Erdoğan met former intel chief Fidan in Medina, report claims.

Erdoğan met former intel chief Fidan in Medina, report claims. (HD).

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan reportedly met with Hakan Fidan, the former head of the National Intelligence Organization (MİT) in Medina, Saudi Arabia, on March 2.

Erdoğan reportedly expressed his disappointment over Fidan’s resignation during the tete-a-tete meeting, daily Habertürk reported on March 6, adding that Fidan explained the reasons for his resignation and the problems he has faced since he left his post.

The meeting took place two days before Erdoğan’s latest comments on Fidan’s resignation, when he repeated his disappointment over the former MİT chief’s decision.

 “We are governing a state. I have already expressed my opinion about that issue. There is of course a disappointment if a candidacy is in question even though we have expressed our opinions,” Erdoğan told reporters en route to Saudi Arabia on March 4. Read the full story here.

Some 234 men and women from the Iraqi Yazidi minority were freed by IS.

Some 234 men and women from the Iraqi Yazidi minority were freed by IS. (Taz).

Some 234 men and women from the Iraqi Yazidi minority were freed after being kidnapped by militants of the Islamic State (IS) group which took control of their town a few months ago, the Kurdish regional government said on Monday, Xinhua reported.

"Some 234 members of Yazidi minority, including 150 females and many children, have been released after months in captivity by the IS militants," Nouri Othman Sinjari, spokesman for the Kurdistan Regional Government, told Xinhua by phone.

The release of the kidnapped Yazidis was a difficult and complicated task, as some were freed through mediation of tribal leaders and others by paying ransom to their abductors from the IS militants, Sinjari said without giving further details.

Since early August, hundreds of Yazidi minority members have been killed or kidnapped when IS militants seized the town of Sinjar, some 100 km west of Nineveh's provincial capital city of Mosul.
The militants also reportedly kidnapped up to 500 Yazidi women, taking them to bases in neighboring Syria and in the militants- seized city of Mosul, some 400 km north of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad.

The Yazidi minority is primarily Kurdish. The religion of the Yazidis incorporates elements of many faiths, as a result of some of their beliefs and the mystery surrounding their religion, many Muslims and non-Muslims have come to see Yazidis as "infidels." This has led to violent attacks by extremist Islamist groups against them. Read the full story here.

Neo Ottoman 'conqueror' Turkey will not accept 'de facto' borders in Iraq, Syria

Neo Ottoman 'conqueror' Turkey will not accept 'de facto' borders in Iraq, Syria. (Taz).

Turkey cannot agree to de facto borders in Syria or Iraq, and the terrorist Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant will not be able to realize such an aim, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said, Anadolu agency reported.

"Turkey cannot say 'yes' to any de facto borders in the Middle East. Steps to be taken in that regard are of the utmost importance," Erdogan said in an address at the prominent French think tank IFRI on Friday.

"I do not believe that ISIL could achieve such a result in Syria and Iraq. I hope that the peoples of both Syria and Iraq will succeed at the end of all this," he continued.

The U.S. is leading an international coalition, which includes France, Germany, and Saudi Arabia, among others, and has carried out numerous airstrikes against ISIL in Iraq and Syria.

Syrian Kurdish fighters, predominantly from armed units affiliated to Democratic Union Party -- an offshoot of the terrorist Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK -- are fighting against ISIL in Kobani, a town bordering Turkey.

Turkey has recently allowed the passage of Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga forces through Turkey to reach the battle-torn town.

The first batch of Kobani-bound peshmerga troops landed on a private plane at Turkey's GAP Airport from Erbil International Airport early on Wednesday.

They were then stationed in the Suruc district of Turkey's border province of Sanliurfa.

A separate truck convoy carrying their heavy weaponry also entered Turkey on Wednesday via the Habur border crossing in the southeastern province of Sirnak.

Erdogan also mentioned the solution process to end PKK terrorism during his talk, saying that the process is continuing despite the damage dealt by several provocations.

Turkey’s EU accession process.

Referring to Turkey's moves to join the European Union, Erdogan said he had asked his French counterpart to lift his country's block of four chapters of the accession process as Turkey had fulfilled all the requirements for them.

Turkey, which first applied to join the bloc in 1987, must comply with 35 "chapters" of reforms.
So far, 14 have been opened, while 17 remain blocked and a further four have yet to be discussed.
Erdogan said that Hollande had given a "green light: but in a "foggy" way.

“ I hope that he will be less vague so I can go back to Turkey today with the good news that those chapters are unblocked," he said.

However, Hollande said it was possible for his country to “open” the chapters, but he gave no precise date or details.

The chapters blocked by France are on “economic and monetary policy”, “agriculture and rural development,” “institutions” and “financial and budgetary provisions".

Turkey's EU Minister and Chief Negotiator Volkan Bozkir said during a visit to Paris on Tuesday that his country had embarked on a set of reforms in order to advance the EU accession negotiations.  Hmmm.....Please God keep 'bully' Turkey out of Europe.

VIDEO: Turkish police beat Kurdish journalist at border with Kobani

HT:

VIDEO: Turkish police beat #Kurdish journalist at border w/ #Kobani. #Turkey via @ArjDnn h/t @GrdiSarchnar https://t.co/L4K2QWdacV

— Military Studies (@ArmedResearch) October 31, 2014

Video - live coverage of Turkey's border with Syria near embattled Kobane

Isil advance: live coverage of Turkey's border with Syria near embattled Kobane. HT: Telegraph.

Live scenes from Kobane, on the Turkey-Syria border, where US and allied air forces are battling Islamic State militants for control of the town – Guidance: Footage available intermittently.

This live footage, shot from Turkey's southeastern province of Sanliurfa shows air strikes and miliary activity in the area as Kurdish forces try to repel attempts by Islamic State fighters to cut off the Syrian town. Read the full story here.

HT:

LIVE VIDEO where you can see what seem to be #Peshmerga fighters on #Turkey's border ready to cross into #Kobane: http://t.co/lsYUf4eQJU

— Laura Wells (@wellsla) October 31, 2014

Peshmerga crossing 'Sometimes NATO Ally' Turkey being mistreated by 'Islamist' Turkish authorities.

Seems ISIS drives White Toyota's , while Pesmerga drives White Nissan pickups.

Peshmerga crossing 'Sometimes NATO Ally' Turkey being mistreated by 'Islamist' Turkish authorities. (KurdishQuestion).

Peshmerga doctor Izzettin Temo who is in the group crossing over from Turkey into Kobane has said that they are being treated badly by Turkish authorities.

Phoning Rudaw after having travelled to GAP Airport in Urfa last night (28 Nov) peshmerga doctor Izzettin Temo said, 

'There are no facilities in the place we are staying. We do not have a bar of soap nor a washbasin to wash our hands. We feel like prisoners. We have no connection with the outside world. However we can do nothing but wait for our guns to reach us. Our journey is being delayed because of this.'

Temo also said that Turkish authorities in Hewler (Erbil) had not allowed the peshmerga to travel in their military uniforms and with their guns.

He added, 'The Turkish soldiers are angry because the people came out onto the streets to greet the peshmerga. They are mistreating and insulting us because of this.'

Temo called on Kurdish authorities to come to their rescue and end the bad treatment.

A statement has not been made by the Peshmerga Ministry yet.

Video - Syrian helicopter drops barrel bombs on displaced persons camp, many dead - residents

              WARNING CONTAINS VIOLENT GRUESOME  IMAGES

Viewers who can't see the video can try to watch the video here.

Syrian helicopter drops barrel bombs on displaced persons camp, many dead - residents. (Stardaily).

A Syrian army helicopter dropped two barrel bombs on a displaced persons camp in the northern province of Idlib, camp residents said on Wednesday, and video footage appeared to show charred and dismembered bodies.

Footage posted on YouTube showed corpses of women, children and burning tents while people scrambled to save the wounded. "It’s a massacre of refugees," a voice off camera said.

"Let the whole world see this, they are displaced people. Look at them, they are civilians, displaced civilians. They fled the bombardment," the man's voice said.

A man in another video of the Abedin camp, which houses people who had escaped fighting in neighbouring Hama province, said as many as 75 people had died.

Syrian state media did not mention the bombing. The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which tracks violence in the civil war, said 10 civilians died.

Reuters could not independently confirm the attack. Barrel bombs are crudely-made containers filled with nails, metal shrapnel and explosive which are dropped from helicopters.

Rights groups say they have been dropped by the army on densely populated neighbourhoods in defiance of a U.N. Security Council resolution banning the indiscriminate explosives.

US @statedeptspox on Asad regime barrel bombing the Abedin displaced persons camp, Idlib: “nothing short of barbaric" pic.twitter.com/rpLvkyA8Xj
— ilhan tanir (@WashingtonPoint) October 30, 2014

#Syria gov helicopter drops barrel bombs on IDP camp.But does the world even notice?http://t.co/Fg4UMpniSe #UNSC #ICC pic.twitter.com/gqw7OnBCQO
— Lotte Leicht (@LotteLeicht1) October 29, 2014

Video - Exclusive images FSA enters Kobanî to fight ISIS

Do i trust those 'FSA' reinforcements? No Way!

"Goodbye Turkey, nice knowing you" - Turkey and U.S., a 60-year alliance shows signs of crumbling.

"Goodbye Turkey, nice knowing you" - Turkey and U.S., a 60-year alliance shows signs of crumbling. (WaPo).

The increasingly hostile divergence of views between Turkey and the United States over Syria is testing the durability of their 60-year alliance, to the point where some are starting to question whether the two countries still can be considered allies at all.

Turkey’s refusal to allow the United States to use its bases to launch attacks against the Islamic State, quarrels over how to manage the battle raging in the Syrian border town of Kobane and the harsh tone of the anti-American rhetoric used by top Turkish officials to denounce U.S. policy have served to illuminate the vast gulf that divides the two nations as they scramble to address the menace posed by the extremists.

Whether the Islamic State even is the chief threat confronting the region is disputed, with Washington and Ankara publicly airing their differences through a fog of sniping, insults and recrimination over who is to blame for the mess the Middle East has become.

At stake is a six-decade-old relationship forged during the Cold War and now endowed with a different but equally vital strategic dimension. Turkey is positioned on the front line of the war against the Islamic State, controlling a 780-mile border with Iraq and Syria. Without Turkey’s cooperation, no U.S. policy to bring stability to the region can succeed, analysts and officials on both sides say.

“If Turkey is not an ally, then we and Turkey are in trouble,” said Francis Ricciardone, who served as the U.S. ambassador to Turkey until the summer. “It is probably the most important ally.”

“There are growing doubts over whether the U.S. and Turkey share the same priorities and even whether they share the same goals,” Aliriza said. “Even when it comes to defining the enemy — there is no common enemy.”

It is hard, however, to avoid the impression that Turkey and the United States are moving on separate tracks — “parallel tracks that don’t converge,” said Gokhan Bacik, a dean at Ipek University in Ankara.

“From now on, this is only a relationship of necessity,” he said. “There is nothing ideologically that the United States and Turkey share. Turkey has changed.” Hmmmm.....OMG The U.S. finally woke up? What have I been saying the last Five years? Sadly the Turkish 'Caliph of the Muslim Brotherhood' is their creation ...deal with it. Read the full story here.

Pictures - Iraqi peshmerga convoy, greeted by Turkey’s Kurds

Iraqi peshmerga convoy, greeted by Turkey’s Kurds. (BgnNews).

Full picture gallery here.

Video - Peshmerga soldiers on their way to Kobane.

Hmmm.....Lets hope ISIS is not awaiting their arrival, i can't say i would trust the Turkish MIT, certainly considering the rumors they provided military aid to ISIS in the past.

HT:

#PESHMERGA on their way to #KOBANE https://t.co/0H36yVSDCC …
— ISTANBUL THEMES (@ISTANBUL_THEMES) October 29, 2014