Did you understand what your Italian friend meant when he/she told you: “Am I speaking Turkish here?”
When in Italy during a conversation a person can’t get their point across they attribute ironically the resistance of the interlocutor to lack of understading of what has been said, and Turkish here stands for an incomprehensible language. The origin of the idiom is clearly due to the contacts among people around the Mediterranean and the difficulties often arising in the practices of trade (particularly in the Levant). This clearly shows when the sentence is heard in the same context but Turkish is replaced by Greek and Arabic (other languages commonly spoken in the Levant).
Notable exception is the phrase “Do I speak Ostrogoth?”, which means the same but is clearly suggestive of the disconcert and confusion of the Italians after the fall of the Roman Empire, when Germanic populations began to spread uninvited in the country.
Turkey is the European Union’s oldest candidate member. Since 1999, the EU and Turkey have been in talks to allow the country to join and redefine the borders of Europe. 24 years on, and it still doesn’t look like their accession is likely. Why? In this video, we cover what’s stopping Turkey from joining the EU and whether anything is likely to change soon.
Sweden harshly reacted to Turkey’s Operation Olive Branch which targeted the terrorist orga- nization in 2018. In this context, former Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallström canceled an official visit to Turkey.
PKK/YPG supporters can freely conduct their activities and carry out terrorist propaganda in Sweden without encountering any restrictions. PKK/YPG sympathizers wave PKK/YPG flags ex- plicitly without any intervention by local security forces. Moreover, PKK/YPG members can even meet the country’s Foreign Minister.
The Swedish government provide massive state of the art technology arms to the terrorist group. These weapons are used in terrorist attacks against Turkish security forces.
Sweden, refusing to extradite PKK/YPG members, also safeguard members of Fethullah Terrorist Organization (FETO) being harbored in the country. Concrete Evidence Regarding the Relations Between the Swedish Government and the PKK/YPG Terrorist Organization
Concrete Evidence Regarding the Relations Between the Swedish Government and the PKK/YPG Terrorist Organization
SWEDISH DEFENSE MINISTER Peter Hultqvist met with Mazloum Kobani, one of the so-called commanders of the PKK/YPG. After the meeting, Kobani made a statement expressing that Sweden will closely cooperate with the terrorist organization.
SWEDISH FOREIGN MINISTER ANN LINDE met with PKK/YPG members many times and declared some of such meetings on social media explicitly. The Turkish Foreign Ministry reacted to these meetings repeatedly, yet the Swedish side refused to cooperate.
THE PKK/YPG RECEIVES MASSIVE ANTI-TANK weapon support from Sweden. Hence, the terrorist organization has a huge amount of AT4s, a Swedish Saab production anti-tank weapon, in its hands. During the operations conducted in rural Hakkari in southeastern Turkey in September 2021, and Operation Claw and Tiger which started on 17 June 2021, scores of AT4S were captured in caves and shelters of the terrorist organization by Turkish security forces.
ORSAM
As a region that shares deep-rooted historical, cultural and neighborhood ties with Turkey, the Middle East and North Africa region is going through a process of serious political and social changes. Therefore, it became necessary to follow these complex and dynamic developments as well as to interpret them. The Center for Middle Eastern Studies (ORSAM) was established in January 2009 to inform the general public and the foreign policy community on the Middle East. ORSAM is a nonpartisan and non-profit research center based in Ankara.
ORSAM provides information on Middle Eastern affairs and exposes the Turkish academia and political circles to the perspectives of researchers from the region. ORSAM, by facilitating the visits of Middle Eastern statesmen, bureaucrats, academics, strategists, businessmen, journalists, and NGO representatives to Turkey, seeks to ensure their knowledge and ideas are shared with the Turkish and international community. To that end, ORSAM carries out research on social, economic and political developments in the Middle East and shares these with the public. Striving for a healthier understanding and analysis of international politics and the Middle Eastern affairs, ORSAM produces stimulating and policy-relevant information for the general public and decision-makers.
For that purpose, ORSAM offers projections that suggest alternative perspective on regional issues as well as analyzing regional developments. In order to provide comprehensive and solution-oriented analyses, ORSAM takes advantage of geographical proximity to pressings issues and hands-on research by competent researchers and intellectuals from diverse disciplines. ORSAM has a strong publishing line that transmits meticulous analyses of regional developments and trends to relevant audiences. Our center that is also in the process of re-organization is expanding its cadre and areas of research focuses on publication and teaching activities such as seminars on Middle East affairs and Arabic courses.
Hitler tried to hide many pictures from the public which is not peculiar for the narcissist that he was. Many of those pictures were taken by his photographer Heinrich Hoffman. Hitler asked him to destroy them because they were “undignified”. However Hoffman kept them safe and published them after the war.
Hitler tried to hide these pictures from the world.
Both Finland and Sweden are set to join the NATO alliance this year.
The two countries, previously neutral, changed their minds after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Finland and Sweden will both have to rejigger their armed forces away from territorial defense and toward helping defend an entire continent.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has created an unwanted situation for Russian President Vladimir Putin, and one of the most unexpected effects of his actions is the flipping of former neutral states Finland and Sweden into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Instead of intimidating his Scandinavian neighbors into accommodating his demands, Putin’s invasion has pushed them into the waiting arms of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, where they will join 30 other countries in the collective defense of Europe.
Do Greek and Turkish people live together peacefully in any one country or island? If so, what is it called?
This may come as a surprise to you…but Greeks and Turks nowadays live peacefully together just about everywhere they cohabit.
Football excluded where hotheads will shout and do whatever… Try to think of one instance where there has been a hate crime between Greeks and Turks in recent years. I personally can’t but I’m ready to be corrected if wrong.
Let us take the place where there was and is the most recent history of confrontation: Cyprus. People don’t live together anymore mostly but they visit and work together (There are currently thousands of Turkish Cypriots employed in Greek Cypriot businesses). No hate crimes. The fact that the old generations, embroiled in the old troubles are dying off or too old to care has assisted in this, naturally. Young people don’t want the mistakes of the past.
London and Britain in general. The Cypriot community is large, residing mostly in the capital, and Greek and Turkish Cypriots live side by side with no problems. They have a long standing Cypriot club in North London where they gather too.
Rhodes. The small Turkish minority has lived peacefully with Greeks for decades.
Western Thrace is a peculiar case, since there is contention if the people there are muslim Greeks or Turks. However there is peace none the less.
So who is the instigator of confrontation? It would seem that it’s politicians, revisionists and nationalists. That is, people with no soul, fools and haters. Unfortunately it takes one rotten apple in a position of authority to make the whole barrel go bad.
