September 5, 2014

Lawyer: Demand for Gülen's extradition legal matter, not political

Amid Turkish media reports that President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan will seek the extradition of Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen from US President Barack Obama during a meeting at the NATO Summit, Gülen's lawyer criticized the potential move, saying that such a process is not a political matter but a legal one.

Galimbek's message

Abdülhamit Bilici

Because we have been unable to become a regular and normal democracy, every generation and every social segment has once been defined as a domestic enemy in different periods. One of the things that the clandestine structures governing the old Turkey did best was to declare part of the people as an internal enemy and to launch effective propaganda to undermine their image in the eyes of the people.

Halki, pope, patriarch and Gülen

Abdullah Bozkurt

The way Turkey's chief political Islamist and new president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has approached the reopening of the Halki seminary, a school that had trained Eastern Orthodox clergy for the Patriarchate for more than a century until it was forcibly shut down in 1971, represents a fundamental flaw in the thinking of so-called Islamists, who place more emphasis on symbolism than substance and like very much to employ divisive and hateful discourse as opposed to reaching out and embracing different faiths and cultures.

Bank to sue watchdog over ‘smear campaign' as reactions mount

Turkish Islamic lender Bank Asya has decided to sue authorities over inaction in light of what it has called "massive smear campaign" against the financial institution for nine months.