The Turkish-Russian agreement on the establishment of a buffer zone along the Turkish-Syrian border, which was negotiated in Sochi on 22 October, has fundamentally changed the balance of power in Syria
Turkish forces are pounding cities and towns in northern Syria/Rojava, including the region’s biggest city, Qamishli, as well as Kobane, still in ruins after the war to oust ISIS. Air raids and heavy artillery strikes have forced thousands of civilians to flee into arid open country where there is neither Read more…
Donald Trump has just signaled a dramatic shift in US policy in northern Syria, betraying his erstwhile allies the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), in which the Kurdish YPG militia are the dominant force. The 60,000 SDF fighters had provided him – and Obama before him – with the boots on Read more…
By Svenja Spunck THE HEADLINE results of Turkey’s presidential and parliamentary elections are that Recep Tayyip Erdogan has won the presidential election and the alliance of his “Party for Justice and Development”, AKP, and the Party of the Nationalist Movement, MHP, has secured a majority in parliament. The People’s Democratic Read more…
THE INTERNATIONAL workers’ movement should take to the streets in solidarity with the justified resistance of the Kurds’ against Turkish militarism
Last July there were two coups in Turkey, one failed, one succeeded. (more…)
When Turkey’s President Erdogan compared the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, to Hitler, there was some predictable outrage in the media but there was no indignant response from Berlin. The official line was not to respond to such “provocation”, particularly when the Dutch PM, Mark Rutte, had recently banned MPs from Read more…
By Svenja S At least a dozen Kurdish officials, including senior members of the opposition HDP party have been arrested in midnight raids on the pretext of supporting Kurdish insurgents. The arrests mark an escalation in a crackdown on democratic rights pursued by Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party Read more…
By Svenja Although the attempted coup by elements of the Armed Forces on July 15 was successfully defeated, since then, there has been a decisive shift in the balance of power by which the president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has concentrated greater state power in his own hands. Even while the Read more…
By Svenja AFTER a series of bomb outrages, including the killing of 41 people in Istanbul’s Ataturk Airport on 29 June, the resumption of the war against the Kurds and the expulsion of legal parties from Parliament, one might have thought that no report from Turkey could come as a shock Read more…
LIKE Putin’s strategy in Syria, Britain’s and the USA’s also involves double-crossing old allies and co-opting new ones. The case that Cameron made for war included a reference to 70,000 “moderate opposition” fighters, whose existence many have been far too quick to dismiss, given the likely far larger size of Read more…
On 11 October a demonstration against state terror ended in the bloodiest massacre in Turkeys’ recent history. About 10,000 people travelled from across the country to gather in front of the main railway station in Ankara. Two major union federations, the Turkish Medical Association and the Engineers’ and Architects’ Association, Read more…
FOR YOUR IMMEDIATE ATTENTION! On the 2nd April, members of the Turkish police and Army raided the İdil Culture Centre (İdil Kültür Merkezi) in Istanbul. They arrested members of the popular musical group Grup Yorum and UK national and journalist Stephen Shaw Kaczynski. On that very weekend an anti-imperialist conference Read more…
By Svenja Zhenot 5 June 2015 Turkey’s Parliamentary elections on June 7 will take place against a background of sharpening political crisis in the region. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s AKP (Justice and Development Party) has been in power since 2002, maintaining its stronghold over Turkish politics with their brand of Read more…
By Svenja Spunck, 4 February 2015 On the morning of January 29, in Turkey, 15,000 workers in the metal industry downed tools. The left trade union confederation DISK (Devrimci İşçi Sendikalari Konfederasyonu – Confederation of Revolutionary Workers Unions) had called for a nationwide strike in 40 factories. These include many Read more…
The movement which brought millions onto the streets now finds itself caught between the uncompromising violence of the state and the limitations of its tactics. KD Tait argues that now is the time to organise to ensure the loss of Gezi Park does not turn from setback to defeat. As Read more…
As the rival imperialist powers manoeuvre to gain an advantage from the mass uprising against Bashar al-Assad’s dictatorship, Marcus Halaby examines the regime’s strategy and tactics as it struggles, if not for outright victory, then at least to cling on to some vestiges of its power. One of the historic Read more…
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