"Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s prime minister, declared victory in national polls on Sunday night, suggesting an imminent crackdown on foes he blames for a corruption probe and a series of leaks, and hinting that he might be ready to stand for the country’s presidency.
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"Mr Erdogan is autocratic and ambitious. He does not welcome opposition. Now that he has convinced himself that the Gulen network poses a threat, he is determined to weaken it. However it will not easily be defeated. Nor will it even be obvious when victory has arrived. It could be a long struggle.
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"The Turkish lira has slumped 0.6 per cent beyond the psychologically sensitive TL2.20 point against the US dollar to a new record low, as investors continue to fret over the country’s economic vulnerabilities.
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"According to findings by investigators leaked to Turkish media, Yasin Al Qadi is suspected of involvement in a scandal over the sale of land in an upmarket neighbourhood in Istanbul. His alleged meeting last year with Bilal Erdogan could implicate the prime minister’s family in the affair."

"The European Union has just signed a deal to introduce visa-free travel for Turks. The agreement is a milestone not least because news of it will also travel -- to Kiev.

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"Oil has begun to flow through a pipeline proponents say will transform the prospects of investment in Northern Iraq, despite warnings that the underlying dispute over the Kurdish region’s management of energy resources is still not settled.
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"One of Dubai's main rivals in the race to host the World Expo 2020 claims to have the support of 60 countries and is confident of victory in Wednesday's vote.
Turkish Transport Minister Binali Yıldırım made the claim regarding Izmir's candidacy for the prestigious event, Turkish media reported."

"(CNN) -- The Turkish and Egyptian governments engaged in a round of tit-for-tat diplomacy Saturday, with Egypt first expelling Ankara's ambassador and Turkey reciprocating.
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"I hate to admit it, but the paranoid secularists who for a decade have been saying Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan harbored a secret agenda are being proved right.
For years I've been gently pointing out to those paranoid secularists that Erdogan has been in power a long time already, and if he was really hiding an Islamist master plan -- as opposed to his declared conservative agenda -- he was doing a good job."

"Turkey lifted a ban on women wearing the Islamic head scarf in state institutions on Tuesday, ending a decades-old restriction as part of a package of reforms meant to bolster democracy.
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"onsensus is rare in Turkey’s increasingly polarised society. Yet, over the past two years or so, the conviction has spread across the political spectrum that, as a leading political scientist says, “there are no checks and balances in Turkish politics”.
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"Syria has admitted that its helicopter shot down on Monday was in Turkish airspace but accused Ankara of being “hasty” in attacking the aircraft.
However, Bulent Arinc, Turkey’s deputy prime minister, said the helicopter was shot down after it had travelled 2km into Turkish airspace and had been repeatedly warned."

"Turkey has set out plans to build one of the world’s biggest airports, at a cost of more than $5bn, as it steps up its efforts to make Istanbul a global hub.
The project reflects growing competition with Gulf countries, which share many of Istanbul’s advantages as convenient locations for European, African and Asian routes."

"The government in Ankara has scrapped a $5.7bn privatisation, thwarting the country’s biggest conglomerate, and its partner, the Malaysian sovereign wealth fund, even though Turkey is trying to attract billions of dollars in long-term investment for infrastructure projects.
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"PARIS/ISTANBUL // Three female Kurdish activists, including a co-founder of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, were assassinated in Paris yesterday in what police called an execution-style shooting.

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"Hidden for a millennium, it took a 21st-century drought to reveal the ruins of a long-lost port city. Five years after archaeologists discovered its four-kilometer-long seawall on a polluted lake 20 kilometers from Istanbul, they continue to unearth Bathonea, which is yielding a wealth of rare artifacts and architecture spanning a thousand years of the Byzantine era.

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"Turkey has lifted a ban on female students wearing headscarves in schools providing religious education, in a move drawing criticism from secularists who see it as fresh evidence of the government pushing an Islamic agenda.

Education has been one of the main battlegrounds between religious conservatives, who form the bedrock of support for Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan’s AK Party, and secular opponents who accuse him of imposing Islamic values by stealth."

"If Iraq is the cradle of civilisation, the semi-autonomous Kurdish region in the north gave birth to agriculture.
The first crops were planted in these fertile plains and mountain valleys and animals are said to have been domesticated on the area’s ideal pastoral land seven millennia ago.
More
But if the region was once the bread basket of Iraq, renowned for its top-quality wheat, it is now an increasingly large consumer of imported food."

"Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu admitted on Sunday that Turkey had resumed contacts with Israel to try to bring an end to the hostilities in Gaza, despite its decision to freeze diplomatic relations with the Jewish state.

"In the Gaza process, it's true, Israel held discussions with Turkey through Foreign Ministry and secret service channels," Davutoglu said in a televised interview, quoted by the Anatolia news agency."

"Yildiz Holding, the Turkish company that owns the Godiva chocolate brand, is in talks to acquire businesses in the Middle East and Eastern Europe to compensate for slower sales growth in its home market, Bloomberg has reported. The company is looking at confectionery companies and other food producers as potential acquisitions, said Cem Karakas, chief financial officer of the Istanbul-based company. "In the future, growth at our food business is expected to be at the same level or slower than the food industry's growth in Turkey," Karakas said. "Therefore this shortfall is being compensated with our expansion abroad."

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"The story of Turkey today is of a country seeking new customers and new prestige for its products, even as it tries to defend lower end goods from cheaper Asian imports.
Now, Turkey is in what some industrialists characterise as a three to four year dash to protect and rebuild its industry in the face of cheap imports from China, and to a lesser extent India and Bangladesh. Hefty tariff increases last year on textiles and clothing bought time for some beleaguered manufacturers while dismaying other companies that look abroad for materials."

"Private equity giant Carlyle Group L.P. is on the hunt for more investments in Turkey and Saudi Arabia, betting that economic growth in those countries will remain shielded from euro zone debt problems and political turmoil in the wider Middle East, one of the firm's top regional executives said.

Carlyle, which listed its shares earlier this year in the U.S., last week concluded its sixth investment in the Middle East and North Africa, including Turkey, by buying a stake in Penti, a Turkish female clothing manufacturer and retailer. This latest deal makes the U.S. buyout fund one of the most active players in a region where private equity activity has yet to fully recover from its pre-crisis heyday."

"A suicide bomber threw a grenade into a police station in a suburb of Turkey's largest city Istanbul on Tuesday then blew himself up, killing one police officer and wounding at least seven other people."

Tesco is opening another 70 stores. PepsiCo is rolling out more snacks and drinks. Unilever has tripled its business in 11 years.
Turkey may neighbour Greece, but it might as well be on a different planet. The economy is growing, shoppers are shopping and purveyors of consumer goods are falling over themselves to expand in the self-styled gateway between Asia and Europe.