Turkey

ANKARA, Dec. 20 (Xinhua) -- Turkey will continue to stand by Iran despite the "unjust" sanctions that the U.S. imposed on the country, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Thursday.

Erdogan made the remarks at a joint press conference with his Iranian counterpart Hassan Rouhani in the capital Ankara.

"Turkey does not support the U.S. sanctions which put regional stability and security into danger," Erdogan said.

He vowed that Turkey and Iran will join their efforts to end clashes and ensure regional security.

ANKARA, Dec. 17 (Xinhua) -- The Turkish government has granted citizenship to a total of 72,000 Syrian refugees, Hurriyet daily reported on Monday.

Turkey issued citizenship to 36,000 Syrian adults and 36,000 children, said Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu addressing lawmakers at the parliament.

Some 380,000 Syrian refugee babies were born in Turkey, the minister said, expressing his individual wish to issue them citizenship as well.

"That will be the biggest investment in our brothership for another century," he stated.

ISTANBUL, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday that Turkish security forces would enter the northern Syrian town of Manbij if the United States doesn't remove the Kurdish militia from the area.

"They promised us that they would remove them to the east of the Euphrates," Erdogan said at a conference in Istanbul.

"If you will not clean the area, we will enter Manbij," he stressed.

Erdogan said that Turkey had lost enough time in intervening in the region, adding "from now it will not tolerate a single day delay."

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — A high-speed train hit a railway engine and crashed into a pedestrian overpass at a station in the Turkish capital Ankara on Thursday, killing nine people and injuring 47 others, officials said.

The 6:30 a.m. (0330 GMT) train from Ankara to the central Turkish city of Konya collided head-on with the engine, which was checking the tracks at the capital’s small Marsandiz station, Transport Minister Mehmet Cahit Turhan told reporters after inspecting the site. The high-speed train transits that station without stopping.

5 Dec 2018; AFP: A Turkish prosecutor has demanded that arrest warrants be issued against two Saudi nationals close to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman over the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a Turkish source close to the investigation said Wednesday.

Khashoggi, 59, was killed shortly after entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2 to obtain paperwork for his upcoming marriage.

ISTANBUL, Nov. 26 (Xinhua) -- Turkish police on Monday launched a comprehensive search into two adjoining villas in the northwestern province of Yalova over the killing of Saudi Arabian journalist Jamal Khashoggi, local media reported.

Crime scene units started their search inside a two-storey building in the Samanli village early in the morning, according to the state-run Anadolu Agency.

The units later expanded their drone-backed exploration into an adjacent villa, conducting a detailed examination of a well in the garden, Anadolu said.

ANKARA, Nov. 24 (Xinhua) -- Turkey is uneasy about U.S.' plans to set up observation posts in northern Syria, Turkish Defence Minister Hulusi Akar said on Saturday.

Akar said he told the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman, Joseph Dunford, during an international conference in Canada that the plans would have a very negative impact on bilateral relations.

"The U.S. move will make the complicated situation in the region even more complicated," he was quoted by state-run Anadolu News Agency as saying.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Turkey’s foreign minister has criticized President Donald Trump, saying the U.S. leader appears to want to turn a blind eye to the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi agents at the kingdom’s consulate in Istanbul.

Mevlut Cavusoglu also described many European nations’ response to Khashoggi’s killing as “artificial” and “cosmetic.” Cavusoglu was referring to bans imposed by some countries on the Saudi citizens detained in Saudi Arabia over the killing, from entering European nations.

Cavusoglu spoke to Turkey’s CNN-Turk television on Friday.

ANKARA, November 22. /TASS/. Turkey is looking forward to getting the first batch of Russia’s air defense systems S-400, but at the same time stays ready to consider a good proposal for acquiring US systems Patriot, should it be made, Turkish presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin told a conference entitled Russian-Turkish Relations: Shaping an Image of the Future on Thursday.

ISTANBUL, Nov. 19 (Xinhua) -- The Turkish coast guard on Monday rescued a total of 44 illegal migrants stranded on an island in the Aegean Sea.

The migrants, trying to sneak into a Greek island, had to take shelter overnight on Yumurta island in Turkey's western Balikesir province due to bad weather, the coast guard said in a statement posted on its website.

The force launched a rescue operation at around 4:00 a.m. local time after one migrant called the emergency service for help, the statement said.