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POPS Iraq fears clash between Turkish troops and Peshmerga Present "rumours" in Turkish press: A new "secret pledge" was made between the U.S. and Turkey. According to this, U.S. forces support Turkey's military operations against PKK, while Turkey "secretly" accepts the task that was assigned to Turkey by the U.S. administration: Being the "new security force" in Iraq after the U.S. withdrawal. Truth or just rumours? Only time will tell.
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POPSTurkey threats lift rebel Kurds' profile The PKK started as a Marxist-Leninist group demanding an independent homeland, but shed socialist ideology with the end of the Cold War and says it seeks some degree of self rule, similar to that of Spain's semiautonomous Catalonia region. Arrested in 1999, PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan still enjoys a personality cult among sympathizers and is believed to send directives through lawyers from prison. But the tight control that characterized the PKK eroded. In 2004, it dropped a unilateral cease-fire. Last year, a splinter operation called the Kurdistan Freedom Falcons bombed Turkish tourist resorts. An Iranian Kurd group affiliated with the PKK is fighting Iran.
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POPSIraq warns Turkey over incursion "This would be a unilateral decision and that's why people are resisting that. "That's why the whole government of Iraq and the whole people of Iraq are united really not to see their sovereignty, their territorial integrity undermined by a friendly neighbouring country." The BBC's Jim Muir, in Baghdad, says there are fears of a collision between Turkish troops and the Iraqi Kurdish forces which control the area.
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POPSConflict on a Second Kurdish Front Like the P.K.K., the Iranian Kurds control much of the craggy, boulder-strewn frontier and routinely ambush patrols on the other side. But while the Americans call the P.K.K. terrorists, guerrilla commanders say P.J.A.K. has had “direct or indirect discussions” with American officials. They would not divulge any details of the discussions or the level of the officials involved, but they noted that the group’s leader, Rahman Haj-Ahmadi, visited Washington last summer. Biryar Gabar, one of 11 members of the group’s leadership, said there had been “normal dialogue” with American officials, declining specifics. One of his bodyguards said officials of the group met with Americans in Kirkuk last year.
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POPSGul is the 11th President of Turkey In April, the army expressed its concern after Mr Gul only narrowly failed to gain enough support from MPs to become president in a first round. The following stand-off between the AKP and secularist parties in parliament triggered a political crisis that led to snap elections in July. The AKP won those polls convincingly with 47% and again nominated Mr Gul for the post of president.
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POPSWordpress.com is accessible again in Turkey The ban was lifted and Wordpress.com blogs are accesible from Turkey, via Telekom's DNS servers. Still there is not an official statement and all I could find was this comment on Matt's (Wordpress.com founder) blog, posted by a Turkish user. According to rumours, an officer from the Army was spreading critical information using his blog on Wordpress.com and "some inexperienced technical employee" at Turk Telekom blocked the whole Wordpress domain, "instead of just banning that blog", when the court's written order arrived. Let's wait for monday, for further explanations.
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POPSTurkey censors Wordpress; blogs can't be accessed When I tried to post a new entry to my blog a few minutes ago, I came across this page. It says: "Access to this site has been suspended in accordance with decision no: 2007/195 of T.C. Fatih 2.Civil Court of First Instance." At first, I thought it was my blog but after trying to access Wordpress.com's main page, I noticed the total Wordpress.com domain was blocked by the authorities. Another ridiculous example of censorship on the Internet content, in Turkey. there are hundred thousands of blogs on Wordpress.com and none can be accessed from Turkey now. This decision of the court is a shame for a country which claims to respect free speech. I protest this unfair blockage on Wordpress and call all the Turkish bloggers to support free speech and to condemn censorship.
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POPSTurkey's Gul vows secular agenda Mr Gul's previous presidential bid triggered protests in May because of his Islamist roots. Opponents dislike the fact that his wife wears the Muslim headscarf, which is banned in state institutions. The failure of the bid led to an early general election, in which Mr Gul's party won a convincing victory.
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POPSTurkey: AKP's landslide election victory Ruling AKP of Tayyip Erdogan wins around 48 percent of total votes, while main opposition party CHP could only get 20. Extreme-right nationalist MHP's votes are around 14.5. AKP is expected to get 345 seats at the 550-members parliament. CHP gets 107 and MHP 71. There is also more than 20 seats won by independent Kurdish & left wing candidates
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POPSTurkey prepares for key election Latest polls predict a 3-party parliament + a group of independent MP's. (Independents are mostly candidates of DTP, political voice of Kurdish population in southeast.) Erdogan's AKP is expected to win more than 40 percent of votes, while Deniz Baykal's CHP seems to be a runner-up with around 20 percent. According to the polls, third party in the parliament will be extreme-right, nationalist MHP, with around 14 percent of votes.
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POPSWill Turkey invade northern Iraq? This has been talked loudly in Turkey since last month and it became a key subject of political parties & leaders, when there are less than two weeks to the early general elections. Many intellectuals, thinkers and columnists expressed their worries that such a "beyond-the-borders" military operation could disrupt the political processes and could even cast doubts on the elections.
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POPSAncient Etruscans came from Anatolia "We found that the DNA samples from individuals from Murlo and Volterra were more closely related those from near Eastern people than those of the other Italian samples", says Professor Piazza. "In Murlo particularly, one genetic variant is shared only by people from Turkey, and, of the samples we obtained, the Tuscan ones also show the closest affinity with those from Lemnos."
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POPSHundreds arrested in Istanbul during May Day 30 years ago, on May 1st 1977, 34 people were killed at Taksim Square, Istanbul, during the May Day meeting, after some "unknown" provocators leaked in the crowd and created a panic. Today, the official state ideology and its despotic-minded defenders didn't even allow people to commemorate the victims at Taksim Square. Still a very long way to walk, towards democracy, free speech and tolerance.
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POPS7,500 years old mass burial in Turkey The Domuztepe riddle is among the real-life mysteries from the world of archaeology that will be on display from 1 to 4 p.m. on Saturday, May 5, when the Cotsen Institute at UCLA — the nation's largest collection of working archaeologists — throws open its doors to the public.
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POPS"Turkey's secularism threatened", said outgoing president The same old story. Turkey's dilemma between the religious "civilian" movement and the secular but military-minded "state ideology" is being discussed once again. Without even the "shadow" of a left or liberal party around, the present situation is like asking "Would you like to be hanged or would you prefer the gas chamber?"
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POPSTurkish court bans YouTube access Thanks to the "super intelligent" order of the Istanbul court, which added Turkey's name high on the "censorship list" with China, Saudi Arabia and other anti-democratic countries. Now millions of users can't access YouTube. Bravo!
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POPSIs Bush Iraq-ing Iran? Pham Binh from MRZine writes in his latest article: The Bush administration's goal is to roll back and contain Iran's influence in the Middle East. Military encirclement, saber-rattling, veiled threats, diplomatic isolation, provocations, and economic pressure are all means to this end. So if regime change is not the aim, is war with Iran on the agenda? Yes. The very success of the Bush administration's aggressive rollback and contain policy is what might lead to war. This requires some explanation.
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