BARÇIN YİNANÇ

Poll’s finding on Islam and violence should ring alarm bells BARÇIN YİNANÇ

Poll’s finding on Islam and violence should ring alarm bells

“We have been following with great concern what is happening at the Fatih Mosque in Istanbul,” a Western diplomat told me, in reference to demonstrations of support of the Kouachi brothers who attacked the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo last month.

February 02 2015
Moscow can no longer use the ‘Russian tourist’ card on gas deals BARÇIN YİNANÇ

Moscow can no longer use the ‘Russian tourist’ card on gas deals

Volkan Vural was Turkey’s last ambassador to the Soviet Union. He went to Moscow in 1988, a year after the first ever gas transfer started between the two countries, and came back in 1993.

January 28 2015
Claims of arms transfers to Syria by Turkey are exaggerated, says expert BARÇIN YİNANÇ

Claims of arms transfers to Syria by Turkey are exaggerated, says expert

Mete Yarar is a former member of the Turkish armed forces. As a member of the Special Forces Command, he was last on duty in Iraq, before leaving the army of his own will in 2004

January 26 2015
EU is the culprit for Turkish–Russian energy rapprochement BARÇIN YİNANÇ

EU is the culprit for Turkish–Russian energy rapprochement

It has always been “too little too late” when it comes to relations between Turkey and the European Union.

January 21 2015
Why was Turkey present in Paris but not on Hrant Dink’s march BARÇIN YİNANÇ

Why was Turkey present in Paris but not on Hrant Dink’s march?

If I had not read Hayko Bağdat’s article last week in daily Taraf, I would not have realized that there are more similarities than meet the eye between the Charlie Hebdo killings and the murder of Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink.

January 19 2015
Turkey’s messages on Islam doomed to fall on deaf ears BARÇIN YİNANÇ

Turkey’s messages on Islam doomed to fall on deaf ears

It has been reported that French President François Hollande asked Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to attend the Jan. 11 march in Paris after the attack on Charlie Hebdo, claiming that his presence would be divisive.

January 14 2015
Freedom of speech missing from Turkish rhetoric over Paris killings BARÇIN YİNANÇ

Freedom of speech missing from Turkish rhetoric over Paris killings

“I am Charlie Hebdo; because I, like many members of my generation, grew up reading and admiring satire, which, by definition, attacks sacred cows – the powerful, the pious, the seemingly pure. Otherwise it is not satire,” a very dear friend of mine wrote on her Facebook account.

January 12 2015
As the new Turkey evolves into an old one BARÇIN YİNANÇ

As the new Turkey evolves into an old one

Serkan Demirtaş, the Hürriyet Daily News' Ankara bureau chief, wrote yesterday of the shock that the Dutch foreign minister experienced when he heard about the detention of a Dutch journalist by terrorism police, just as he was talking about freedom of press in Ankara with Turkish journalists.

January 07 2015
Turkey’s first social incubation center BARÇIN YİNANÇ

Turkey’s first social incubation center

As I started to write this column yesterday at midday, a parliamentary inquiry commission started its meeting to decide whether to send four former ministers engulfed in a massive corruption and graft operation that was launched on Dec. 17, 2013, to the Supreme Council for trial.

January 05 2015