Middle-east Arab News Opinion | Asharq Al-awsat

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Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) MP Nurcan Dalbudak (C) is greeted wearing a headscarf as she attends a general assembly at the Turkish Parliament in Ankara on October 31, 2013. AFP PHOTO/ADEM ALTAN

The Kemalists’ Veil of Tolerance

by Nicholas Birch | Nov 6, 2013 | Majalla Blogs

There’s a Turkish joke about a man who is taken on a tour of hell. It’s a dark plain filled with huge vats of boiling liquid in which the damned are slowly deep-frying. Devils stand around the vats, and whenever a sinner pokes his head up out of the liquid, they push...

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A Turkish Alawite woman prays as she visits a tomb, a holy site for the Alawite community, with her child in the Samandag district of Hatay province, close to the border with Syria, July 27, 2012. (Reuters)

Opinion: Turkey’s Alawite Opening

by Soner Cagaptay | Jul 13, 2013 | Opinion

In recent months, Turkey has done the unthinkable, launching peace talks with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), an organization Ankara designates as a terrorist group. An important motivation for this breakthrough has been Turkey’s Syria policy. Turkey is pursuing...

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File photo of Gürsel Tekin, vice-president of Turkey’s Republican People’s Party. (AAA)

Gürsel Tekin: The view from Taksim

by Thair Abbas | Jun 14, 2013 | Interviews

Istanbul, Asharq Al-Awsat—Vice President of the Turkish opposition Republican People’s Party, Gürsel Tekin, called on Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to put aside his intransigence and listen to the Taksim Square protesters. Speaking exclusively to Asharq...

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TOPSHOTSDemonstrators help one another as Turkish riot policemen use tear gas to disperse clashes on May 31, 2013 during a protest against the demolition of Taksim Gezi Park, in Taksim Square in Istanbul. (AFP Photo)

Opinion: “Turkish Spring” is a false analogy

by Aylin Kocaman | Jun 5, 2013 | Opinion

There have been no great uprisings in the major cities of my country, Turkey, since the 1970s. It has wrestled with the scourge of terror for 30 years; we have always lived side by side with terror. Suicide bombings, banks being blown up and explosions on buses all...