Turkey recalled its ambassador to the United States for consultations after a vote in a US congressional committee on Thursday branded the World War I killing of Armenians as “genocide.” In a statement, Turkey’s Prime Minister Tayyip Erdo?an said he was seriously concerned that the non-binding resolution would harm Turkish-US relations and attempts by Turkey and Armenia to bury a century of hostility.

Following the İstanbul Council of Forensic Medicine (ATK) and the İstanbul Police Crime Laboratory, the Gendarmerie General Command’s Criminal Investigation Department has confirmed the authenticity of Col. Dursun Çiçek’s signature on a controversial action plan against the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) and the faith-based Gülen movement.

Police in Istanbul reportedly arrested Turkish pop idol Tarkan along with some others after what was described as a “significant quantity” of cocaine was found in his home in Istanbul. He has been kept in police station and some of family members been allowed to see him. At present the arrested are being questioned.

Turkey and Spain agreed on Tuesday on granting five-year multi-entry visa to Turkish businessmen, academicians and artists who want to travel to Spain. Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey and Spain agreed during their intergovernmental meetings on granting five-year multi-entry visa to Turkish businessmen, academicians and artists.

It’s hard to know when one nation’s property market has fallen out of favour these days as the global financial crisis envelopes country after country and apparently leaves no nation’s economy untarnished. So is property in Turkey still popular or has the market boomed and gone bust?

A Turkish archaeologist is campaigning to have the bones of St. Nicholas, the model for the legend of Santa Claus, returned to the saint's hometown in Turkey. Saint Nicholas was the bishop of the Roman town of Myra, modern Demre in what is now Turkey, in the 4th century.

A recently uncovered assassination plot against Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç has led to a bitter polarization in Turkey. While some took the plot seriously because there is strong evidence of the existence of such a plan, others chose to downplay it and said the allegations had been “exaggerated.”

An assassination plot against deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç that was exposed over the weekend has shocked Ankara. Gendarmerie and police teams launched an operation to capture the suspects after they received information that two military officers Maj. İbrahim G. and Col. Erkan Yılmaz B. -- were planning to assassinate the deputy prime minister.The teams detected two suspicious vehicles in the vicinity of Arınç’s house.

Turkey’s top court on Friday banned a pro-Kurdish political party on charges of ties to Kurdish rebels, a decision likely to disrupt a struggling reconciliation process between the state and minority Kurds. Hasim Kilic, head of the Constitutional Court, said the court also expelled Democratic Society Party chairman Ahmet Turk and another legislator, Aysel Tugluk, from parliament, barring them and 35 other party members from joining any political party for five years.

Forty-two percent of women in Turkey become targets of physical or sexual violence, a staggering statistic which along with others will be the focus of events held on the occasion of tomorrow's International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.

Some of Turkey's largest public sector unions are to stage a one-day strike to protest against the government's labour policies, it was announced Tuesday. The strike to last all Wednesday and expected to affect schools, hospitals and public transportation in major towns.

Britain's Duchess of York could face trial in Turkey after she was served with legal papers by Scotland Yard police. Sarah Ferguson, 50, was handed the documents yesterday (19.11.09) after infuriating Turkish authorities by going undercover for 'Duchess and Daughters: Their Secret Mission', a documentary which exposed the poor conditions in state-run orphanages.

Turkish police have arrested a Plymouth businessman who was on the run after sexually abusing teenage boys. The hunt for Alfred John Palmer, now 52, began when he fled the UK sometime after May 2006 following the halting of a trial where he faced five counts of indecent assault. His long-term partner, Daniel Tapper, now 53, had also stood in the dock charged with indecent assault, and fled with him.

FBI director Robert Mueller met with Turkish officials here Wednesday to discuss joint efforts in combating separatist Kurdish rebels, the US embassy said. Mueller's agenda focused on "our ongoing and important cooperation on counter-terrorism and law enforcement matters," the statement said, asserting US support for Turkey's struggle against the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), listed as a terrorist group by both countries.

Turkish accession to the European Union will be a tremendous benefit to Ankara and to the region, said British Foreign Secretary David Miliband. Turkey embarked on its accession negotiations with the European Union in 2005. Ankara has moved on a series of concessions meant to meet the policy requirements to join Europe but faces obstacles on various provisions over the island of Cyprus.

The death toll from swine flu in Turkey more than doubled in less than 24 hours to reach nine, as hospitals began vaccinating medical workers, the health ministry said. The latest victims of the A(H1N1) virus were a 65-year-old woman, who died in Ankara, and two girls, aged 13 and four, who died in Istanbul and the southeastern city of Sanlurfa, the ministry said yesterday.

Though Turkey has great tourism potential, the country should change the way it promotes itself to potential visitors, tourism experts say. Speaking at a meeting organized in Antalya’s Belek district on Saturday to increase cooperation between the Turkish Culture and Tourism Ministry and hoteliers unions, Sururi Çorabatır said Turkey needs to refresh its tourism-promotion strategy. “The global economic crisis has changed the perception of holidays,” said Çorabatır, the president of the Mediterranean Tourist Hoteliers and Operators Union, or AKTOB. “In this new era, destinations and brands should be highlighted.

In what could be a significant move in the decades long Kurdish conflict, a group of Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) fighters Monday were expected to quietly surrender to Turkish authorities. The surrender comes in the wake of the Turkish government's recent announcement that it will soon unveil a 'democratization initiative' that is designed to give the country's Kurds increased cultural and political rights.

The outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) turned over a group of its members to Turkish authorities yesterday at the Habur border gate, a groundbreaking move that may lead to the disarmament of the PKK, strengthening the hand of the government in its recently launched democratization package to end the country's decades-old Kurdish problem.

A Turkish state television series showing an Israeli soldier shooting dead a Palestinian baby is just fiction and was not meant to cause a diplomatic incident between Israel and Turkey, a Turkish minister said.