Turkey's President Recep Erdogan on Saturday celebrated the one year anniversary of the "failed coup" that aimed to oust him from power on Saturday in typical fashion, by threatening to "chop off the heads" of traitors.
In a move that Bloomberg has defined as "signalling a turn away from the NATO military alliance that has anchored Turkey to the West for more than six decades" Turkey agreed to pay $2.5 billion to acquire Russia’s most advanced missile defense system, a senior Turkish official told Bloomberg on Thursday. The proposed deal which was first reported here back in November 2016, has been finalized and the preliminary agreement sees Turkey receiving two S-400 missile batteries from Russia within the next year, then producing another two inside Turkey.
Via TheAntiMedia.org,
Marking the first time Sweden - the country - has ever lodged a complaint against a head-of-state, this week five members of parliament (MPs) from the Scandinavian country officially accused Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of genocide.
The MPs’ complaint alleges Erdogan has committed war crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity against the Kurdish majority in Turkey’s southeast region since a truce between the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and government forces fell apart in 2015.
In the latest diplomatic escalation between the EU and Turkey, on Thursday the European Parliament voted to suspend Turkey's EU accession talks, which as a reminder have been dragging on for decades, if Ankara proceeds with its tplanned constitutional reform which grants sweeping powers to President Recep Erdogan.
Speaking in an interview with France 24, in which Turkish president Recep Erdogan lashed out at Germany for not allowing him to address the Turkish community there and preventing him from bringing his bodyguards to the upcoming G20 meeting in Hamburg, Erdogan warned that Turkey is ready to intervene militarily in north Syria to repel Syrian Kurdish forces there, forces which recall are armed and supported by the US but are seen as a terrorist organisation by Turkey.