Turkey

29 July 2021; MEMO: A Turkish opposition leader has offered Austria €3 billion ($3.56 billion) to take all the Afghan refugees residing in Turkey, in reaction to the Austrian prime minister's suggestion last week that Turkey should keep all refugees within its borders.

The chairman of Turkey's IYI (Good) Party, Meral Aksener, condemned Sebastian Kurz's comments as inappropriate on Tuesday, stating: "This tactless Austrian prime minister said that all Afghans should stay in Turkey and he could pay us."

ISTANBUL, July 29 (Reuters) - Three people were found dead as a massive forest fire burned for a second day in southern Turkey on Thursday, the country's AFAD disaster agency and agriculture minister said, with efforts to rescue others and extinguish the blaze continuing.

More than 100 other people had to be evacuated, required medical treatment or suffered damage to property as a result of the fire.

28 July 2021; MEMO: The Turkish Foreign Ministry yesterday condemned the European Union's statement on the partial reopening of the Maras region in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), Anadolu news agency reported.

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — A Turkish-born American believed to be behind a secret messaging application that has been linked to Turkey’s failed 2016 military coup arrived in Istanbul last month where he turned himself in to authorities, the state-run news agency reported Wednesday.

Anadolu Agency said David Keynes, the alleged license holder for the ByLock messaging app who was wanted in Turkey, was taken into police custody at Istanbul’s main airport on June 9.

ISTANBUL, July 27 (Xinhua) -- Turkish police have detained 709 illegal immigrants in Turkey's biggest city Istanbul, state-run Anadolu news agency reported Tuesday.

Istanbul police forces launched operations against irregular migrants in 11 districts across the city between July 15-25, and a total of 709 migrants, including 214 Afghans, have been detained.

Turkey has recently witnessed an influx of refugees from Afghanistan fleeing escalating violence and turmoil in their homeland.

ISTANBUL (AP) — Two Turkish soldiers were killed and two others were wounded in an attack in northern Syria, Turkey’s defense ministry said Sunday.

The ministry tweeted that a Turkish armored vehicle was attacked. The assault occurred Saturday in the so-called Euphrates Shield area, which consists of a region between the Turkish border and northern Aleppo, including the towns of Jarablus and al-Bab.

24 July 2021; MEMO: A boat carrying 45 Syrian refugees sank southeast of the Greek island of Crete, Turkish authorities said today, Anadolu Agency reports.

The boat went down at 9.10 pm. local time (1800GMT) on Thursday in the search and rescue area of Turkey due to severe weather conditions, the Transport and Infrastructure Ministry said in a statement.

The boat was sailing to Italy before it ran out of fuel, the statement also said.

24 July 2021; MEMO: The concrete wall connecting the border between Turkey and Iran is currently being strengthened by a series of additional deterrents to prevent the influx of refugees from Afghanistan from passing through Iran.

23 July 2021; MEMO: Turkey and Algeria are discussing ways to cooperate and support Palestine, Anadolu has reported. The Speaker of the Algerian Parliament, Ibrahim Bougali, has raised this with his Turkish counterpart Mustafa Sentop during a telephone call initiated by the latter.

19 July 2021; MEMO: Turkish security forces have detained nearly 1,500 irregular migrants in the last week, most of them Afghans, near the southeastern border with Iran, officials said, amid rising violence in Afghanistan, Reuters reported.

The officials from a local governorate and the Interior Ministry said 1,456 migrants had been detained since July 10 near Mount Erek in eastern Van province, as well as 11 human traffickers who brought them into Turkey.