Turkey

03 Jan 2023; MEMO: Turkish sources have refuted reports that Turkiye has agreed to withdraw its military from northern Syria, calling them misleading and as propaganda.

02 Jan 2023; MEMO: The National Coalition of Syrian Revolution and Opposition Forces will hold a meeting with Turkish officials on Monday to discuss the recent rapprochement between Ankara and the Syrian regime of President Bashar Al-Assad, media sources reported.

The meeting comes at a time as political rapprochement between Turkiye and the Syrian regime is accelerating at a fast pace, which has caused concern within the Istanbul-based body.

ISTANBUL, Jan 2 (Reuters) - The Turkish trade deficit widened 138.4% from the previous year to $110.19 billion in 2022, the Trade Ministry said on Monday, with exports rising 12.9% to $254.2 billion and imports jumping 34.3% to $364.4 billion.

In December, the trade deficit widened 52% from a year earlier to $10.381 billion, with exports up 3.1% to $22.92 billion and imports rising 14.6% to $33.30 billion.

ISTANBUL, Jan 2 (Reuters) - Turkey's exports rose 12.9% to $254.2 billion last year, the country's highest level ever, President Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday.

Speaking at an event, Erdogan said exports to the European Union increased by 12% in 2022, while some 10,000 companies completed their first exports in the same period.

01 Jan 2023; MEMO: Turkiye's Foreign Minister has revealed that China has refused to allow the Turkish ambassador to visit the Uyghur region in the north-western Xinjiang province, admitting it has strained ties between the two nations.

31 Dec 2022; MEMO:With its roles in the Black Sea grain initiative and the mediation in the Russia-Ukraine war, Turkiye contributed to establishing global peace, tranquility, and security in 2022, Turkiye's president said on Saturday, Anadolu reports.

30 Dec 2022; MEMO: The US has lost its balanced policy in issues related to Greece and Cyprus dispute, as Washington's weapons supplies to Athens is a "clear indication" of this, the Turkish foreign minister said on Thursday.

Turkiye has "clearly told the US that they are disrupting their balance (policy) on Greece and Cyprus," Mevlut Cavusoglu told reporters at an end-of-year press briefing in the capital Ankara.

ANKARA, Dec 28 (Reuters) - Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan eliminated a retirement age requirement on Wednesday in a move that allows more than 2 million workers to retire immediately, less than six months before an election.

The presidential announcement came during a Wednesday news conference on the popular policy move.

Erdogan's ruling AK Party delivered a hefty hike to the minimum wage last week as part of a campaign to win back support eroded by inflation, a fall in the lira, and a sharp drop in living standards.

ANKARA, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- Although Türkiye's soaring inflation is set to drop in 2023, the country's economy is not expected to be out of the woods as growth is now on a downward trend, experts said.

The Turkish economy bounced back strongly from the COVID-19 pandemic to expand by 11.4 percent in 2021, its highest rate in a decade.

The country's annual inflation eased to 84.4 percent in November 2022, from a 24-year high of 85.5 percent the previous month, slowing for the first time in 18 months, official data showed.

ANKARA, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Thursday that the next contact with the Syrian government as part of a road map for dialogue between the two countries will be between the foreign ministers.

The foreign ministers' meeting will be the second stage of the contact after defense ministers of Russia, Türkiye and Syria met in Moscow on Wednesday for normalization between Türkiye and Syria in the decade-long Syrian war, Cavusoglu told reporters at a press briefing in the capital Ankara.