Free Republic

Just when you thought the story of the murder of Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi embassy in Turkey couldn’t get any stranger, Turkish media adds a new wrinkle. It’s being claimed by a columnist for the newspaper Hurriyet that the CIA has a recording of Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman ordering Khashoggi to be “silenced” prior to the killing. No sources are named in the story and nobody else is confirming it, but it’s stirring up all the actors involved in this tale. (Reuters) A Turkish newspaper reported on Thursday CIA director Gina Haspel signaled to Turkish officials last month...

I am already sick of Turkey.I suspect that many Americans feel this way, about the bird and the country. Yet a small group of Washington foreign policy hands — at State Department, at Pentagon and in congressional offices — continue to make the case for Turkey as a “strategically important” partner to the US. On paper, the country looks good: It sits at the center of many of Americas most pressing foreign policy concerns, it is a member of NATO, it's stable, and it can offer foreign partners access to its airbases and intelligence cooperation. I used to think of...

Dr. Serkan Gölge, a NASA scientist who was sentenced to seven years, six months in prison in February due to his alleged links to the Gülen movement, has said he has been unlawfully kept behind bars for two years, which he says shows he is being held hostage by the Turkish government, the t24 news website reported on Tuesday. A dual citizen of the US and Turkey, Gölge, 38, was detained as part of an investigation into the Gülen movement, which the government accuses of masterminding a coup attempt on July 15, 2016, on July 23, 2016. He was arrested...

A group of pro-Erdoğan Turkish lawyers has applied to the Adana Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office for the arrest of members of the US military at İncirlik Airbase in Adana for their alleged cooperation with the Gülen movement, according to a report by the Cumhuriyet daily on Friday. According to the report, lawyers working for the the Association for Social Justice and Aid (Toplumsal Adalet ve Yardımlaşma Derneği in Turkish, or TAY-DER), a front NGO that was set up on June 15, 2016 and formally registered a month later with the support of senior government officials, including some in the judiciary...

It’s never a good idea to negotiate with a hostage-taker, but when it’s a NATO ally, there isn’t much choice. The Trump administration has been trying to get back a Christian pastor detained in Turkey since October 2016, and when a possible deal at the sidelines of the NATO summit fell through, it decided to drop the hammer. A couple of weeks ago, the administration sanctioned Turkey’s justice and interior ministers — remember, these are top officials of a fellow NATO country. The action hit the Turkish currency and stock market hard. Then President Donald Trump intervened in his inimitable...

This month, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan intimated that his country might consider leaving NATO. Meanwhile, on a visit to Moscow last week, Turkey’s foreign minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu referred to Russia as a “strategic partner”—a first. This talk is empty. Erdogan may well be angry at Washington, but ultimately, Ankara is going to have to do whatever it takes to restore its ties with the West. Doing so might not be enough to pull the country out of its economic crisis, but Erdogan has few other options if he wants to avoid a potentially worse political meltdown: He depends too...

Trump met Erdogan at a Nato meeting early in June. Their discussions were very friendly, and after they ended, Trump thought they had made a deal: Trump would ask Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to release a Turkish citizen, Ebru Ozkan, arrested because of alleged terrorist links to Hamas, and then Turkey would release pastor Andrew Brunson, who was arrested in Turkey on October 2016 on charges of espionage, which the US considers are bogus charges. So on July 14, Trump called Netanyahu and requested that Ozkan be released, and she was released the next day. But Brunson was not...

The Turkish government is using Pastor Brunson's detention as a bargaining chip. In exchange for his freedom, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan had demanded the return to Turkey from the United States of self-exiled cleric Fethullah Gülen, a political opponent, whom Erdogan claims was behind the failed coup against him in the summer of 2016. "They are treating the U.S. government with contempt and paying no price for it." — Pastor Andrew Brunson, March 17, 2018. Turkey -- a NATO member holding an American political prisoner hostage -- has so far faced no consequences. An American Pastor, Andrew Brunson,...

The Turkish Parliament on Wednesday extended the ongoing state of emergency for another three months, the Hurriyet daily newspaper reported. This is the seventh time that the state of emergency has been extended. The last time was in January. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced the three-month state of emergency on July 20, 2016, five days after the failed coup that summer, saying it would enable authorities to take swift action against those responsible for the putsch. Wednesday’s extension means the upcoming early elections on June 24 will be held under the emergency rule despite widespread disapproval from opposition parties. The...

I nominate Recep Tayyip Erdogan, president of Turkey, as the most inconsistent, mysterious, and therefore most unpredictable major politician on the world stage. His victory in a referendum last Sunday formally bestows him with near-dictatorial powers that leave Turkey, the Middle East, and beyond in a greater state of uncertainty than ever.Here are some of the puzzles:Mystery #1: Holding the referendum. The Turkish electorate voted on April 16 in a remarkable national plebiscite that dealt not with the usual topic – floating a bond or recalling a politician – but with fundamental constitutional changes affecting the very nature of their...

It is not clear at this stage what effect President Donald Trump’s nomination of Mike Pompeo as secretary of state will have on Turkish-American ties, already strained over a number of seemingly intractable issues.What is clear, though, is that Ankara is rattled with Trump’s choice. The reason is a tweet by Pompeo during the coup attempt in July 2016 in which he likened Turkey, alongside Iran, to a “totalitarian Islamic dictatorship.” The implication of the tweet, which Pompeo later deleted, appeared to be that the attempted coup — which had still not failed at the time of the message — may have been an auspicious event. It only served to reinforce the...

Anti-Semitism is widespread in Turkey and intensely motivated by Islamic scriptures. Some Turkish authorities and opinion-shapers have chosen the “easy” way: Use the “Jew card” to demonize Gülen and his supporters. Many pro-government news websites and discussion forums, including pro-government newspapers, are filled with columns that claim Gülen is actually Jewish.A columnist with the pro-government newspaper Sabah, Ersin Ramoğlu, for example, wrote a column entitled “Fethullah Gülen: a Karaite Jew,” in which he “described” how “Jewish Fethullah Gülen has destroyed Turkey, such as by poisoning thousands of young people in his schools.” Then he explained why Gülen engages in all...

Instanbul's chief prosecutor's office has launched the mother of all probes and Sen. Chuck Schumer, U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, and ex-CIA director Brennan are among those named for their alleged links to cleric Fethullah Gulen.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller, in what started as a probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 elections and any potential collusion with the Trump campaign, is reportedly investigating former National Security Adviser Mike Flynn for an alleged plan to “forcibly remove” a Muslim cleric living in exile in Pennsylvania and send him back to Turkey.

The dramatic decision by five Arab countries to sever ties with Qatar over its alleged coddling of the Muslim Brotherhood and its flirtation with their archenemy Iran has caught the pugnacious emirate’s closest regional ally, Turkey, off balance and wondering whether it too may be targeted. Turkey’s initial reaction to the announcement by Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Yemen that they were suspending diplomatic ties as well as air and sea travel to and from Qatar was a call for dialogue. Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said at a news conference, “We see the stability in the Gulf region as our own...

Turkish government intelligence has determined Mevlut Mert Altintas, 22 – the police officer who recently assassinated Russian Ambassador Andrey Karlov while the ambassador was giving a speech to open an art gallery in Ankara – was a member of the Gulen organization, which claimed to be the same group that staged an unsuccessful coup in Turkey in July.... ....the Clinton Foundation was engaged in a pay-to-play scheme to obtain Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s support for the Obama administration decision to give asylum to Fetullah Gulen, a Turkish Muslim imam the Erdogan government holds responsible for the attempted coup July...

A newly-released email and lobbying documents filed with Congress reveals new ties between Clintonworld and members of a network operated by a mysterious Islamic cleric from Turkey. Connections between Clinton and acolytes of the imam, Fethullah Gulen, could muddle the complex relationship between the U.S. and Turkey, a key NATO ally, if the former secretary of state wins the White House. http://dailycaller.com/2016/07/13/new-ties-emerge-between-clinton-and-mysterious-islamic-cleric/

The United States should not provide a safe haven for the U.S.-based Islamic preacher Fethullah Gülen, who the Turkish government accuses of orchestrating the failed July 15 coup attempt, a top adviser to President-elect Donald Trump has said. “The forces of radical Islam derive their ideology from radical clerics like Gülen, who is running a scam. We should not provide him safe haven,” retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn wrote for the Hill newspaper in a piece published on Nov. 8. “In this crisis, it is imperative that we remember who our real friends are,” added Flynn, who is the former...

Turkish authorities have detained a brother of Fethullah Gülen, a U.S.-based cleric they accuse of orchestrating a coup attempt in July, and issued arrest warrants for 115 other people as part of nationwide investigations into the abortive putsch. Kudbettin Gülen was taken into custody on Sunday by Turkish counter-terrorism police in the Gaziemir district of the Aegean province of Izmir following intelligence that he was staying at a relative’s house, state-run Anadolu Agency said. […] Several of Gülen’s relatives, including a nephew, niece and cousins, have been arrested since the July 15 coup. …

President Barack Obama spoke to Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday, offering U.S. assistance...