an article in the Guardian critical of his rule, including an editorial titled “Growing autocracy threatens...

The run-up to Turkey’s June 7 general elections has been marked by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s intensive use of Islamic symbols and rhetoric, including rally appearances with the Quran. On May 29, the Constitutional Court announced a controversial ruling removing restrictions on religious marriages, while Erdogan led an inauguration ceremony of both economic and religious significance. The event in Istanbul, attended by Cabinet ministers and complete with prayers, marked the launch of the first branch of the Ziraat Participation Bank, the Islamic unit of state-owned lender Ziraat, in line with government decisions to expand Islamic banking in the Turkish financial...

For 13 years, Recep Tayyip Erdogan has worked to impose his Islamist vision on Turkey's proud secular democracy, reshaping the country into a neo-Ottoman republic. His success can be credited in no small measure to his manipulation and intimidation of the press, and the occasional censorship of social media and the Internet overall. Now, in a gesture that betrays either Islamist imperialism, sheer ignorance of Western democracy, or both, Turkey's president and former prime minister is expanding his reach, raising his fist – and, he hopes, his influence – at the West, using the New York Times as his target.Infuriated...

Armenians executed by Ottoman authorities in Aleppo, 1916 (Aleppo, where Christians are being exterminated once again 100 years later)This is my commandment, that you love one another, as I have loved you. Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends, if you do the things that I command you. I will not now call you servants: for the servant knoweth not what his lord doth. But I have called you friends: because all things whatsoever I have heard of my Father, I have made known to you....

Pope Francis and Kim Kardashian made headlines recently by calling attention to what happened to the Armenian people 100 years ago. It was genocide at the hands of the Turks in what was then the Ottoman Empire, according to the pope, the reality show star and many historians. In Minnesota, the push to recognize the deaths of Armenians a century ago as the first genocide of the 20th century is being led by a small, new St. Paul church. In the past month, St. Sahag Armenian Church has put up billboards on Interstate 94 in St. Paul and Interstate 494...

Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s president, has accused the EU of declaring “enmity” on his country as next week’s centenary commemorations of the massacres of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire descend into bitter rows over what to call them. Both the European Parliament and Pope Francis this week referred to the killings as a genocide, a term recognised by much of the rest of the world but fiercely disputed by Turkey. The European decision prompted a furious response from Mr Erdogan. “Such decisions are nothing but expressions of enmity against Turkey by abusing Armenians,” he said while on a visit to...

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said he condemned Pope Francis on Tuesday for comments that the 1915 mass killing of Armenians was genocide and warned him not to make such a statement again. The pope became the first head of the Roman Catholic church to publicly call the killing of as many as 1.5 million Armenians "genocide" on Sunday, prompting a diplomatic row with Turkey, which summoned the Vatican's envoy and recalled its own. Muslim Turkey agrees Christian Armenians were killed in clashes with Ottoman soldiers that began on April 15, 1915, when Armenians lived in the empire...

For some time, an argument has been made that the liberal left, in refusing to examine the problems of Islam, has betrayed its Enlightenment roots. That is, while secular, feminist, and protective of free speech in dealing with its Western peers, the liberal left has been accused of abandoning its heritage in its quest for political correctness regarding Muslims. In truth, however, the left has a distinguished background of courting Islam as a weapon against Western capitalism. Its most representative figures from the past did so frankly, as the following rehearsal of their statements demonstrates. Karl Marx supported the Ottoman...