Turkey

ANKARA, Dec 28 (Reuters) - Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan eliminated a retirement age requirement on Wednesday in a move that allows more than 2 million workers to retire immediately, less than six months before an election.

The presidential announcement came during a Wednesday news conference on the popular policy move.

Erdogan's ruling AK Party delivered a hefty hike to the minimum wage last week as part of a campaign to win back support eroded by inflation, a fall in the lira, and a sharp drop in living standards.

ANKARA, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- Although Türkiye's soaring inflation is set to drop in 2023, the country's economy is not expected to be out of the woods as growth is now on a downward trend, experts said.

The Turkish economy bounced back strongly from the COVID-19 pandemic to expand by 11.4 percent in 2021, its highest rate in a decade.

The country's annual inflation eased to 84.4 percent in November 2022, from a 24-year high of 85.5 percent the previous month, slowing for the first time in 18 months, official data showed.

ANKARA, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Thursday that the next contact with the Syrian government as part of a road map for dialogue between the two countries will be between the foreign ministers.

The foreign ministers' meeting will be the second stage of the contact after defense ministers of Russia, Türkiye and Syria met in Moscow on Wednesday for normalization between Türkiye and Syria in the decade-long Syrian war, Cavusoglu told reporters at a press briefing in the capital Ankara.

29 Dec 2022; MEMO: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday received the credentials of new ambassadors from four countries, including Israel.

At the presidential complex in the capital Ankara, Erdogan welcomed Israeli Ambassador Irit Lillian, marking the first appointment by Tel Aviv since 2018.

Senior diplomat Lillian, whose appointment was announced on Sept. 19, had served as Israel's charge d'affaires in Ankara for the past two years.

ANKARA, December 28. /TASS/: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts for the sake of resolving the Ukrainian crisis, the Turkish parliamentary speaker, Mustafa Sentop, told the media on Wednesday.

"I have nominated President Erdogan for the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts in the name of peace between Russia and Ukraine. This is my own appeal. There will also be appeals from other countries," he said.

27 Dec 2022; MEMO: Turkiye's president on Monday announced the discovery of an additional 58 billion cubic meters of natural gas in the Black Sea.

"Our drill ship Fatih has explored 58 billion cubic meters of natural gas reserves, 3,023 meters under the sea, at the Caycuma 1 block," said President Recep Tayyip Erdogan following a Cabinet meeting at the Presidential Complex in Ankara.

28 Dec 2022; MEMO: Portuguese football star Cristiano Ronaldo was a victim of "a political ban" at the Qatar World Cup as a result of his support for the Palestinian cause, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Sunday.

"They have wasted Ronaldo. Unfortunately, they have imposed a political ban on him," Erdogan told youth in an event in Turkey's eastern city of Erzurum.

27 Dec 2022; MEMO: The first Judicial Conference of the Constitutional/Supreme Courts/Councils of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) Member/Observer States kicked off in the Turkish city of Istanbul on Saturday.

The Turkish constitutional court said in a statement that presidents and official constitutional representatives from 32 Islamic countries participated in the conference.

25 Dec 2022; MEMO: Turkiye is in talks with Russia to use the airspace above northern Syria for a potential cross-border operation against the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia, Turkish Defence Minister Hulusi Akar said on Saturday, Reuters reports.

23 Dec 2022; MEMO: Turkiye's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday criticised Greece over its hostile approach toward migrants.

"The attitude of our western neighbor Greece toward migrants has now reached the level of brutality," Erdogan said in his address to the inaugural congress of the Conference of Constitutional Jurisdictions of the Islamic World in Istanbul.

Unfortunately, the Western countries are not responding to "this brutality of Greece," the Turkish leader lamented.