Politics
Bahçeli rallies Türkiye’s nationalist youth in key event
Making wolf signs and hurling flowers on his car, a group of youth welcomed Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahçeli to a massive gathering in the capital Ankara on Tuesday. Organized by Idealists’ Clubs Education and Culture Foundation, an affiliate of the party, the Great Congress of Turkish Youth brought together youngsters from across the country on the national holiday Commemoration of Atatürk, Youth and Sports Day.
Addressing a packed, enthusiastic sports hall filled with thousands, Bahçeli expressed his immense pride and deep emotion at the spectacle.
“I feel immense pride from this magnificent sight, from the enthusiasm that surrounds this hall from end to end, and from the love for our ideal,” Bahçeli declared. “I am overjoyed to witness the future of our sublime nation and the young members of the Turkish-Islamic cause.”
The MHP leader emphasized that the youth standing before him carry the ancient strength of Ergenekon, the determination of Malazgirt, and the independence torch of Samsun. He noted that exactly 109 years after May 19, 1919, the sun of freedom continues to shine brightly in the eyes of the Turkish youth, proving the enduring strength and resilience of the nationalist movement shaping the Republic of Türkiye. He was referring to the campaign by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, founder of the republic, which started on May 19, 1919, when he set foot in Samsun in northern Türkiye. He arrived from Istanbul. Atatürk’s tour of Anatolia and participation in several congresses paved the way for a future struggle for an independent Türkiye that rose from the ashes of the Ottoman Empire.
In his speech, Bahçeli drew powerful historical parallels between the challenges of the past and the unwavering strength of today’s leadership. He described May 19, 1919, as the blessed beginning where the Turkish nation shattered the chains of captivity and rejected the games plotted by imperialist powers.
Bahçeli highlighted how Gazi Mustafa Kemal Atatürk’s first step in Samsun served as the ultimate answer to the nation’s cries for liberation. “That first step transformed into a national consciousness in Havza, a decree of liberation in Amasya, national unity in Erzurum, and a national will that became a state in Ankara with the resolve of ‘Either independence or death,'” Bahçeli stated.
Reaffirming the absolute alignment of the state’s vision with the historical mandate of the nation, Bahçeli made it clear that Türkiye’s current path is one of unstoppable progress, leaving no room for hesitation, division or fatigue.
“Today, I want you to know very well that we are marching upon this very foundation. There is no room for fatigue in this march. There is no room for despair, hesitation, submission, exhaustion, or division,” the MHP leader firmly asserted.
Concluding his historic address, Bahçeli urged the youth to be the vanguard of Türkiye’s ongoing journey toward global prominence. He reminded them of their duty to sustain this great struggle through hard work, faith, integrity, and intellectual excellence.
“Your duty today is to be soldiers in the foremost ranks of this campaign,” Bahçeli concluded, invoking Atatürk’s advice to never look for outside saviors, but to find the strength within themselves.
Turkish authorities detained five suspects on bribery and money laundering charges as part of an investigation targeting Istanbul’s Beşiktaş Municipality, the Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office announced Tuesday.
In a statement, prosecutors said the investigation was being carried out in coordination with the Istanbul Police Department’s Financial Crimes Unit.
Among those detained were former Beşiktaş Deputy Mayor Cevdet Çalı and current municipal council member İlker Uluer of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP). Former CHP municipal council member Oylum Işık was also among the suspects taken into custody.
The other suspects were identified as Beşiktaş Municipality Personnel Services Manager Bülent Karakaş and Sarbel Organization office employee Özlem Demir Karakaş.
Authorities said searches conducted at the suspects’ homes and offices led to the seizure of numerous digital materials, along with $90,000 (TL 4.1 million) and 5,000 euros ($5,809) believed to be proceeds of crime.
The investigation is ongoing.
The main opposition CHP is under mounting scrutiny as a wave of corruption, bribery and terrorism-related investigations sweeps across its municipalities, with dozens detained in coordinated raids across several cities.
More than 20 mayors governing CHP municipalities were detained or arrested in the past two years on charges of corruption, along with dozens of municipal bureaucrats in Istanbul, Antalya, Bursa, Bolu and Uşak.
High-profile cases include Istanbul’s suspended mayor, Ekrem Imamoğlu, and Antalya’s ousted mayor, Muhittin Böcek, whose cases have drawn national attention following their arrests late last year and trials that began earlier this month.
Police on Tuesday launched operations in Istanbul, Bursa and another city against the terrorist group Daesh.
A total of 110 suspects were captured in operations that followed similar raids in the past few weeks against the group, which is named as the culprit behind a recent attack against police officers outside the Israeli Consulate in Istanbul.
Counterterrorism and intelligence units launched raids in several locations to capture the suspects, including those who ran “classes” for potential Daesh recruits in illegal associations, those training minors on the ideology of the terrorist groups, as well as suspects collecting funds for Daesh convicts in prisons.
Authorities said the suspects were also involved in propaganda activities and sold books and magazines promoting Daesh. In operations, police teams also discovered four rifles, 90 cartridges and a trove of banned publications promoting Daesh.
The Chief Prosecutor’s Office in Istanbul said an investigation revealed that two suspects, identified as Ishak Baysal and Tekin Ireç, assumed “leadership” of the network of suspects and organized “classes” in illegally founded associations and so-called “masjids” in Istanbul’s Sultanbeyli, Kartal and Sancaktepe districts. It is unclear if it is the same Tekin Ireç who offers audio recordings on a YouTube channel about religion. Prosecutors said the “masjids” were used to train children. The statement by the Chief Prosecutor’s Office also said that suspects collected cash from donors under the name of fitr and zakat (Islamic terms associated with charity) to aid families of imprisoned Daesh suspects.
“The suspects were involved in radical discourse calling for so-called jihad and declared any faction other than Daesh as infidels and insulted the state and the government for carrying out counterterrorism operations,” The Office stated.
Last week, police arrested another 324 people in raids targeting Daesh suspects across 47 provinces, the Interior Ministry said.
On April 7, a gunman was killed, and two others were wounded in a shootout outside the Israeli consulate in Istanbul.
Interior Minister Mustafa Çiftçi said one of them was linked to an “organization that exploits religion,” which Turkish media reported was Daesh.
At the end of December, Daesh terrorists opened fire on police in the northwestern town of Yalova, killing three officers and wounding nine others.
Six Daesh members were also killed in the hours-long gun battle that followed, with Türkiye rounding up more than 600 suspected members of the group in the following weeks.
Türkiye considers the Daesh terrorist group one of the biggest threats to the country’s security and peace and was one of the first countries to declare it a terrorist group in 2013. It has suffered from several Daesh attacks since then, including a suicide bombing in an Ankara train station that killed 100 people in 2015 and a deadly Istanbul nightclub shooting on New Year’s in 2017.
At its peak in 2015, Daesh controlled a swath of territory across Iraq and Syria, half the size of the United Kingdom. It was notorious for its brutality against religious minorities, as well as Muslims who do not follow the terrorists’ ideology.
After years of fighting, the U.S.-led coalition broke the group’s last hold on territory in late 2019, but Daesh cells in multiple countries continue to carry out periodic attacks.
Mauritania’s top diplomat, Mohamed Salem Ould Merzoug, will visit Türkiye on Wednesday for talks with Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan focused on expanding cooperation in trade, defense and regional security, Turkish Foreign Ministry sources said.
According to the sources, Fidan is expected to reaffirm Türkiye’s commitment to deepening ties with Mauritania and emphasize the importance of implementing decisions taken during the first Türkiye-Mauritania Joint Economic Commission meeting held in May 2025.
The talks are expected to focus on increasing bilateral trade volume and mutual investments, as well as expanding cooperation in defense and the defense industry.
Fidan is also expected to highlight the potential for closer cooperation in the fisheries, agriculture and mining sectors.
The Turkish foreign minister is anticipated to reiterate Ankara’s support for the economic and social development of Sahel countries and its efforts in combating terrorism in the region.
The two ministers are also expected to discuss strengthening cooperation within multilateral platforms, including the United Nations and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC).
Merzoug previously met Fidan in Istanbul during a visit to Türkiye on April 21. The two officials also held talks in Djibouti in 2024 on the sidelines of the Third Türkiye-Africa Partnership Ministerial Review Conference.
Türkiye’s embassy in the Mauritanian capital, Nouakchott, was established in 2011, while Mauritania’s embassy in Ankara was opened in 2010, according to diplomatic sources.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s visit to Mauritania on Feb. 28, 2018, marked the first presidential-level visit from Türkiye to Mauritania and gave momentum to bilateral relations.
Germany will deploy a Patriot air defense unit and around 150 soldiers to Türkiye in the coming weeks under a NATO mission aimed at strengthening the alliance’s southeastern flank, officials said Monday.
Germany’s Defense Ministry said the Bundeswehr would establish a Patriot “Air and Missile Defense Task Force” that will operate in close coordination with the Turkish Armed Forces under NATO’s Integrated Air and Missile Defense framework.
The deployment, expected to begin at the end of next month and continue through September 2026, will replace a U.S. unit currently stationed in Türkiye.
German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said the mission reflects Berlin’s growing role within NATO and highlights the close cooperation between Germany, Türkiye and the United States.
“Our air force is doing great, internationally respected work,” Pistorius said, adding that German forces would make an important contribution to protecting NATO airspace.
The Patriot deployment comes as NATO continues efforts to reinforce regional air and missile defense capabilities amid growing security concerns along Europe’s southeastern flank.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan warned that in an increasingly interconnected world, no country can remain isolated from crises unfolding elsewhere, saying the economic and political aftershocks of the Iran war are being felt across continents through inflation, supply chain disruptions and energy market instability.
Speaking at a news conference after a Cabinet meeting in the capital Ankara, Erdoğan said globalization and deep economic interdependence mean regional conflicts now carry worldwide consequences.
“When a country in the Middle East sneezes today, a country in Latin America or Asia can easily catch a cold,” Erdoğan said, describing the ongoing uncertainty following attacks against Iran on Feb. 28 as a multilayered crisis affecting global stability.
He pointed to continued volatility in fuel prices, rising inflation, unresolved supply chain disruptions and persistent bottlenecks in the Strait of Hormuz as signs of widening global fragility.
Erdoğan warned that the full scale of destruction caused by the economic shock wave remains impossible to predict, while criticizing what he described as a profiteering system driven by speculation and market manipulation.
“A handful of wild capitalists controlling hot money are enriching themselves by effectively taking away the livelihoods of billions of people from Africa to Asia and from America to Latin America,” Erdoğan said.
He added that while middle-and lower-income families face shrinking purchasing power and rising living costs, global financial actors continue expanding their wealth through instability and conflict.
“Every war creates its own economy. Every war has its winners and losers. But with the Iran war, this has exceeded the limits of tolerance and reached destructive levels for global economic prosperity,” Erdoğan said.
The Turkish president also criticized excessive price increases in domestic markets, saying some pricing behavior in Türkiye could not be explained solely by production or transportation costs despite the country having some of Europe’s lowest input costs, particularly in energy.
Erdoğan said authorities would continue inspections and measures against opportunistic pricing practices and called on businesses to support efforts aimed at protecting market stability and consumers.
Erdoğan also said Israel’s attacks would never prevent the international community’s pursuit of justice and solidarity with the Palestinian people, as he strongly condemned Israel’s attack on the Global Sumud Flotilla as “piracy” and “banditry” against the “voyagers of hope” aboard the aid flotilla, which included citizens from 40 different countries.
Polish Deputy Foreign Minister Marcin Bosacki on Monday described Türkiye as a “key and strategic partner” for Poland, underscoring the importance of closer cooperation between the two NATO allies on regional security and shared interests.
“Türkiye is a key and strategic partner for us,” Bosacki said in a news conference at the Polish Foreign Ministry in Warsaw.
He said Ankara was helping Poland in areas including growth, development and defense.
Bosacki recalled the target set during Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s visit to Türkiye in March 2025 to raise bilateral trade volume to $15 billion.
Noting that both countries are NATO allies, he underlined Türkiye’s importance for NATO’s eastern flank and the Black Sea region.
Bosacki also said Istanbul could again host talks between Russia and Ukraine.
In response to Anadolu’s question on Türkiye’s role in European security, Bosacki said Poland continues to rely on NATO, which it sees as a fundamental defense system.
He noted changes in the U.S. approach to NATO and stressed the importance of strengthening national armed forces.
Bosacki described Türkiye as an “important partner” in military terms, referring to a 2025 security cooperation agreement between Warsaw and Ankara.
Minister Gürlek: Our judicial mechanisms are being operated determinedly and uninterruptedly against FETO accounts.
5 detained in bribery probe targeting Istanbul’s Beşiktaş municipality
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Minister Gürlek: Our judicial mechanisms are being operated determinedly and uninterruptedly against FETO accounts.
5 detained in bribery probe targeting Istanbul’s Beşiktaş municipality
Türkiye’s reaction to Greece’s “unfounded Pontus allegations”: It is trying to cover up the brutal crimes it committed
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