All posts tagged "Turkey"

President Donald Trump's own ambassador to Turkey publicly contradicted official U.S. policy on the Golan Heights this week, asserting that Israel holds the territory in defiance of United Nations resolutions and triggering a MAGA backlash.

Tom Barrack, who also serves as Trump's special envoy for Syria and Iraq, made the remarks in an interview Friday with Lebanese-Australian entrepreneur Mario Nawfal. His comments put him directly at odds with a signature foreign policy move of the president he serves.

"In the Golan with Syria, they still occupy the Golan against the UN resolutions, against all of the international order, which has said the Golan is Syria's," Barrack said, according to Middle East Eye....

President Donald Trump responded to a reporter's questions about Iranian threats against Air Force One by telling them they were at risk, too.

While taking questions from a press gaggle on Air Force One on Wednesday, one reporter asked why the plane's blinds were closed and whether Trump was aware of any credible security threats from Iran.

"I have a threat all the time. I'm number one on their list — before you," Trump said. "But if I go, you go. So perhaps one day we want to change professions."...

A Washington Post opinion writer condemned President Donald Trump's characterization of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (also known as MBS) as "a fantastic guy."

Trump made the comment during a virtual address at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Thursday, where he said he was asking MBS for $1 trillion in investment money.

"It's also reported today in the papers that Saudi Arabia will be investing at least $600 billion in America, but I'll be asking the crown prince, who's a fantastic guy, to round it out to about $1 trillion. And I think they'll do that because we've been very good to them," Trump said. ...

A Turkish court on Thursday sentenced Selahattin Demirtaş, a jailed key Kurdish politician, to 42 years in jail over his alleged role in violent protests in 2014, local media reported. Demirtaş, former co-chair of the now-defunct pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), has been in pre-trial detention since 2016. He was a challenger to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in the 2018 elections. Another jailed ex-HDP co-chair, Figen Yüksekdağ, was handed just over 30 years in jail on charges of harming the unity of Turkish state and terror propaganda, among others, state news agency Anadolu repor......

What better way to say it’s Christmas Eve in Sacramento? Cloudy skies, cool temperatures and a hint of roasted turkey. A wild turkey made a fatal connection with a power line Sunday afternoon in south Sacramento, briefly cutting power to more than 4,000 customers of the Sacramento Municipal Utility District. SMUD said 4,248 homes and businesses of the Little Pocket and Greenhaven neighborhoods, among others, lost power about 12:15 p.m. A spokesperson for the utility said a member of the gobbling, parading and, sometimes, ornery game species was to blame and that crews were quickly dispatched t......

Several Arab and Islamic countries have called on the United States to play a "broader role" in pressuring Israel into accepting a ceasefire in the Gaza war, the Qatari Foreign Ministry said on Saturday. The call was made at a meeting in Washington between Qatari, Egyptian, Jordanian, Saudi, Palestinian and Turkish foreign ministers with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken. They are members of a ministerial committee formed by an emergency Arab-Islamic summit, hosted by Saudi Arabia last month to discuss the Gaza situation. During their talks with Blinken, the officials expressed disappointme......