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– All five culprits arrested last spring for the savage murder of three Christians in eastern Turkey have proclaimed their innocence, declaring they did not personally kill any of the victims. In their court testimonies completed Monday (May 12) at the sixth hearing before Malatya’s Third Criminal Court, the five young Turkish men have defended themselves by blaming each other for the killings. All have insisted that they had not planned to murder anyone and that no individuals or group instigated their raid on the Zirve Publishing Co. office in Malatya on April 18, 2007. (See sidebar below on letter...

"Britain's Queen Elizabeth II, front right, wearing a head scarf, listens as an Imam reads verses from the quran during her visit to the Ottoman era Green mosque in Bursa, western Turkey, Wednesday, May 14, 2008. Britain's Queen Elizabeth II began her first visit to Turkey in 37 years on Tuesday, praising the predominantly Muslim country's role as a bridge.""Britain's Queen Elizabeth II is helped on with her shoes as she exits the Green Mosque in Bursa, Turkey."

The Queen has called the founder of modern-day Turkey "one of the greatest figures of modern history" during a visit to his mausoleum in Ankara. She laid a wreath at the tomb of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk as she and Prince Philip began a four-day state visit to the secular Muslim country. In a visitor's book she wrote it was an "honour" to pay her respects to "a much valued friend of the United Kingdom". It is the royal couple's first visit to Turkey since 1971. Religious symbols They are also due to attend a state banquet hosted by President Abdullah...

One lone church struggles to survive in a land where hundreds have been damaged or destroyed. But this is no ordinary land; it is the very area where Apostle Paul took his first missionary journey to proclaim salvation through Jesus Christ to the Roman Empire. (See image by going to the link:) St Mamas' church in Morphou Now, 2,000 years later, the small Mediterranean island of Cyprus is divided into two, with the northern third occupied by Turkey. In the span of three decades under Turkish control, more than 530 churches and monasteries have been pillaged, vandalized, or destroyed in...

The Iranian sister organization of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) has accused the United States of indirectly supporting the Teheran regime’s war against the rebels. Head of the Free Life Party of Kurdistan (PJAK), Haji Ahmedi, declared that the U.S. provided aerial reconnaissance intelligence to Turkey which was then passed through Ankara to Teheran. On May first, Turkish warplanes bombarded PKK positions in the Kandil Mountains. According to Turkish military sources, 150 PKK rebels were killed in that action. Turkish media speculated that the attacks also killed PKK military chief Murat Karayilan. The PJAK, however, denied these reports claiming only...

Incident in Ankara marks seventh threat of violence in past four months. ISTANBUL, May 7 (Compass Direct News) – Three men, one of them armed with a gun and wearing gloves, threatened a Protestant church and its pastor in the Turkish capital city of Ankara yesterday. The culprits fled in a car before police could be summoned. The attempted attack marked the seventh incident in the past four months of threatened violence against Turkey’s tiny Protestant community, most of whom are former Muslims who converted to Christianity. Shortly before 6 p.m. Tuesday (May 6), three men drove up in a...

BRUSSELS , May 5: The President of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso, underlined here Monday that Islam is part and parcel of Europe and he also condemned the concept of clash of civilisations. "Islam today is part of Europe. It is important to understand this.One should not see Islam as outside Europe. We already have an important presence of Islam and Muslims among our citizens," Barroso told a press conference this afternoon after an informal dialogue between EU leaders and around twenty high-level representatives of Christianity, Judaism and Islam in Europe. "We can be a European citizen being a...

The Belle Plaine man who fatally shot his 8-year-old son while turkey hunting last month had alcohol and marijuana in his system at the time of the incident, according to a criminal complaint filed Monday in Sibley County. Anthony Klaseus mistook his son, Hunter, for a wild turkey last month and shot him in the chest with a 12-gauge shotgun, according to police. When officials arrived at the scene, they smelled alcohol and asked Klaseus if he had been drinking. Klaseus stated he had consumed one beer several hours earlier in the day and agreed to take a preliminary breath...

KARACHI, Pakistan — Praying in Pakistan has not been easy for Mesut Kacmaz, a Muslim teacher from Turkey. He tried the mosque near his house, but it had Israeli and Danish flags painted on the floor for people to step on. The mosque near where he works warned him never to return wearing a tie. Pakistanis everywhere assume he is not Muslim because he has no beard. “Kill, fight, shoot,” Mr. Kacmaz said. “This is a misinterpretation of Islam.” But that view is common in Pakistan, a frontier land for the future of Islam, where schools, nourished by Saudi and...

These days, while walking in the streets of any major European town it is quite likely you may come across a young Muslim wearing a T-shirt bearing an interesting messages: "Read Quran, charge your iman" or "I love my Prophet -- Mohammed." These are only two of the many interesting messages a young German citizen of Turkish descent has been trying to spread using the T-shirts of his own making. You are likely to see these messages not only on T-shirts but also on bags, mugs, mouse pads and even bibs. Other messages include, "Keep smiling, it's sunnah," "Terrorism has...

The role of Islam in Turkish society is a subject of continual debate. Secularists are protesting against what they see as the government's increasingly Islamic agenda, and as Sarah Rainsford found out, the latest battleground could be across the butcher's counter. "We're going filming at a pork butcher's and a pig farm," I told my Turkish cameraman in a text message. Slightly anxious, I added: "Is that OK with you?" A moment later a message from Gokhan flashed back. "Yes," he wrote. "I like a good pork steak!" He is not the only one. Another Turkish friend told me that...

The life of 20-year-old Emine, and her 24-year-old husband Ramazan Çalçoban was pretty much the normal life of any couple in a separation process. After deciding to split up, the two kept having bitter arguments over the cellphone, sending text messages to each other until one day Ramazan wrote "you change the topic every time you run out of arguments." That day, the lack of a single dot over a letter—product of a faulty localization of the cellphone's typing system—caused a chain of events that ended in a violent blood bath (Warning: offensive language ahead.) The surreal mistake happened because...

Turkish site a Neolithic 'supernova' By Nicholas Birch April 21, 2008 Archaeologist Klaus Schmidt was among the first to realize the significance of the Gobekli Tepe site, which is 7,000 years older than Stonehenge. URFA, Turkey - As a child, Klaus Schmidt used to grub around in caves in his native Germany in the hope of finding prehistoric paintings. Thirty years later, as a member of the German Archaeological Institute, he found something infinitely more important: a temple complex almost twice as old as anything comparable. "This place is a supernova," said Mr. Schmidt, standing under a lone tree on...

“Europe will be Muslim in a dozen years,” promises the Islamic Republic of Iran’s Supreme Guide (dictator) who is racing full-speed ahead to make as many bombs as possible with long-range missiles capable of delivering their payload anywhere in the world. This past Friday, Yunis al-Astal, a leading Muslim cleric and Hamas member of the Palestinian parliament, declared on Hamas' Al-Aqsa TV that "the capital of the Catholics, or the Crusader capital," would soon be conquered by Islam and Rome become an advance post for the Islamic conquests, which will spread through Europe in its entirety, and then will turn...

Few U.S. policymakers have heard of Fethullah Gülen, perhaps Turkey's most prominent theologian and political thinker. Self-exiled for more than a decade, Gülen lives a reclusive life outside Philadelphia, Pa. Within months, however, he may be as much a household a name in the United States as is Ayatollah Khomeini, a man who was as obscure to most Americans up until his triumphant return to Iran almost 30 years ago. Many academics and journalists embrace Gülen and applaud his stated vision welding Islam with tolerance and a pro-European outlook. Supporters describe him as progressive. In 2003, the University of Texas...

HEIDELBERG, Germany — German federal police have sent out “wanted” posters for two Germans who they say are training at a Pakistan terrorist camp and planning suicide attacks such as one carried out in Afghanistan last month that killed two U.S. soldiers, according to German media. The two are members of an Islamist cell that German police busted in September when three of its other members were brewing up bombs, authorities said, to kill Americans in Germany. The two men in the posters — one a German, the other born in Lebanon but a resident of Germany — have been...

The Turkish government may launch a pre-emptive strike to stop the Constitutional Court from banning the president and prime minister from politics, and closing down the ruling Justice and Development party (AKP). Ali Babacan, Turkey’s foreign minister, said the government was “about to decide” whether to introduce a “medium-sized package” of legal amendments that would, among other “urgent issues”, rewrite criteria for shutting political parties. Such a move would also give the court “a new legal basis to make its decision”, he told the Financial Times in an interview on Monday. “We could make the court’s job easier by defining...

A Turkish barber accused of swearing at God is sentenced to death in Saudi Arabia, with his family back in Turkey calling on authorities to intervene. Sabri BoÄŸday from the southern Hatay province went to Jeddah in Saudi Arabia 11 years ago and opened a barbershop. According to reports, BoÄŸday argued with his neighbor, an Egyptian tailor, and was arrested after the tailor told the police that he had sworn at God. While BoÄŸday has been in prison for the past 13 months, the Egyptian who made the allegation has disappeared. When he was sentenced to death in the last...

An Italian woman artist who was hitch-hiking to the Middle East dressed as a bride to promote world peace has been found murdered in Turkey. The naked body of Giuseppina Pasqualino di Marineo, 33, known as Pippa Bacca, was found in bushes near the northern city of Gebze on Friday. She had said she wanted to show that she could put her trust in the kindness of local people. Turkish police say they have detained a man in connection with the killing. Reports say the man led the police to the body. Ms di Marineo was hitch-hiking from Milan to...

QUETTA, April 4: Four foreigners suspected of having links with Al Qaeda have been arrested from the Dera Murad Jamali area of Nasirabad district. They were travelling in a Peshawar-bound bus. “The suspects are Turkish nationals. They were going to Jacobabad when security officials intercepted the bus on Thursday night,” sources told Dawn. They were handed over to the authorities in Quetta for interrogation. According to sources, the bus coming from Quetta was intercepted by the Frontier Corps personnel on a tip-off. A large quantity of high explosives, 1,600 rounds of sub-machine gun, a laptop, 10 Jihadi books, CDs and...

DNA sheds light on Minoans Crete’s fabled Minoan civilization was built by people from Anatolia, according to a new study by Greek and foreign scientists that disputes an earlier theory that said the Minoans’ forefathers had come from Africa. The new study – a collaboration by experts in Greece, the USA, Canada, Russia and Turkey – drew its conclusions from the DNA analysis of 193 men from Crete and another 171 from former neolithic colonies in central and northern Greece. The results show that the country’s neolithic population came to Greece by sea from Anatolia – modern-day Iran, Iraq and...

NICOSIA (Reuters) - Greek and Turkish Cypriots pulled down barricades on Thursday separating them for half a century, reopening a street which became a symbol of Cyprus's ethnic partition. The reopening of Ledra Street was meant to be a step towards ending the island's division, an obstacle to Turkey's membership of the European Union and a source of tension between NATO partners Athens and Ankara. Hundreds of Greek and Turkish Cypriots crossed Ledra after the 80-metre (262 ft) stretch of road in the main commercial district of Nicosia was opened to pedestrians in a ceremony attended by UN envoys and...

Afghanistan to Ask NATO for Bigger Army Afghan officials will go to the NATO summit in Romania Thursday with a request: pay to increase our national Army by 40 percent. A bigger Army, Afghan officials argue, will allow the US and other coalition members to scale back in the coming years. This appeal comes amid pleas from the US and Canada for other NATO members to commit more to the Afghanistan mission, which many analysts say has floundered over the past year for lack of resources and a coherent strategy. France is expected to contribute another 1,000 forces and...

Istanbul - Turkish police have arrested 45 suspected members of al-Qaeda in eight districts of Istanbul. The militants were reportedly planning attacks against foreign embassies. In January, police carried out raids at 18 locations in southeastern Turkey after receiving information that an al-Qaeda cell was planning car bomb attacks. One police officer and four militants were killed in a gunfight. Seventeen people were arrested.

ISTANBUL: Turkish anti-terror police on Tuesday detained 45 people on suspicion of belonging to the Al-Qaida extremist network and planning attacks, Anatolia news agency reported. The suspects, rounded up in simultaneous operations in eight districts of Istanbul, were being questioned by police, the report said. A court was to decide later whether they should be charged and jailed pending trial or released. In January, police raided 18 locations in southeast Turkey on intelligence that a local Al-Qaida cell was planning car bomb attacks. Four alleged militants and a policeman were then killed in a gunfight, and 17 suspects arrested. A...

After close to five hours of deliberations, 11 judges of the Constitutional Court decide in a rare unanimous ruling to take up the case for closing the AKP and banning the prime minister and dozens of lawmakers from politics. The government is likely to accelerate efforts to find legal measures to block the closure ANKARA – Turkish Daily News Turkey's top court yesterday agreed to hear a case requesting the closure of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), which is accused of being a focal point of anti-secular activities, in a move that could further strain the political environment...

Turkish top court decided on Monday to accept the lawsuit against the ruling AKP demanding its closure. The lawsuit, which could last up to a year, raised concerns over a prolonged political uncertainity. The 11 judges of the Constitutional Court agreed unanimously to accept the indictment against AKP filed by the country's top prosecutor on March 14, the court's deputy chairman Osman Paksut told reporters. The EU said it took "note" of the development. (UPDATED) Paksut said the judges ruled by a majority vote that President Abdullah Gul, who was a prominent member of the AKP until he was elected...

March 27, 2008: URGENT APPEAL. Iranian Human Rights Worker Arrested in Turkey, threatened with deportation to Iran. Turkish authorities arrested an Iranian human rights activist on Thursday as he was getting off a plane from Germany at Istanbul airport, and are threatening to deport him to Iran. The activist, Dr. Amir Farshad Ebrahimi, fled Iran in 2003 and has become an outspoken opponent of the Tehran regime. FDI reached him shortly before 6 PM Eastern time on Thursday on his mobile phone while he was in a holding cell at the Istanbul airport. Dr. Ebrahimi confirmed that an Iranian intelligence...

WASHINGTON, March 26, 2008 – U.S. 5th Fleet officials today expressed regret for the death of an Egyptian citizen who died the night of March 24, an apparent result of warning shots fired at a small boat approaching a ship chartered by the U.S. Navy. “We express our deepest sympathies to the family of the deceased,” Vice Adm. Kevin J. Cosgriff, 5th Fleet commander. “We are greatly saddened by events that apparently resulted in this accidental death. This situation is tragic, and we will do our utmost to help take care of the family of the deceased.” The U.S. Navy’s...

March 24, 2008, 5:00 a.m. Chilling ConfirmationYes, Saddam Hussein was an Islamofascist threat. By Deroy Murdock As Operation Iraqi Freedom is now five years old, a new study confirms that ousting Saddam Hussein was justified and vital to U.S. national security. Though war critics hate to admit it, the Baathist dictator was up to his mustache in aid for Islamofascist terrorism. As a report from the Institute for Defense Analyses explains, “captured Iraqi documents uncovered strong evidence that links the regime of Saddam Hussein to regional and global terrorism.� IDA’s review of some 600,000 documents discovered in Iraq since...

ONE Egyptian was killed and two wounded when a US military ship about to cross the Suez Canal opened fire on barges of hawkers that approached their boat today, a security source said.

The Catholic Church is pushing for the construction of a Christian meeting center at the birthplace of the Apostle Paul in Turkey. German bishops are demanding tolerance for Christians in Turkey in exchange for their support for mosques in Germany.

The Catholic Church is pushing for the construction of a Christian meeting center at the birthplace of the Apostle Paul in Turkey. German bishops are demanding tolerance for Christians in Turkey in exchange for their support for mosques in Germany. There is little left from the days when the town of Tarsus was not Turkish but part of the Roman Empire: a handful of columns, a few old walls -- and a house where, about 2,000 years ago, a man who would become a central figure in Christianity was born."I am a Jew from Tarsus," the Bible reads. The man...

Court clerks fail to forward lawyers’ request to replace ‘biased’ judges. ISTANBUL, March 18 (Compass Direct News) – The fourth trial hearing yesterday against the murderers of three Christians in southeast Turkey was postponed for another month after court clerks failed to file a request to replace judges accused of bias. Plaintiff lawyers’ official demand to replace the presiding bench of judges had been filed on March 1, but when the Malatya Third Criminal Court convened yesterday it was confirmed that the request still had not been forwarded to the higher court in Diyarbakir, which was designated to rule on...

A clerical worker was named yesterday as Germany's first suicide bomber and blamed for the deaths of two American soldiers in Afghanistan. Cueneyt Ciftci, 28, who was born in Bavaria to a family of Turkish immigrants, is believed to have driven a pick-up truck laden with explosives into a US guard post on March 3. An Uzbek terror group, the Islamic Jihadist Union (IJU), claimed responsibility. In the chaotic aftermath of the explosion, insurgents raked the Americans with gunfire and killed 60 men, the group claimed, adding that: “He was a brave Turk who came from Germany and exchanged his...

Iran is smuggling missiles to Hezbollah through Turkey, a senior idf official has said. Citing a source within the Israeli government, research department Brigadier General Yossi Beiditz told EU ambassadors in a briefing last week that Iran continues to ship arms and equipment to terrorists via planes traveling through Turkish airspace or overland in trucks disguised as Turkish cargo carriers. From Turkey, the missiles travel through Syria before being delivered to Hezbollah compounds in Lebanon. One clear example of this smuggling operation occurred in May 2007 when Turkish officials confiscated a train shipment of Iranian weapons, including 300 rockets, registered...

WASHINGTON - Borrowing a theme from the presidential contest, Vice President Dick Cheney said Tuesday that the possibility of a 3 a.m. emergency call to the White House is all the more reason for the next commander in chief to follow through on President Bush's plans for a national missile defense. "It's plain to see that the world around us gives ample reason to continue working on missile defense," Cheney told the conservative Heritage Foundation at a dinner recognizing the 25th anniversary of President Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative, a proposed network of rockets capable of shooting down incoming intercontinental ballistic...

A Turkish-based movement, which sounds more reasonable than most of its rivals, is vying to be recognised as the world's leading Muslim network IT IS a long way from the Anatolian plains to a campus in the heart of London, where eminent scholars of religion deliver learned papers. And the highlands that used to form the Soviet border with China, an area where bright kids long for an education, seem far removed from a three-storey house in Pennsylvania, where a revered, reclusive teacher of Islam lives. What links these places is one of the most powerful and best-connected of the...

Petraeus: Al Qaida Trying to 'Come Back In' U.S. military officials said there will be no significant reduction in coalition troops in the Baghdad area as part of an effort to stop the Al Qaida offensive in northern Iraq. They said Al Qaida was trying to reenter Baghdad and reverse its losses in 2007. "Al Qaida is trying to come back in," U.S. military commander Gen. David Petraeus said. "We can feel it and see it, and what we're trying to do is rip out any roots before they can get deeply into the ground." Read More Militants Assert...

ANKARA, Turkey — Iraq's president says he wants a "strategic" partnership with Turkey, including getting the neighboring nation's businesses to invest in his oil-rich but war-torn country. Jalal Talabani made the comments Saturday while wrapping up a visit aimed at easing the tension sparked by Turkey's eight-day military incursion against Kurdish rebels inside Iraq. Talabani, himself a Kurd, says Iraq wants "to forge strategic relations in all fields including oil, the economy, trade, culture and politics with Turkey."

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The United States said Thursday it was closely watching Turkey's campaign against separatist Kurdish fighters based in Iraq and firmly backed its ally's refusal to negotiate with the rebels. White House spokeswoman Dana Perino also said Washington was "encouraged" by talks between Ankara and Baghdad about efforts to "beat back" extremists from the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). "We also continue to watch the situation in northern Iraq. As we have said before, the PKK is a common enemy. We have been strongly supporting Turkey in its efforts to combat the PKK," she told reporters. "We have encouraged...

TURKEY: LAWYERS DEMAND REMOVAL OF MALATYA JUDGES Court’s impartiality questioned as evidence, courtroom recording withheld. MALATYA, Turkey, February 28 (Compass Direct News) – Lawyers representing the families of three Christians tortured and slaughtered with knives in eastern Turkey last April demanded this week that the three-member bench of judges hearing the case be replaced. Addressing the Malatya Third Criminal Court on Monday (February 25), plaintiff lawyer Özkan Yücel Soylu declared that the “impartiality and independence” of the court was in jeopardy, as the judges were obstructing justice by withholding evidence and refusing to record the high-profile murder case. Soylu objected...

A high school senior and an elementary school student were attacked in the Mediterranean town of Mersin with strong acid spray. In two separate incidents within the same hour both girls were approached from behind by a group of young men who commented on the length of their skirts and told them it was too short. The girls were sprayed with acidic substance that burnt and melted their stockings and caused deep lacerations on the back of their legs. The girls were treated in the hospital. The police is searching for the culprits that are believed to be the same...

CUKURCA, Turkey (AP) -- Turkey's military said Friday it has ended a ground offensive against Kurdish rebels in Iraq, but said that foreign influence did not play a role in its decision. At least 200 trucks carrying Turkish troops were seen leaving the Iraqi border area and heading into Turkey's interior. The move came a day after Defense Secretary Robert Gates told Turkish leaders during a visit in Ankara that they should end the offensive as soon as possible. In Washington, President Bush made a similar point Thursday, saying Turkey needed to move quickly and get out. "Both the start...

Unbound Turkey: A Rising Regional Powerbroker Two key events have altered Turkey's foreign policy focus in the past two decades: the collapse of the Soviet Union and the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. Photo courtesy AFP. With its large military, burgeoning economy, and pivotal location as a bridge between two continents, Turkey has emerged as a crucial player involving regional geopolitics in both the Caspian Basin and the greater Middle East. As detailed in its most recent "Turkey Military Market Overview," Forecast International anticipates that Ankara's growing role as a regional powerbroker will be strengthened in coming years as...

ANKARA, Turkey - Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he told his Turkish counterpart on Thursday that Turkey should end its offensive against Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq as soon as possible, but that the U.S. is making no threats against its NATO ally if it fails to comply. "The United States believes the current offensive should be as short and precisely targeted as possible," Gates said after a meeting with Turkish Defense Minister Vecdi Gonul. Gates said that a specific timetable for the Turks to stop their attack "did not come up during my meeting with the defense minister," but...

On a recent trip to Istanbul, I was conversing with a close friend and her seventy-five year-old mother about the July Turkish elections that granted the Islamic AKP (Party of Justice and Progress) a clear parliamentary majority. While my friend’s father, a devout and active member of the Turkish-Jewish community, had voted enthusiastically for the AKP, her mother had voted for the CHP (The Republican People’s Party), the party founded by Atatürk in the 1920s. CHP had transformed itself into a moderate social-democratic party by the 1970s, but was now promoting a virulent form of “laicism,” a separation of religion...

Turkey is engaged in a bold and profound attempt to rewrite the basis for Islamic sharia law while also officially reinterpreting the Qur'an for the modern age. The exercise in reforming Islamic jurisprudence, sponsored by the modernising and mildly Islamic government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the prime minister, is being seen as an iconoclastic campaign to establish a 21st century form of Islam, fusing Muslim beliefs and tradition with European and western philosophical methods and principles.

Turkey in radical revision of Islamic texts By Robert Piggott Religious affairs correspondent, BBC News Turkey is preparing to publish a document that represents a revolutionary reinterpretation of Islam - and a controversial and radical modernisation of the religion. The country's powerful Department of Religious Affairs has commissioned a team of theologians at Ankara University to carry out a fundamental revision of the Hadith, the second most sacred text in Islam after the Koran. It says that a significant number of the sayings were never uttered by Muhammad, and even some that were need now to be reinterpreted. Some messages...

WASHINGTON -- The Turkish government briefed the Bush administration about its plans to strike northern Iraq well in advance of launching the controversial operation and the U.S. raised no objections, according to American and Turkish officials. Turkish representatives told U.S. diplomatic and military officials that Ankara was planning to send ground troops into Iraq to strike targets belonging to the Kurdish Workers Party, or PKK, an anti-Turkish guerilla group, according to officials from both countries. Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan personally told President Bush about the plans, the officials said. The White House confirmed the conversation occurred. "In terms of...