TURKEY

Near Turkey’s border with Syria, a Russian warplane is crashed. The warplane is made crash by Turkey’s fighter jets on the grounds that it violated the airspace of Turkey.

In a recent article, Robert Fisk, the senior Middle East correspondent of the Independent compared Turkey to Pakistan in the 1980s and said that the recent air bombardment was no surprise given that all powers in the region have betrayed the Kurds. We spoke to Fisk both about the details of the matters he touches on in his article, and whether power balances have changed in the Middle East. Fisk comments that Turkey has become a market place and when seen from this perspective there are more important issues at stake besides whether or not Turkey will enter the war in Syria: “I believe that Syria has started penetrating Turkey. Suruç is an example of this. From this view, the Syrian War but not the Syrians have occupied Turkey. It is not the reverse.”

The 212 million dollar Akbank loan for SOCAR, the State Oil Company of Azerbaijani Republic, for the container port project in Aliağa, İzmir, was approved on May 25. The project land was transferred to SOCAR with a ‘preferential’ clause added to the omnibus bill.

The findings of the CRRC-Armenia/TESEV joint survey on public perception in Armenia on the normalization of Turkey-Armenia relations have been published. According to the survey, issues of trust regarding normalization persist, however, especeially the opening of the border and economic relations may constitute an important step in normalization.

President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan, in an interview with the state television of Russia, expressed his views about Turkey-Armenia relations.

The international media forum titled ‘At the Foot of Mount Ararat’ held in Yerevan on 18-20 March, brought together journalists from various countries with President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan, and also many state officials.

Executive director of HRW Middle East and North Africa Division Sarah Leah Whitson will be visiting Istanbul on April 24 as part of the ‘Project 2015’ group to take part in the Armenian Genocide 100th Anniversary Commemoration. We interviewed Whitson in Istanbul, where she held meetings with civilian society organizations in Turkey, which will participate in the organization of the commemoration event; and asked her about Turkey’s position in 2015, the Diaspora’s expectations and the impact of Armenian identity on her life.