Turkey

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Turkish authorities have detained 33 people suspected of spying for Israel, Turkey’s state-run news agency reported on Tuesday.

Authorities were still searching for 13 others believed to have links to Israel’s Mossad security service, the Anadolu Agency reported.

The suspects were detained in raids in Istanbul and seven other provinces for allegedly planning to carry out activities that included “reconnaissance” and “pursuing, assaulting and kidnapping” foreign nationals living in Turkey, the agency reported.

ANKARA, Dec 27 (Reuters) - Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan told his U.S. counterpart Antony Blinken in a call on Wednesday that Turkey expected the United States to act in line with their NATO alliance and keep its promises on the sale of F-16 fighter jets to Ankara, a Turkish diplomatic source said.

The call came at the request of the U.S. side, a day after a Turkish parliamentary commission voted to approve Sweden's NATO membership bid, the source added. The parliament's general assembly must also approve the bid for it to be ratified.

ANKARA, Dec 27 (Reuters) - Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Wednesday that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was no different from Adolf Hitler and likened Israel's attacks on Gaza to the treatment of Jewish people by the Nazis.

NATO member Turkey, which supports a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, has criticised Israel's air and ground assault on Gaza, called it a "terror state" and said its leaders must be tried in international courts.

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Turkey has hit more than 70 sites allegedly linked to Kurdish groups in Syria and northern Iraq during airstrikes launched this week in retaliation for the deaths of 12 Turkish soldiers in Iraq, the defense minister said Wednesday.

At least 59 Kurdish militants were killed in the strikes as well as in land clashes, Yasar Guler said in a video message to top military officials which was posted on X, formerly Twitter.

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Sweden edged closer toward joining NATO on Tuesday after the Turkish parliament’s foreign affairs committee greenlighted a protocol for the Nordic country’s membership in the military alliance.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan dropped his objection to Sweden’s membership during a NATO summit in July, but it took him several months to send the bill to parliament for ratification and weeks for the parliamentary committee to give its consent.

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — The Turkish parliament’s foreign affairs committee gave its consent to Sweden’s bid to join NATO on Tuesday, drawing the previously nonaligned Nordic country closer to membership in the Western military alliance.

Sweden’s accession protocol will now need to be approved in the Turkish parliament’s general assembly for the last stage of the legislative process in Turkey. No date has been set.

ISTANBUL, Dec. 22 (Xinhua) -- Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said Turkish police on Friday arrested 304 people over their suspected links to the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group in an operation that targeted 32 cities.

In a post on social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, Yerlikaya said 86 out of the 304 suspects were detained in Istanbul and 20 in the western city of Izmir in the operation codenamed HEROES-34.

ANKARA, Dec. 20 (Xinhua) -- Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Egyptian counterpart Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi called for intensifying efforts to deliver humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, Erdogan's office said in a statement on Wednesday.

In a phone conversation, the two leaders talked about "Israel's attacks on Palestinian territory and efforts to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza," according to the statement.

ANKARA, Dec 14 (Reuters) - An opposition Turkish lawmaker died on Thursday, two days after suffering a heart attack and collapsing in front of parliament as he finished a speech criticising the government's policy toward Israel.

Hasan Bitmez, 54, a member of parliament from the opposition Felicity (Saadet) Party, died in Ankara City Hospital, Health Minister Fahrettin Koca told reporters in televised remarks.

ANKARA, Dec. 12 (Xinhua) -- Türkiye's Akkuyu Nuclear Company announced Tuesday that it had received permission from Turkish authorities to commission the first power unit of the country's first nuclear power plant being built by Russia.

With the permission, the start-up, adjustment and operation processes, which are the final phase of the construction of the Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant, can be started, according to a statement from the company.