Free Republic

If Obama were a poker player holding a full house, he’d fold to let the guy across the table with a pair of twos feel like a winner. Not even Jimmy Carter​ was so adverse to squandering leverage when dealing with friends and foes. Turkey has changed. During the last few months, Turkey has acted far more as an adversary than as an ally. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan threw a diplomatic temper tantrum when the UN’s Palmer Commission found largely in Israel’s favor with regard to Israel’s enforcement of a blockade against the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. In its wake: •Erdoğan has...

Thursday in which it said that the results of the incident in which Israel intercepted a flotilla trying to break the naval blockade of Gaza "place us at the beginning of the Gog and Magog process where the world is against us, but which ends with the third and final redemption." The statement explained that while secular Zionism always wants Israel to be beloved by other nations, “the legitimacy of our people is not derived from the nations of the world and their poisonous traditions, rather from the Torah of Israel which teaches us that [Israel] 'is a people that...

Yesterday, the Turkish media reported, “Turkey … agreed with the US on a deal involving the transfer of US-engineered unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that could prove crucial in combating terrorism.” The Predator drones, expected to be delivered in June 2012, are supposed to help the Turks combat terrorists, which in Ankara’s narrow definition means the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) crossing into Turkey from the Iraq border. The Predators, said Turkish defense minister İsmet Yilmaz, “are UAVs with better qualities and features than the [Israeli-made] Herons.” Ankara, the report explains, was “disappointed by Israel's failure to return six Herons it had...

ANKARA, Turkey — A newly assertive Turkey offered on Sunday a vision of a starkly realigned Middle East, where the country’s former allies in Syria and Israel fall into deeper isolation, and a burgeoning alliance with Egypt underpins a new order in a region roiled by revolt and revolution.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and U.S. President Barack Obama will meet in New York next week, with Iraq expected to be high on their agenda, a senior Turkish official said Wednesday. The meeting, which will occur on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly, was requested by Washington and is likely to be a “lengthy” one, Deputy Prime Minister Beşir Atalay said on CNNTürk. He added that Turkey’s efforts to curb Kurdish militants based in northern Iraq and possible complications in Iraq in the wake of the U.S. military’s looming pullout would be discussed in detail. Atalay said...

Ankara's Star Gazete says country's new F-16 radar system modified to recategorize Israeli targets as hostile. Order said to come directly from PM Erdogan's office; naval, submarine radar systems to be changed next Turkey has developed a new radar system for its US-made F-16 fighter jets that will allow them to fire at Israeli targets, Ankara's Star Gazete reported on Tuesday. The orders to modify the system reportedly came directly from Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's office. The new radar system – Identification Friend or Foe (IFF) – is a defensive command and control system developed by Turkey's Military...

Following are excerpts from an interview with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip ErdoÄŸan, which aired on the Al-Jazeera network on September 11, 2011. Recep Tayyip ErdoÄŸan: The measures we have taken are only the beginning. As you know, we have taken five measures, and we will see the results of these measures in the days, weeks, and perhaps months to come. Israel must realize that it is accountable for its actions, past and present. It will realize this. We have seen that Israel has never observed any of the resolutions issued by the UN General Assembly or Security Council. Israel...

ANKARA, Turkey - Turkey has agreed to host an early warning radar as part of NATO's missile defence system aimed at countering ballistic missile threats from neighbouring Iran, the Turkish Foreign Ministry said Friday. A ministry statement emailed to journalists said discussions on NATO-member Turkey's contribution to the alliance missile defence shield had reached "their final stages."

Turkey has expelled the Israeli ambassador over Israel's refusal to apologise for last-year's deadly raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla. Officials in Ankara said it was also suspending all remaining military agreements with Israel. The announcement came as a UN report on the raid, in which nine activists were killed, was due to be published. Turkey has insisted that Israel apologise for the raid but it has consistently refused to do so.

"..[the toppling of] President Hosni Mubarak may represent the beginning of the liberation of Palestine from the grip of "occupation"...

Washington (CNN) -- President Barack Obama spoke by telephone Tuesday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to express condolences for the deaths and injuries from Israel's raid on a Turkish ship that was part of a flotilla hauling relief supplies to blockaded Gaza, the White House said. "The president told Prime Minister Erdogan that the United States is working in close consultation with Israel to help achieve the release of the passengers, including those deceased and wounded, and the ships themselves," according to the White House statement. "He also affirmed the United States position in support of a credible,...

Much regret is being expressed about the deaths of the “activists” who were among those attacking Israeli naval commandos with knives, clubs, iron bars, chairs, and snatched handguns on the Mavi Marmara early Monday morning. The ship was one in a six-ship flotilla of Muslim and radical-Leftist anti-Israeli activists that was approaching Gaza with the expressed aim of breaking Israel’s naval blockade of the Strip and bringing purportedly badly needed humanitarian supplies. The Mavi Marmara was also known by the Israeli authorities to be the largest and most hostile ship in the flotilla.Yet, either out of poor intelligence or naiveté...