Turkey
The trouble with Turkey
I haven’t had time to get my head fully around the Turkey controversy. I suppose a case could be made that congressional resolutions on such things as the Armenian genocide are pretty darn pointless anyway, so why stir the pot. But the notion that the world needs to keep tiptoeing around Turkey’s irrationalism on this issue is just as ludicrous.
Turkey in crisis
My friend Yigal Schleifer has a report at the Eurasianet website on Turkey’s current political crisis. Protesters clashed with police today in Taksim Square and the unrest spread to Istiklal Cadessi, where Yigal lives, and where I stayed during my visit last year. His neighborhood was unaffected, but he “got a good whiff of pepper gas” while watching events unfold
Turkey update
It’s been nearly a year since I traveled to Istanbul, Turkish Kurdistan and Iraqi Kurdistan. I try to keep up with Turkish politics as much as I can. The biggest recent story, of course, is the disgraceful murder of the Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, shot in broad daylight by a teenage ultranationalist thug. Dink was under constant threat of death,