Turkey

03 May 2021; MEMO: The Turkish police and intelligence agency announced on Sunday the arrest of a close aide of the late leader of the Daesh extremist group Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, Anadolu Agency reported.

The Turkish police in Istanbul revealed in a statement that the Afghan national had been detained in the Atasehir district on the Asian side of Istanbul city on Wednesday.

01 May 2021; MEMO: Turkish Border guards detected a tunnel dug from Syria to Turkey, said the country's National Defence Ministry on Saturday, Anadolu Agency reports.

"Thanks to the vigilance of our heroic border guards in [the southern] Hatay province, it was found that a tunnel was dug from Syria to Turkey," the ministry said on Twitter.

A generator, two hammer drills, a wheelbarrow, 300-meter cable, digger, shovel, and battery used in the excavation work were seized, it said.

ISTANBUL, May 2 (Xinhua) -- Turkish police on Sunday detained a suspected senior member of the Islamic State (IS) in Istanbul, local media reported.

The suspect, an Afghan national with a code name "Basim," was believed to be the right-hand man of IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi who was killed in 2019 in Syria, the NTV broadcaster said.

30 Apr 2021; MEMO: Turkish officials have revealed that the trial against the Saudi citizens responsible for the assassination of exiled journalist Jamal Khashoggi in October 2018 will continue, just days after attempting to reconcile with the Kingdom.

ISTANBUL, April 29 (Xinhua) -- The strictest lockdown declared so far since the beginning of the pandemic to curb COVID-19 in Turkey began on Thursday at 7 p.m. local time (1600 GMT).

Intercity travel is banned except for compulsory cases, and all commercial businesses are closed, with several exceptions, during the complete lockdown which will last until May 17.

With the start of the restraint, security forces started patrolling the empty streets and squares in Turkey's biggest city, Istanbul, establishing over 300 checkpoints.

(Reuters) --- The Turkish government's decision to ban alcohol sales during a 17-day COVID-19 lockdown that starts on Thursday has angered some secular Turks who see it as President Tayyip Erdogan's latest imposition of a religious lifestyle on all of society.

Erdogan announced the lockdown on Monday, saying schools and most shops would be closed and people would be required to mostly stay at home in order to curb a surge in infections and deaths. 

28 Apr 2021; MEMO: The leaders of Greek Cypriot and the Turkish Cypriots met in Geneva yesterday to find a common ground on the divided Mediterranean island with the support of the UN, four years after the last peace talks failed, Reuters reports.

According to the report, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he is being realistic about the prospect of progress during key talks on reunifying Cyprus and urged Greek and Turkish Cypriot parties to be creative in their approach.

28 Apr 2021; MEMO: Turkey signed an agreement to receive 50 million doses of the Russian Sputnik V vaccine over six months starting in May, the country's health minister said Wednesday, Anadolu reports.

Fahrettin Koca told a press conference that the vaccine supply was getting harder to reach out to for the next two months but that they expect an abundance of vaccines afterward.

ANKARA, Apr 27 (NNN-ANADOLU) – Turkey announced yesterday that, it will impose a full lockdown, in a bid to curb the rise in COVID-19 cases.

The lockdown will last from Apr 29 to May 17, with an aim to lower the daily cases below 5,000, Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said.

Intercity travels will be restricted to permission only, intercity public transport will operate at 50 percent capacity, while schools in all levels will suspend face-to-face education, he said.

(Reuters) --- U.S. President Joe Biden's declaration that massacres of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire constituted genocide is "simply outrageous" and Turkey will respond over coming months, Turkey's presidential spokesman said on Sunday.

Biden broke on Saturday with decades of carefully calibrated White House comments over the 1915 killings, delighting Armenia and its diaspora but further straining ties between Washington and Ankara, both members of the NATO military alliance.