Important Takeaways:
- Erdogan Suffers Historic Loss in Turkey Municipal Elections
- Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan suffered an unprecedented defeat at the ballot box against the main opposition party amid rampant inflation and the highest borrowing costs since the president swept to power more than two decades ago.
- Turkey’s lira weakened in early trading on Monday after Erdogan’s AK Party fell behind the main opposition Republican People’s Party, known as CHP, in Sunday’s municipal elections for the first time ever, according to early results published by state broadcaster TRT.
- Poll results show voters turned against the ruling party in much of the country, but the change was more dramatic in urban areas. That was mainly due to persistently high inflation even after Erdogan allowed the central bank to raise the nation’s key interest rate to 50%, the highest level since the ruling party first came to power in 2002. While higher lending costs resulted in a slump in consumer sentiment, they have yet to reverse the trajectory of price increases, which are running at an annual rate of just under 70%.
- “Voters appear to have punished his party and candidates for economic hardships at the municipal elections,” Emre Peker, Europe director for Eurasia Group, said of the president. “Erdogan is no longer immune to voter concerns over the economy, which he most recently sidestepped in May 2023 to secure reelection.”
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Important Takeaways:
- Turkey cozies up to Iran after praising Hamas ‘mujahideen,’ seeks reconciliation on key issues
- Turkey has found itself at odds with its NATO allies, most of whom have backed Israel’s right to defend itself following the Hamas terrorist attack on Oct. 7, while Turkey has echoed the stances of other Middle Eastern nations in questioning Israel and defending the Palestinians.
- Erdogan took things a step further and defended the Hamas terrorists who carried out the attack, calling the group a “mujahideen,” or freedom fighters, “defending their lands.” He has also continued to push for a ceasefire, accusing the West of being “too weak” to call for one — a stance that seems common among the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) members.
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Important Takeaways:
- Turkey’s Gaza fury deepens splits with EU
- After a bloody October 7 raid by Hamas… Erdogan initially sought to position Turkey as a mediator.
- But this apparent ambition evaporated last month after the Turkish leader portrayed Hamas not as a terrorist group but as “liberators” or “mujahideen” fighting for their land.
- Turkey is technically a candidate for eventual EU membership and, even if this seems a distant prospect, Brussels would prefer Ankara to support rather than compete with its positions.
- “What the president says reflects badly here in Brussels. We always expect Turkey to align with us in foreign policy,” said an EU official who wished to remain anonymous.
- Erdogan, a devout Muslim and fervent advocate of Palestinian rights, toughened his criticism as civilian deaths in Gaza mounted, accusing Israel of committing war crimes and recalling Turkey’s ambassador to Tel Aviv.
- “Erdogan’s stance on Israel-Gaza adds to growing tensions between Turkey and the West over longer-standing issues, including EU accession,” said Hamish Kinnear, senior Middle East and North Africa analyst at risk intelligence company Verisk Maplecroft.
- Turkish-EU relations have been at standstill since the launch of membership talks in 2005.
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Important Takeaways:
- Hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters try to storm air base housing US troops in Turkey
- Turkish police used tear gas and water cannon as hundreds of people at a pro-Palestinian rally on Sunday tried to storm an air base that houses US troops, hours before US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was due in Ankara for talks on Gaza.
- Turkey, which has stepped up its criticism of Israel as the humanitarian crisis in Gaza has worsened, supports a two-state solution while hosting members of the Palestinian militant group Hamas. Since the Israel-Hamas war started, protests have erupted across the country.
- Earlier this week, the IHH Humanitarian Relief Foundation, an Islamist Turkish aid agency, organized a convoy to travel to the Incirlik air base in the Adana province in southern Turkey to protest Israeli attacks on Gaza and US support for Israel.
- Protesters were also seen hurling plastic chairs, rocks, and other items at police, who fired smoke bombs at crowds. Scuffles broke out between the crowds and security forces.
- IHH President Bulent Yildirim addressed crowds in Adana and urged them to refrain from attacking police.
- “Friends, it is wrong to throw rocks or do similar things because both the police and soldiers would want to go to Gaza and fight and they will go when the time comes,” he said.
- “Our rage is huge. We cannot hold it in. But Turkey is doing what it can,” he added. IHH ended its rally earlier than planned due to the clashes with police.
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Important Takeaways:
- Erdogan threatens to declare war on Israel and send military to Gaza in chilling warning
- Recep Tayyip Erdogan delivered a speech to a rally this afternoon in which he told attendees Israel was responsible for war crimes, and framed Hamas as “freedom fighters”.
- In comments that have prompted Israeli outcry, and led the country to withdraw its diplomatic presence, president Erdogan suggested assaults on Gaza constituted a “massacre”.
- In the same speech, he reportedly said that Turkey can “come at any night unexpectedly” to ecstatic reception from hundreds of thousands of attendees.
- The footage, which is currently circulating on X, formerly known as Twitter, purportedly showed the pro-Palestine crowd responding with the chant: “Turkish military to Gaza.”
- In response to Israel’s actions, Mr Erdogan said, his government was preparing to “tell the whole world that Israel is a war criminal”.
- Israeli foreign minister Eli Cohen said the statements coming from Turkey had “led him to conduct a re-evaluation of the relations between Israel and Turkey.”
- He said in a statement: “Given the grave statements coming from Turkey, I have ordered the return of diplomatic representatives there in order to conduct a re-evaluation of the relations between Israel and Turkey.”
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Important Takeaways:
- The death toll from severe rainstorms that lashed parts of Greece, Turkey and Bulgaria increased to 14 on Wednesday after rescue teams in the three neighboring countries recovered seven more bodies.
- Greece’s weather service said a Pilion region village received 75.4 centimeters (nearly 30 inches) of rain late Tuesday, by far the highest level recorded since at least 2006. It noted that the average annual rainfall in the Athens region is around 40 centimeters (15.75 inches).
- The storm comes on the heels of major summer wildfires that hit Greece over the past few weeks, with some burning for more than two weeks and destroying vast tracts of forest and farmland. More than 20 people were killed in the fires.
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Revelations 6:3-4 “when he opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, “Come!” 4 And out came another horse, bright red. Its rider was permitted to take peace from the earth, so that people should slay one another, and he was given a great sword.
Important Takeaways:
- Turkey’s Parliament Ratifies Finland’s Membership in NATO
- Turkey’s parliament on Thursday ratified Finland’s application to join NATO, lifting the last hurdle in the way of the Nordic country’s long-delayed accession into the Western military alliance.
- All 276 lawmakers present voted in favor of Finland’s bid, days after Hungary’s parliament also endorsed Helsinki’s accession.
- “This will make the whole NATO family stronger & safer,” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg wrote on Twitter in welcoming Turkey’s action.
- Sweden’s bid to join the alliance, meanwhile, has been left hanging, with both Turkey and Hungary holding out on giving it the green light despite expressing support for NATO’s expansion.
- Turkey’s government accuses Sweden of being too lenient toward groups it deems to be terrorist organizations
- Sweden, which made constitutional changes to pass tougher anti-terrorism laws, has expressed hope that it will be able to join before NATO’s July summit in Vilnius, Lithuania.
- “Turkey is unlikely to approve its acceptance into the alliance before the election in May.
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Mathew 24:7 For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places.
Important Takeaways:
- Earthquake death toll in Turkey rises to 43,556, minister says
- The number of people killed in Turkey in this month’s devastating earthquakes has risen to 43,556, the country’s Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said overnight.
- Soylu told state broadcaster TRT Haber that there had been 7,930 aftershocks following the first quake on Feb. 6 and that more than 600,000 apartments and 150,000 commercial premises had suffered at least moderate damage.
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Mathew 24:7 For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places.
Important Takeaways:
- Earthquakes that killed thousands in Syria and Turkey are world’s deadliest in nearly two decades
- As of Feb. 16, ten days after the initial 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck the region, more than 41,000 people are known to have died. That earthquake was only the start of the growing disaster, with another 5.7 magnitude quake hitting the following day and hundreds of aftershocks in between.
- The earthquakes are the deadliest to occur in the world since a massive 2005 quake in Pakistan killed more than 70,000 people.
- In 2011, nearly 20,000 people were killed after a 9.0 quake off of Japan’s coast triggered a tsunami.
- And the year before [2010] that, a catastrophic earthquake in Haiti devastated the capital city, Port au Prince, with a death toll estimated at 200,000 or more.
- 2018 in Indonesia at least 4,340 people were killed by the earthquake and its torrential aftermath, including at least 1,200 in the tsunami
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Mathew 24:7 For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places.
Important Takeaways:
- ‘Keep Praying’: Survivors Still Being Found in Quake Rubble, Operation Blessing Relief Effort Underway
- Rescuers are still finding some survivors amid the rubble… in Turkey and Syria. It’s the worst natural disaster in Turkey’s history with at least 35,500 now known to be dead. Nearly 32,000 of those people died in Turkey with at least 3,500 more in Syria.
- The destruction zone in Turkey after those two massive earthquakes and dozens of aftershocks is stunning in its magnitude. As a comparison, it is the same size as the area north of New York City all the way to the south of Washington D.C., including New Jersey, Maryland, Delaware and part of Pennsylvania.
- Diego Traverso, Operation Blessing’s international director of disaster relief, says the ministry is rushing to meet needs as quickly as possible.
- “We want to be in the center of the action where the people need it, where, not only the people that are suffering… Keep praying for us, keep praying for the victims, keep praying for our volunteers, for our teams we’re deploying right now. Our experts are gonna be arriving in the next couple hours, water engineer, doctor, health team… the health is so needed.”
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