Turkey: 23 PKK terrorists killed in southeast

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NO PANIC IN EMERGING MARKETS
AFTER RATE HIKE: EXPERTS
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FOUR DEAD AS REFUGEE BOAT SINKS
OFF TURKISH COAST
There was no panic in emerging markets Thursday after the
U.S. Federal Reserve raised interest rates late Wednesday.
Emerging market stocks were sharply higher Thursday.
Turkey’s Borsa Istanbul opened higher early in the day. The
Shanghai Composite Index was up 1.45 percent on Thursday morning. The MSCI Emerging Markets Index rose 0.5
percent. South Korea’s Kospi Index gained 0.2 percent. The
FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI index improved 0.70 percent.
Investors saw the market reaction as justified, given the
Fed’s dovish approach to future rate increases. >>ECONOMY
12,000 applications last year
The deadline for entries for the Istanbul Photo Awards, the
international news and sports contest organized by Anadolu Agency, is Jan. 31.
A combined $58,000 in prize money is available for the
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Turkey stops more than
36,500 Syria-bound suspects
Friday December 18, 2015
Terror suspects from at least 123 countries, interior minister says
Turkey has stopped more than 36,500 terror suspects heading for Syria, Interior
Minister Efkan Ala said Thursday.
Most suspects were stopped from entering Turkey at the border while nearly
2,800 were arrested and later deported, Ala told Anadolu Agency’s Editors’ Desk
meeting in Ankara. “Turkey has denied entry to 33,746 people from 123 countries suspected of joining terror activities in Syria,” he said.
Ala added: “Turkey has detained and deported 2,783 suspects from 89 countries.”
The minister did not indicate a time scale for the interventions.
Turkey, which shares a 900 kilometer (560 mile) border with Syria, has been
a transit point for foreigners trying to join groups such as Daesh. The Turkish
authorities have stepped up efforts to stem the flow, improving security checks
at ports, airports and crossings and reinforcing security on the Syrian border.
Ala said Turkey exchanged intelligence with the suspects’ governments.
Turkey: 23 PKK terrorists
killed in southeast
The U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security has been monitoring the social media accounts of those who apply to
immigrate since early 2015, the country’s top homeland
security official said Wednesday.
Speaking during a press briefing, Jeh Johnson told reporters that his department has been scanning the social media
accounts of individuals for almost one year before granting
any immigration benefits. >>WORLD
At least 23 PKK terrorists have been
killed in ongoing anti-terror operations in Turkey’s southeastern Sirnak
province within the last 48 hours, a
security official said Thursday.
The security official, speaking on
condition of anonymity, told Anadolu
Agency that security forces had killed
22 PKK terrorists in the Cizre district
and another in Silopi district.
Sirnak Governor Ali Ihsan Su told
Anadolu Agency that the operations
were ongoing in two districts of Sirnak province.
“Curfew will continue for the security
of life and property of our citizens,”
said Su.
Su announced a new curfew in Cizre
and Silopi districts Monday. Many citizens have reportedly left the district
before the curfew was imposed.
The PKK - considered a terrorist organization by Turkey, the U.S. and
EU - resumed its armed campaign in
late July. Since then more than 200
members of the security forces have
been martyred and around 1,700 PKK
terrorists killed. >MORE DETAILS
Turkey does not smuggle oil from
Daesh: US official
Most Daesh oil sold to black-marketeers, says Acting U.S.
Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence
The U.S. sees no evidence that the
Turkish government is purchasing
oil from Daesh, a senior Treasury official said on Wednesday.
Speaking during a press briefing at
the White House, the Acting Under
Secretary for Terrorism and Financial
Intelligence Adam Szubin reiterated
that the Turkish government was not
involved in any oil smuggling with
the group.
“The preponderance of their (Daesh)
sales, we believe, are happening at the
well head, in a sense; in other words,
they are selling to middlemen or
black-marketeers, who are then, in
turn, providing it to others,” Szubin
said.
However, he added that Daesh used
the majority of its oil to fuel their
own efforts and military acts in the
territories they rule.
Daesh is thought to earn millions
of dollars per month from oil sales
which they generate from the fields it
controls in Syria and Iraq.
Following the downing of a Rus-
sian warplane that violated Turkey’s
airspace near the Syrian border on
Nov. 24, Russia announced sanctions
against Turkey and President Vladimir
Putin has alleged Turkish involvement
in oil purchases from Daesh.
Since then, the U.S. officials from all
levels have been denying the claims.
>MORE DETAILS
UN chief: Syria peace Turkish lira holds
must not be dependent after Fed rate hike
Analysts say that emerging market currencies
on Assad
not expected to see rout
Ban Ki-moon says it is ‘unacceptable’ to consider
peace prospects in Syria to rest on fate of
embattled president
Depending on the fate of President
Bashar al-Assad for the peace prospects to end the Syrian crisis is unacceptable, UN Secretary-General Ban
Ki-moon said Wednesday.
“It’s up to [the] Syrian people, who
should make a decision about the
future of President Assad,” Ban told
reporters during his end-of-the-year
press conference in New York.
“But, at the same time, I also believe that it is unacceptable that the
whole Syrian crisis and the solution
to this crisis has to depend upon just
the question of the fate of one man.
That’s not acceptable,” he added.
The Syrian civil war, which started in
March 2011 when the Assad regime
responded to anti-government protests with a violent crackdown, has
left more than 250,000 people dead,
according to UN figures. >MORE DETAILS
The Turkish lira held at 2.95 against
the dollar on Thursday, following the
movement of most emerging market currencies after the U.S. Federal
Reserve raised interest rates late on
Wednesday.
Analysts said that a rout was not
expected. “The Fed did what it had
promised, and so markets were not
shocked by the move,” explained
Christopher Dembik, an economist
with Saxo Banque in Paris.
The Fed raised its federal funds rate
to the range of 0.25 to 0.50 percent,
from 0 to 0.25 percent. The central
bank also committed to four more
interest rate hikes in the coming year.
The lira at first gained against the
dollar, and reached to 2.92 after the
announcement. USDTRY later returned to its Wednesday’s level of
2.95 in early morning trading on
Thursday.
The dollar also gained gradually against the South African rand,
which fell 0.47 percent to 15.01.
The Brazilian real also decline against
the dollar from about 3.84 to about
3.89 on Thursday morning.
Analysts at JPMorgan warned, however, that the dollar was headed higher against both major and emerging
market currencies in the coming
weeks. >MORE DETAILS
Friday
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Saturday
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PKK violence forces
thousands to flee homes
in SE Turkey
Thousands of people have moved to western
cities because of PKK violence in the last five
months
>MORE DETAILS
Operations against the terrorist organization PKK are ongoing in
Sirnak province
WEATHER / ANKARA
Around 200,000 people in
southeastern provinces of Turkey
have fled their homes because of
PKK’s terrorist activities unfolding in the region.
Thousands of people -- includ-
ing women and children -- have
left their homes in Cizre and Silopi districts of southeastern Sirnak
province; Sur, Silvan and Bismil
districts of Diyarbakir province;
and Nusaybin, Derik and Dargecit
districts of Mardin province.
The reason of their move is uncomfortable and unsafe life after
the terrorist organization PKK
has escalated its activities, including attacks on security forces,
explosives planted on the streets,
plus roadblocks and ditches on
roads in the last five months.
The PKK -- also considered a
terrorist organization by the U.S.
and EU -- resumed its armed
campaign in late July. Since then
more than 200 members of the
security forces have been martyred and around 1,700 PKK terrorists killed... >MORE DETAILS
Turkey
Turkish PM
hosting nearly
reiterates Turkey’s right 2.5 million
to defend airspace
refugees
During his visit to Bulgaria, Davutoglu
asks world to notice ‘who is provoking who?’ as he explained the Nov. 24
events when a Russian jet was shot
down
Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has reiterated Turkey’s right to defend
its sovereignty when an aircraft threatens its airspace.
In remarks made on Bulgarian bTV network during his
visit to Bulgaria on Wednesday, Davutoglu spoke about
the downing of a Russian
aircraft on Nov. 24 when
it violated Turkish airspace
despite repeated warnings.
“We did not decide to take
down a Russian plane, our
decision was to only protect
our own airspace,” he said.
“Our air forces warned the
Russian aircraft 10 times to
avoid Turkish airspace. All
of them [the warnings are]
available in the records of
the telecommunications of
NATO countries. There is
nothing to hide,” the premier said.
“Turkey has the right to protect its own airspace. We did
not know that it was a Russian plane. Given instructions were to protect Turkey. We did not know what
the purpose of the unidentified aircraft that exceeded
our airspace was. Maybe
it was meant to bomb our
land,” Davutoglu said.
He added that if there was a
provocation, then that provocation had been made by
violators of Turkish airspace.
He also asked others to see
who in fact is provoking
others.
“Where did this incident
occur? The Russian border? [or] the border of Russia-Syria? or on the border
of Russia and Turkey? in
which border? Who is provoking who?”
He said also that one must
not overlook the fact that
Russians are not bombing
Daesh, but civilians.
“Let’s grant Russia’s claims
that the Syrian regime invited them to support the
war against terrorism, and
therefore, since Russians are
present there, they will carry
out bomb attacks. But they
are not bombing Daesh,
they are bombing civilians.
Ninety percent of the operation is against the civilians,”
he said.
He said that these civilians
then come to Turkey as they
escape the bombardment,
from where they try to travel onward to Bulgaria and
Europe. He asked Europe if
they were ready to accept
this. “Will Bulgaria accept
this? Those people also go to
Europe. Will Europe accept
it?” >MORE DETAILS
urkey is currently hosting nearly 2.5 million refugees, Deputy
Prime Minister Yalcin Akdogan
said Wednesday.
The country, which has taken in
2.4 million Syrians since the war
started in 2011, hosts the world’s
largest refugee population.
“As of today, 2,495,117 people
were recorded by migration
management,” Akdogan told
journalists in Ankara.
He added that 300,000 overseas
students attended colleges and
universities in Turkey.
Russia aiming
to drive
Turkmen
from Syria,
says leader
Russian airstrikes are systematically targeting the infrastructure of Turkmen areas of
northwest Syria to prevent their
return, a senior rebel commander said Wednesday.
Ahmet Arnavut, who controls
Turkmen forces in the Bayirbucak region, said Russia aimed
to wipe out the Turkmen presence in Latakia province.
“Within a month, Russia did
what the regime could not
since the beginning of the
war,” he told Anadolu Agency.
He added: “They are hitting
vacant villages with bombers
and helicopters. They are sending a message to Turkmen by
destroying houses where no
one lives - ‘There is nothing
left for you here. Don’t think
about returning’.”
>