Turkey

23 Sep 2020; MEMO: Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday proposed a regional conference with all Mediterranean coastal states, including the breakaway Turkish Cypriots, to address tensions over maritime boundaries and hydrocarbon exploration in the region.

22 Sep 2020; AA: Archeologists in southeastern Turkey initiated an excavation to unearth mosaics belonging to a 1600-year-old church. 

Built in 396 A.D. in Mardin’s Goktas village, the church was discovered on Sept. 18, 2019 and the area was declared as an archeological site.

Abdulgani Tarkan, head of the excavation and the director of Mardin Museum, told Anadolu Agency that the church is structured on a basilica plan with a mosaic base.

21 Sep 2020; MEMO: Turkey and Greece could soon resume talks over their contested Mediterranean claims but European Union leaders meeting this week will not help if they threaten sanctions, Turkey’s presidential spokesman said on Sunday, Reuters reports.

21 Sep 2020; MEMO: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has accused hostile parties of working to prevent the country’s development by igniting internal crises, Rssd.com reported yesterday.

Erdogan said his government had started to work to promote the country based on the Turkish vision for 2023, 2053 and 2071.

“Every step we walk towards making Turkey a regional and global power represents a cornerstone for this vision,” the president said.

ISTANBUL, Sept. 21 (Xinhua) -- Turkish police on Monday detained 14 Iraqi nationals in Turkey's northern province of Samsun over their suspected links to the Islamic State (IS) militant group, the state-run Anadolu agency said.

Police launched operations simultaneously in different addresses across the province to capture the suspects who were believed to carry out activities on behalf of the IS, Anadolu noted.

Several digital items were also seized during the raids, and the operations are continuing to capture another suspect, it added.

ANKARA, Sept. 20 (Xinhua) -- The increase in Turkey's daily novel coronavirus cases slowed down, but not the number of severe patients, Turkish Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said on Sunday.

"The number of seriously ill patients has reached 1,456. Although the rate of increase has slowed down, we cannot be peaceful until this number decreases," he tweeted.

The minister's remarks came as the daily cases in Turkey fell to around 1,500.

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkey and Greece could soon resume talks over their contested Mediterranean claims but European Union leaders meeting this week will not help if they threaten sanctions, Turkey’s presidential spokesman said on Sunday.

The NATO members and neighbours have been locked in a bitter dispute over the extent of their continental shelves in the eastern Mediterranean. Tensions flared last month when Turkey sent a vessel to survey for gas and oil in contested waters.

20 Sep 2020; AA: The Turkish defense minister on Sunday slammed a despicable headline in a Greek newspaper about President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

"The shameful record will remain a black mark in Greek press history," Hulusi Akar was quoted in a statement by National Defense Ministry on Twitter.

He condemned the "extremely worthless statement" that appeared in Demokratia's Friday edition, saying it was "not even related to journalism."

20 Sep 2020; MEMO: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has stated that Turkey regrets the decision of Head of the Libyan Government of National Accord (GNA) Fayez Al-Sarraj to resign from his position, stressing that he has no objection to holding meetings with the Egyptian authorities, Reuters reported.

19 Sep 2020; MEMO: Turkey on Saturday condemned the conviction of seven Crimean Tatars by a Russian court earlier this week.

The country's Foreign Ministry said in a statement: "It is regrettable to suppress the Tatar Turkish community, which is the essential element of the Crimean Peninsula, by such methods."